A History of Black people in Europe

November 2024
"If anyone attempts to deny the Black historical presence in Europe, this documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Fred Kudjo Kuwornu promptly shows the receipts. 

We Were Here is like a crash course in Black Studies, exposing you to a rich yet long-overlooked history and cultural imprint that Africans and Afrodescendants have left on Europe," writes Nina Camara in the film review ‘We Were Here’ at Afropean 

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Portrait of an African man by Jan Mostaert

Black people have been living in Europe long before the transatlantic slave trade. While it’s a lesser-known part of history, black individuals were part of European life as early as Roman times and continued to be present throughout the Middle Ages. From noblemen and scholars to everyday citizens, they played significant roles across the continent. In this post, a history of the presence and influence of black people in Europe, long before racism defined their identity

 

It is generally known that black people have been residing in European countries since the early colonial times. 

But even before the 15th century and during Roman times, a time when colour of skin still wasn’t a racist stigma but just another physical feature, black people lived in Europe. 

Remains of a man with black African features were found in England recently, dating his life back to the 13th century. Read this article for more info.

Besides that, facts have been found of black people living in different parts of Europe, although I don’t want to overstate their presence or influence. 

But it is generally known that during the Muslim era of the Iberian Peninsula (from the 8th century AD until the 15th century AD) people with dark skin were part of daily live. 

The Muslims who invaded Spain and Portugal around 700 AD were a mixture of black and dark people from North-Africa. They were often referred to as Maures, wrote about and painted, way before the dehumanization of black people started.

Portrait of an African man by Jan Mostaert

I added Jan Mostaert's portrait of a nobleman, guest of the Queen of Austria. This painting dates back to the early 1500's in what we now call Belgium, then part of the Duchy of Brabant. There is no doubt this man has African roots while being a respected member of European culture. 

We can only guess that this man is of Maure origin, i.e. a Muslim having converted to Christianity or even the second or third generation of converts.

Below I will go deeper into the subject. I will give you some internet links, book references and a list of early Europeans of African descent, each time linked to their wiki page. If you know more about the subject I invite you to add information in a comment.

Al Andalus

Many blacks who were Muslims converted to Christianity after the emirate of Al Andalus was abolished (end of 15th century). But the Reconquista took centuries (8th-15th century) and during those times black people gradually integrated the Christian and Northern European world. 

Among them were noble men and scholars. The negative image of blacks, as natural slaves, only gained prominence in the 18th century when the transatlantic slave trade became a central piece of European economical activity and later when European nation-states were being established.
 

Slavery and racism

Of course slavery existed before racism. In the 15th century blacks and whites were enslaved indiscriminately. Blacks in the America’s could become free men and own their own slaves and land (which was rather common in colonial Brazil for instance). 

It is only in later years that being black made you a slave forever and by birth, or at least a kind of human always inferior to white people. This racial perspective on identity and humanity only gained authority in later modern times. Read more on the subject here.

Coat of Arms

Black people were part of European imagination and reality from very early times. Read more here and here. We can say with certainty that there were black people in Europe before that white people reached the area south of the Sahara. North Africa, Iberia and the Middle East were the crossroad where black and white intermingled. 

In Europe references to blacks was a positive sign of strength and military power. Still today you can find many blacks in coat of arms for towns all over Europe, central, south and north, dating back to the middle ages.

Some Literature

After the 15th century, Portugal entered an intense relationship with African kingdoms in the Gulf of Guinea and the Congo coasts. 

Slave trade (although not based on race) and exchange between the kings led to the presence of Europeans on the West- and Central African shores, just as Africans in Portugal. 

Accounts from those days tell us that the sight of black people in the streets of Lisbon wasn’t a rarity during the Middle Ages, more on the contrary. I want to refer to following books for those who want to know more about this topic:
Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, Thomas Foster Earle,K. J. P. Lowe(eds.)
Africa's discovery of Europe, David Northrup

As a consequence of the slave trade free blacks also arrived in Europe between the 16th and 19th century. 

Blacks lived in London, Liverpool, Lisbon, Seville, … during the 17th and 18th century. Other historical books with scientific authority give you in depth knowledge of this:
Hugh Thomas’s ‘The Slave Trade’
Ivan Van Sertima’s ‘African Presence in Early Europe’
All this publications teach us something about this hidden part of European history.

Leo Africanus

Leo Africanus is often stated as one of these black and European noble men and scholars. But it is rather speculation to state if he was black or white. He was definitely a Maure but as racism, whiteness and blackness were unknown concepts as we know it today, we can’t know his ‘race’ for sure. 

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Even very common socio-cultural concepts of today such as ‘French’, ‘German’ or ‘English’ didn’t exist in those days such that it would be silly to argue whether historical figures of those days were German or French. Same thing is valid for the white and black race as defined today.

Famous Europeans with African ancestry (1500-1900)

Below I will list some of the most famous figures of European modern history (after 1500) who happened to be black or have African ancestry, but were integral parts of European (high) society. 

Most of the time the African ancestry of these people is ignored by history books although acknowledged and accepted by most history scholars. I think it throws a new light on the concepts of race and the meaning of blackness in the 21st century.

Alessandro ‘il Moro’ de Medici, Duke of Florence - 1510-1537 

Juan Latino - 1594 - 1597

A poem of the Spanish Black professor at the University of Granada during the sixteenth century.

Abram Petrovich Ganibal - 1696-1781

Major-general, military engineer, governor of Reval and nobleman of the Russian Empire

Anton Wilhelm Amo - 1700-1775

German Philosopher

Ignatius Sancho - 1729–1780

Author and abolitionist, UK

Olaudah Equiano a.k.a. Gustavus Vassa - 1745-1797

Author and abolitionist, UK

Chevalier de Saint Georges - 1745-1799

A famous musican, composer and swardsman of his times
Listen to his music here.

Thomas Alexandre Dumas - 1762-1806

A general of the French Revolution

George Polgreen Bridgetower - 1780-1860

Musician and composer
Listen and watch here

Alexandre Pushkin - 1799-1837

Famous author, great-grandson of Abraham Petrovich Ganibal

Pushkin’s Blackness

Morgan Jerkins writes on 'Alexander Pushkin’s Blackness', "Pushkin was born in 1799 and although he was an aristocrat, he was proud of his Blackness. In ‘Eugene Onegin’, he writes."

    It’s time to drop astern the shape
    of the dull shores of my disfavour,
    and there, beneath your noonday sky,
    my Africa, where waves break high,
    to mourn for Russia’s gloomy savour,
    land where I learned to love and weep,
    land where my heart is buried deep. "

Alexandre Dumas - 1802-1870

French author of the world famous tale of ‘The Three Musketeers’, Thomas Alexandre Dumas’s son

John Archer - 1863-1931

Presumably UK’s first black mayor, political activist

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor 1875-1912

Musician and composer
Listen to his music here

Young African man in 17th-century Amsterdam

In a short video head of the Department of History of the Rijksmuseum Valika Smeulders talks about an unknown young African man in 17th-century Amsterdam.

Although the man's name is unknown, some African residents can be found in the city archives. One of them was an African woman named Lijsbeth Pieters, originally from Angola, who married the Dutchman Pieter Claesz Bruin in November 1649. She lived on Jodenbreestraat in Amsterdam, where she rented out beds. Her husband, Pieter, had arrived in Amsterdam as a sailor for the Dutch West India Company (WIC). Interestingly, Lijsbeth lived on the same street as the famous painter Rembrandt.

Lijsbeth Pieters was part of a community of at least 200 African individuals (free Afro-Amsterdammers) who resided in Amsterdam between approximately 1620 and 1660. Her marriage registration is displayed on the Rembrandt House Museum website, highlighting her as a neighbor of Rembrandt. 

 

Rembrandt is also know for his paintings of black people. They appear in at least ten of his paintings, six etchings and six drawings. They are usually secondary figures, but in a 1630 etching (‘Bust of a Woman’) a young woman stars, see Black in Rembrandt’s Time.

The book: African Europeans - An Untold History

In 2021 the Paris-raised, U.K.-based historian Olivette Otele wrote the book 'African Europeans: An Untold History', which traces the presence of people of African descent in Europe from as early as the era of the Roman Empire up to the present day.

 

“I’m literally in love with every single character even when they’re not particularly nice,” says Otele. “These are real people, and you can very much connect with them. I really see the links between the present and the past: these are stories that resonate, they’re about discrimination, about resilience, about success.” See Why the First Black Woman to Be a History Professor in the U.K. Sees Her New Book African Europeans as a 'Call to Arms'.

Video: The Untold Story of African Europeans with Olivette Otele and Kavita Puri 

 

See also

• Black History: Black European nobility tucked away    
• Sarah Forbes Bonetta - The African Princess in Brighton 
• Who were the African people living in Medieval and Tudor England?
  
• Walters Art Museum Exhibition Reveals the African Presence in Renaissance Europe
  
  

Note: This post has been updated