The Evolution of Black London

Abstract

The works of writers such as Olaudah Equiano and Ignatius Sancho give us detailed accounts of the lives of people in England from the eighteenth century, contradicting the often-held belief that black people only began to arrive en masse in Britain from the 1950s. Britain is a nation of hybridity, since many other “classic” British writers were not born in Britain either, but in the colonies, whether as colonizers or the colonized. A by-product of Britain’s cultural history and identity is that it has produced a vigorous and dynamic literature. “As soon as one defines oneself as ‘British,’ ” says novelist Caryl Phillips, “one is participating in a centuries-old tradition of cultural exchange, of ethnic and linguistic plurality.”¹ This essay will show how Britain’s black writers give us access to information about and knowledge of a section of the British population that historians have neglected and, consequently, have omitted from British history.