African Community
Britain has a long standing relationship with Africa which includes both trade and colonisation...
The British slave trade began in the 16th century with the first African slaves taken from the West African region of Guinea. This is how the guinea, a unit of payment, came into use; the African was literally a unit of currency. Goods such as glassware, umbrellas, metalwork, guns, knives and gunpowder were traded for slaves who were then transported to West Indian colonies to work on sugar, cotton and tobacco plantations.
The slave trade was finally abolished in 1833 however; there was a fashion for wealthy people to have African boys as pages. Many wealthy plantation owners returned to Britain with personal slaves. Young and 'exotic' black servants were often dressed up in ruffles, lace, satin and extravagant Oriental costume and seen as a status symbol for the powerful elites.
A significant number of paintings of black people show them as servants, such as this painting of a view of Cassiobury Park by John Wootton in around 1748. It depicts Cassiobury House and Park in Watford and the third Earl of Essex, his family, friends and servants. In the bottom right hand corner of the picture is a black servant. Records from the time show that the family owned a black servant called Othello, ‘a negro formerly called Donas, servant to the Earl of Essex, baptised at ‘Cassiobury’ in 1730’.
The Victorians colonised large areas of Africa including Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria in Western Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Somalia in Eastern Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa and Egypt and Sudan in Northern Africa. Cecil Rhodes who was born in Bishops Stortford was responsible for the colonisation of Rhodesia, now known as Zambia and Zimbabwe.
As members of the commonwealth, African nations developed a long-standing relationship with Britain and many Africans fought for Britain in the World Wars. African rulers and traders sent their children, especially sons, to Britain for an education. Many Africans who fled countries because of war or persecution chose to live in Britain rather than other countries because of the history and established relationship with the ‘mother country’. The Somali community make up some of the oldest African communities in Britain. Many Somali seamen made their homes in Britain in the 19th century and were joined by their families. The civil war in Somalia displaced millions of people and Somali refugees began arriving in Britain in the early 1990s. More recently, Nigerians have been arriving in larger British cities to work as traffic wardens.
In Hertfordshire today the main African communities are located in Welwyn Hatfield, Watford, and Hertsmere.
