Jane Austen's World

by Brenda S. Cox

Last week I started a series about people of color in Austen’s England, looking through different lenses of history. We began with Sanditon, The Woman of Colour, and other literature. We’ll be continuing with a post each month. 

If you want to do some of your own exploring, the following are resources that I have found helpful. (These are also listed under the History tab above.) If you know of other good resources that I’ve missed, please let me know in the comments section so I can add them. Or if you’ve read any of these and want to comment on them, please do!

Black History, Black People in Austen’s England

Persuasions On-Line issue: Beyond the Bit of Ivory: Jane Austen and Diversity

Books

• Untold Histories: Black people in England and Wales during the period of the British slave trade, c. 1660-1807, by Kathleen Chater
  
• Black London: Life Before Emancipation by Gretchen Gerzina
  
• The Woman of Colour, anonymous, edited by Lyndon Dominique, a novel published in 1808, possibly by a woman of color. Story of a mixed-race heiress from Jamaica sent to marry her British cousin in England. Includes excerpts from other primary sources, which are very helpful in giving an idea of attitudes of the time.
  
• Britain’s Black Past  edited by Gretchen Gerzina, collection of articles by different scholars
  
• Black Voices: The Shaping of Our Christian Experience by Killingray and Edwards. Covers 250 years, beginning in 1760.
  
• Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain by Peter Fryer. From the Roman conquest to the 1980s.

Individual Black People in Austen’s England

• “Black Lives in England,” Historic England
• Belle, by Paula Byrne, explores the lives of Lord Mansfield and his mixed-race great-niece Dido Belle, as well as slavery and abolition at the time. Chapter 12, “The Daughter of Mansfield,” in Paula Byrne’s The Real Jane Austen covers similar material.
•  Dido Belle. You will also find other sites online.
• All Things Georgian includes well-researched posts on Dido and her family.
• The movie Belle (2013) is an imaginative retelling of Dido’s life, of which we actually know very little. It centers around the Zong case judged by Lord Mansfield.
• Ignatius Sancho
• Francis Barber. Black servant of Samuel Johnson, Johnson’s main heir.
• The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African
• Marie-Antoinette Smith, “From Tribal Spirituality to Christianity: Olaudah Equiano’s AfroEnglish View of Christians in Eighteenth-Century Western Culture”  
• James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
• Phillis Wheatley; though she was American, her poetry was first published in England.
• Silvester Treleaven, Oct. 17, 1808; journal entry about the country wedding of a black man

• Professor Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina’s BBC 4 Radio discussions on this topic will provide a rich background. The author of Black London has recorded 12 episodes on the topic for BBC 4 radio. Click on this link to view and choose them. Most of these episodes are about individual black people of the time. Here’s an additional 15-minute discussion on The Invisible Presence.

Slavery and Abolition

• • A History of Haiti and Regency Slavery
  • “Austen and Antigua: Slavery in Her Time”
  • William Wilberforce. You will find many other articles online, and excellent books on Wilberforce’s life such as Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, by Eric Metaxas, and Wilberforce by John Pollock.
  • Thomas Clarkson, Essay on the Impolicy of the Slave Trade, 2nd ed. (London: J. Philips, 1788), Jane Austen almost certainly read this book, as she wrote in a letter that she loved the author Clarkson. 
  • Thomas Clarkson, History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament, Vol. 2 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme,1808), 228. Austen probably read this also.
  • Moreland Perkins, “Mansfield Park and Austen’s Reading on Slavery and Imperial Warfare” Persuasions On-Line 26:1, Winter 2005
  • Gillian Ballinger, “Austen Writing Bristol: The City and Signification in Northanger Abbey and Emma,” Persuasions On-Line 36:1 (Winter 2015).
  • The Abolition Project gives the history of some leading abolitionists in England. 
  • Quaker Abolitionists
  • Letter from John Wesley to William Wilberforce, 1791. John Wesley was the leader of the Methodist movement in the church, and William Wilberforce led the campaign to abolish the slave trade.
  • The Woman of Colour, listed above, includes excerpts on slavery from various contemporary sources.
  • “Quoting Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park–The Issue of Slavery and the Slave Trade,” quotes from Austen’s novels related to slavery and the slave trade.
  • Bibliography: Slavery and Mansfield Park, an extensive list of relevant articles
  • “The Sorrows of Yamba: Or, The Negro Woman’s Lamentation,” sample of Hannah More’s writings against slavery. More was a very popular writer, an Evangelical, and a member of Wilberforce’s “Clapham Sect” who worked for reforms in England.
  • William Cowper, Austen’s beloved poet, wrote poems condemning slavery.
  • Jane Austen and Co. did a 2021 series on Race and the Regency, including “Slavery, Anti-Slavery, and the Austen Family, and other excellent talks. 
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You can connect with Brenda S. Cox, the author of this article, at Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen or on Facebook.