Narrator: On a small island off the coast of Sierra Leone, British agents in the 1770s played golf on a two-hole course, their African caddies dressed in tartan loincloths. After their game, they would retire for a lavish dinner of antelope and wild boar, washed down with fine Madeira wine. This was Bunce Island, a British slave-trading fortress. Just yards from their comfortable lodgings and recreational pursuits stood a small, grim structure within the women's holding yard. Historians now believe this building was a 'rape house,' a place where enslaved women were systematically sexually assaulted by the very men enjoying their leisurely games of golf. This stark, horrifying contrast between luxury and brutalization lies at the heart of a history that has been deliberately buried. In his book, Black and British: A Forgotten History, historian David Olusoga unearths this and countless other stories to argue that the history of Black people in Britain is not a separate story, but an integral, and often violently erased, part of the national narrative itself.

Narrator: The common assumption that the story of Black people in Britain begins with the slave trade or the arrival of the Empire Windrush is a profound misconception. Olusoga dismantles this by revealing a much deeper past, one that starts with the Roman Empire. For centuries, Britain was a remote, multi-ethnic province of a vast empire that moved people across its territories. Archaeological and forensic science now provide undeniable proof of this ancient Black presence.

A compelling example is the "Ivory Bangle Lady" of York. Discovered in 1901 in a stone sarcophagus, her remains were buried with luxury goods, including jet bracelets, glass beads, and an elephant ivory bangle, signifying high social status. For a century, she was assumed to be just another wealthy Roman. However, in 2009, analysis of her skeleton and the chemical isotopes in her teeth revealed a stunning truth. She was a woman of North African descent who had grown up in the Mediterranean region before migrating to Roman Britain. She was not a slave, but a wealthy, integrated member of society in third-century York. Her story, along with evidence of North African "Aurelian Moors" garrisoned at Hadrian's Wall, proves that Africans were present at all levels of society in Britain nearly two thousand years ago, long before the English even began to sail to Africa.

Narrator: The experience of Black people in 16th and 17th-century England was complex and cannot be reduced to a single narrative of enslavement. Some, like the trumpeter John Blanke, found a place in the highest echelons of society. Blanke served in the court of both Henry VII and Henry VIII, performing at royal funerals and coronations. He successfully petitioned the king for a pay raise and was even given a wedding gift from the royal coffers. His story shows that in the Tudor period, it was possible for a Black man to be a valued professional, not merely property.

However, this period also marks a sinister turning point. As England's imperial ambitions grew, so did its involvement in human trafficking. Figures like John Hawkins pioneered the English triangular slave trade in the 1560s, capturing Africans and selling them in the Spanish colonies with the backing of the Elizabethan elite, including the Queen herself. This economic impulse culminated in the 1661 Barbados Slave Code, a set of laws that formalized chattel slavery. It explicitly stated that Black people were "heathenish, brutish, and an uncertain dangerous pride of people" who did not deserve the right to a trial by jury. This code stripped away the humanity that a figure like John Blanke had been afforded, legally transforming Black people from individuals into property and laying the foundation for centuries of systemic exploitation.

Narrator: The 18th century in Britain was an era of profound contradiction. While the nation prided itself on liberty, its economy was inextricably linked to the brutal slave trade. This hypocrisy was visible on the streets of London, where Black people were both a part of daily life and exotic status symbols. Wealthy families displayed young Black boys as "human ornaments," dressing them in elaborate costumes and fitting them with silver collars advertised as being "for Blacks or Dogs."

This period also saw the rise of legal challenges to slavery on British soil, spearheaded by the abolitionist Granville Sharp. His involvement began with the case of Jonathan Strong, a young slave who had been beaten nearly to death by his owner and left for dead on the streets. Sharp helped Strong recover and find work, but two years later, his former owner spotted him and had him kidnapped to be sold back to the plantations in Jamaica. Sharp intervened, securing Strong’s release and successfully defending himself in court when the owner sued him for taking his "property." This case, and the more famous Somerset Case of 1772, exposed the legal ambiguity of slavery in Britain and ignited a movement that would challenge the very foundation of the nation's prosperity.

Narrator: The campaign to abolish the slave trade is often portrayed as a moment of pure moral triumph, led by heroic figures like William Wilberforce. While the movement was a remarkable achievement, Olusoga reveals its more complicated reality. The public was galvanized by horrific events like the Zong massacre of 1781, where the crew of a slave ship threw 133 living but sick Africans overboard to claim insurance money for "lost cargo." The case exposed the utter depravity of the trade, where human lives were calculated as profit and loss.

Yet, when the Slavery Abolition Act was finally passed in 1833, it contained a staggering compromise. Freedom was not immediate but phased through an "apprenticeship" system that kept the formerly enslaved tied to the plantations. More shockingly, the British government paid out £20 million—a sum equivalent to billions today, representing 40% of the national budget—not to the enslaved people for their suffering, but to the 46,000 slave owners as compensation for their loss of "property." This act reveals a deep-seated truth: even in its moment of moral victory, the British establishment prioritized the financial interests of the enslavers over justice for the enslaved.

Narrator: The abolition of slavery did not end racism in Britain; in many ways, it allowed for a new, more insidious form to take root. The Victorian era saw the rise of "scientific racism," where theories of biological determinism were used to justify European superiority and colonial expansion. This shift in attitude was thrown into sharp relief by the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica in 1865. When poor Black farmers, led by preacher Paul Bogle, protested against injustice, Governor Edward Eyre responded with unrestrained brutality. Over 400 people were killed and hundreds more flogged in a wave of terror.

Back in Britain, the reaction was fiercely divided. A committee including Charles Darwin and John Stuart Mill called for Eyre to be tried for murder. But a powerful counter-movement, supported by figures like Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle, defended Eyre's actions as necessary to control a "savage" population. They argued that Black people were inherently incapable of self-governance, a view that helped justify the "Scramble for Africa" and the violence of imperial conquest. The humanitarian spirit of the abolitionist era was replaced by an ideology that saw Black people not as brothers to be freed, but as subjects to be ruled.

Narrator: The two World Wars saw Black soldiers from across the empire volunteer to fight for Britain, believing their service would earn them respect and equality. They were cruelly mistaken. The British West Indies Regiment, for example, was largely relegated to manual labor, and its soldiers faced constant discrimination. After the war, their contributions were deliberately erased; they were excluded from the 1919 Victory Parade in London. This betrayal was followed by race riots in port cities, where white mobs attacked Black communities, fueled by economic anxiety and the belief that Black people were "aliens" taking jobs.

This pattern repeated after World War II. The arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948, carrying West Indian migrants invited to rebuild the "mother country," is often seen as the start of modern Black British history. Yet these citizens were met with hostility, discrimination in housing and employment, and rising political rhetoric against immigration. This culminated in Enoch Powell's infamous 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech, which legitimized racism and unleashed a new wave of violence. The story of the 20th century is one of a nation that repeatedly called upon its Black subjects in times of need, only to deny their history, erase their contributions, and reject their claims to belonging.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Black and British is that Black history is not an addendum to British history—it is British history. From the Roman forts of the north to the sugar plantations of the Caribbean, from the Tudor courts to the trenches of World War I and the post-war factory floors, the lives of Black people have been inextricably woven into the fabric of the nation's identity and economy. Olusoga's work is a powerful corrective to a national amnesia, demonstrating that this history has been systematically forgotten, ignored, and suppressed.

To understand this long, complex, and often painful story is not an exercise in guilt, but a necessary act of recognition. It challenges the very idea of what it means to be British and forces a confrontation with the uncomfortable legacies of empire and slavery that continue to shape society today. The real challenge the book leaves us with is this: can a nation truly know itself without first acknowledging all of its stories, especially the ones it has tried the hardest to forget?