Timeline: Black Presence in Britain – The Black Britons

🕰️ Black Figures in British History: A 40,000-Year Timeline

Britain’s history is far older than many assume. From the first modern humans of the Ice Age to the African-descended Britons who shaped its royal courts, cities, and battlefields, Black people have always been part of this land’s story.

This timeline presents a continuous and diverse history, ensuring even representation across different eras, professions, and social classes.

🦴 40,000–10,000 BCE: Ice Age Britain & the First Black Britons

Hunting, and fishing tool kits, brought from Africa, were sophisticated and diverse including paint, compound glue, maces, chisels, scrapers, bags, clothes, insect repellant beds, needles, bone flutes, trumpets, spear throwers, javelins, harpoons, bows and arrows and many more inventions. 

Africans, following migratory patterns based on flora and fauna distribution rather than rigid geographical separations, expanded into Europe and Asia. This included as far north as England and Wales, and east as Asia leaving industries like Gravettian culture, as the spread of flora and fauna expanded and contracted with interglacial, interstadial and glacial periods (controlled by the Milankovitch cycles and the earth’s constantly changing climate). This movement, driven by environmental shifts, laid the foundations for human settlement across these regions. 

This wasn’t all Africans brought to Europe. Paleoarchaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger identified 32 recurring symbols in Ice Age caves across Europe, dating back 40,000 years, which were also found in Africa, reinforcing their origins in early African symbolic systems. These abstract signs, possibly a precursor to writing, challenge theories of a European “creative explosion” and suggest symbolic communication originated in Africa. Some may have been early clan symbols, messages, or identity markers.

🎣 c. 33,000 BCE – The First Modern Humans in Britain

In Kent’s Cavern, Devon, archaeologists uncovered evidence of Britain’s earliest known humans. Genetic studies of Ice Age Europeans suggest they had dark skin and tightly curled hair, adapted for a world before light-skinned mutations emerged (Brace et al., 2018).

The Gravettian culture (a multi-regional community of black Europeans that lived around 22,000 years ago to 33,000 years ago) were very inventive: they left evidence which by luck survived into our present times of used houses built from mammoth bones, jewellery from Fox and deer teeth 🦷 , parts of coats, beads, tools for weaving, woven cloth, primitive trousers, coats , needles, fishing harpoons, ivory rods, ivory jewellery 💎 , shellfish, red ochre paint, paint-making, shamanistic symbolism, naturalistic drawings, fire 🔥 , animal products from their hunted prey , paint for colouring clothes, cave belongings 💼 , semi-subterranean structures, or rounded dwellings, grave goods, art, beds, grounded plants, dried meat, chisels, knives 🔪 , scapers, arrow heads, wooden tools , they made sculptures and figurines, travelled great distances from Britain in the West to Russia in the East and Turkey in the South (also considered the Eastern Mediterranean) etc. 

🦴 c. 12,000 BCE – The Gough’s Cave People

As glaciers retreated, humans returned to Britain. The remains found in Gough’s Cave, Somerset, share genetic markers with people from North Africa and the Near East (Hublin et al., 2020). These hunter-gatherers, with deep brown skin and curly hair, roamed a Britain where mammoths still walked.

💪🏿10,000–3,000 BCE: Cheddar Man & the Early Britons

👉🏾 c. 10,000 BCE – Cheddar Man: The First Briton

The most famous early Briton, Cheddar Man, had dark skin 👶🏾, blue eyes, and curly hair, proving that Britain’s first people looked nothing like today’s population (Brace et al., 2018). The DNA of that generation still exists in some 10 to 11% of modern Britons, and other modern Europeans.

👩🏾‍🌾 c. 4,000 BCE – The First Farmers & African Influence

With the Neolithic revolution, agriculture arrived from North Africa and the Mediterranean, referred to in academia as the Bell Beaker culture. DNA analysis (Olalde et al., 2018) shows Neolithic Britons had links to Iberian farmers, who carried African ancestry.

🛡️ 3,000 BCE–1 CE: The First Black Britons & the Roman Era

🔭 c. 2,500 BCE – Stonehenge & African Connections

Burial analysis near Stonehenge suggests that some individuals had genetic markers from North Africa, proving early trade or migration across the Mediterranean (Feldman et al., 2019).

⛵️ c. 300 BCE – Phoenician & Carthaginian Traders in Britain

Ancient Phoenicians and Carthaginians, known for trading along West Africa, sailed to Cornwall for tin (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004). Initially some historians suggested African traders might have settled there (Tusa, 2009), but this is now treated as speculative. Some possible Phoenician or Punic names in Britain and Ireland include Tanatus, Rame, Sark, Echri, and the Isles of Scilly. 

The Roman conquest of Carthaginian territories in Spain (206 BCE) and North Africa (146 BCE) disrupted long-standing maritime trade networks, including Carthage’s sailing expeditions to Cornwall for tin. Carthage, a major seafaring power, had facilitated the Mediterranean’s access to Britain’s resources. With its fall, Rome, less reliant on maritime trade at the time, neglected direct voyages to Cornwall, leading to a decline in documented Mediterranean-British trade until later Roman rule.

⛵️ c. 300 BCE–146 BCE – Carthaginian Influence on Rome: More Than Just an Enemy

Carthage wasn’t just Rome’s greatest rival; it was its blueprint. While traditional histories paint Rome as a purely Mediterranean empire, Josephine Quinn (How the West Was Made, 2023) argues that Carthage profoundly shaped Roman governance, economy, and military tactics. Rome borrowed Carthaginian naval designs—including the quinquereme warship—after struggling to compete at sea. Its tax policies, including grain tithes and mercenary recruitment systems, were modeled after Carthaginian precedents. Even Rome’s treaty frameworks, foundational to its imperial expansion, followed Carthaginian diplomatic strategies. Quinn highlights that much of what Rome claimed as “Roman” had deep roots in North African and Phoenician systems, challenging the narrative that Rome was only a Greek-influenced power.

🎭 c. 2nd Century BCE – Terence, an African playwright born in Carthage, was enslaved and taken to Italy, where he became one of Rome’s most influential dramatists. His clear, engaging plots made his works widely used for Latin instruction in monasteries and convents during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Over 650 manuscripts after 800 AD contained his plays, and priests and nuns re-enacted them to master Latin. Martin Luther praised his comedies for understanding human nature. Despite pagan themes, the Church preserved his works. Terence influenced Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Molière, while Machiavelli adapted Andria. Early English comedies like Ralph Roister Doister were modeled on his plays. He died in 159 BC, aged 25.

⚔️ 43 CE – The Roman Invasion Brings Black Britons into the Records

With the Roman conquest of Britain, Africans arrived in large numbers—as soldiers, merchants, and officials from Numidia, Kush, and Egypt. Graves in Roman York (Leach et al., 2010) show individuals of North and East African ancestry.

🐎 1–1000 CE: Africans in Roman & Early Medieval Britain

🔱 👑 In 208 CE, Emperor Septimius Severus, the African-born ruler of Rome, decided Britain needed a serious lesson in discipline. The northern tribes—those wild, unwashed Caledonians—kept attacking Hadrian’s Wall, so Severus, ever the no-nonsense emperor, marched in with an army, hell-bent on pushing Roman control deeper into Scotland. He ruled the empire from York, because why rule from Rome when you can enjoy Britain’s famously tropical climate? But all that war and British weather took a toll, and he died in York in 211 CE—the only Roman emperor to die in Britain. Imagine that: an African emperor trying to civilize the north, only to be defeated by disease and drizzly skies.

🙋🏾‍♀️ c. 200 CE – The “Ivory Bangle Lady” Julia Tertia, A Black Roman Elite: A high-status woman of African and Roman heritage was buried in York, adorned with expensive jewelry. Her grave proves that Black Britons could hold power (Leach et al., 2010).

🪖c. 300 CE – Victor the Moor, A Roman Soldier at Hadrian’s Wall: An African cavalry officer, Victor served at Hadrian’s Wall, as recorded in inscriptions. His presence reflects Rome’s diverse military (Rankov, 2015).

👑 c. 450 CE – African Britons in Anglo-Saxon England

Some Roman Britons of African descent remained after Rome’s fall. DNA from early Saxon burials shows North African ancestry, suggesting they integrated into local communities (Martiniano et al., 2016).

✝️ c. 640–710 CE – Hadrian the African: The Black Bishop Who Trained the Saxon Clergy

Hadrian the African wasn’t your average medieval monk—he was a North African scholar who sailed to Britain and became one of the most influential church leaders of his time. Bede, the venerable historian, practically sang his praises, describing how Hadrian, an “Aethiopian” (a medieval term often used for dark-skinned Africans), became abbot of Canterbury. Despite being a foreigner, he outclassed the local Saxons in theology, languages, and administration. His intellectual prowess turned Canterbury into a powerhouse of learning, training generations of scholars. So much for the idea that medieval England was an isolated, all-white land—its top bishop was an African scholar who left the locals in awe.

2500 BC–1400 CE: The History of Writing

✍️ c. 2700–1500 BCE – Egyptian & Proto-Sinaitic Writing’s Influence on Greek and Latin

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs influenced Proto-Sinaitic script, which later shaped Phoenician writing. The Greeks adopted Phoenician letters, initially writing right to left, as seen in the Cup of Nestor. Their alphabet, derived from Afroasiatic sources, was the basis for Latin and Etruscan scripts. Greek influence on Latin shaped French, and Middle English later evolved from this lineage.

📜 c. 1600–1200 BCE – Linear B & Phoenician Influence on Greek Writing

Linear B, the earliest known Greek script, emerged from Cretan Hieroglyphs and Linear A, linked to Minoans—whom Greeks claimed were Phoenician descendants. The Phoenicians, inheritors of Proto-Sinaitic script, directly influenced Greek writing, proving external origins for Greek literacy. In the era, writing was called doing a Phoenician. 

🔠 c. 800 BCE–1400 CE – From Greek to Middle English

Latin, derived from Greek, influenced Old French, which shaped Middle English. The Greek alphabet structured Latin grammar, while Latin spread through Roman conquests, transforming into French. Middle English, shaped by Norman French, retained Latin-derived script, linking modern European languages to African-origin writing systems.

📊 The Mathematical Bridges: From Ancient Foundations to Modern Science

📐 c. 300 BCE–1687 CE – From Euclid to Newton

Euclidean geometry, developed in ancient Egypt and systematized in The Elements, laid the foundation for mathematical reasoning. Isaac Newton built on these principles, integrating them into Principia Mathematica (1687), which revolutionized physics and calculus, shaping modern science and engineering.

🔢 c. 800–1200 CE – Arabo-Hindu Numerals Revolutionize European Mathematics

The Hindu-Arabic numeral system, developed in India and refined by Arab mathematicians, replaced cumbersome Roman numerals in Europe. Introduced through Islamic Spain and scholars like Al-Khwarizmi, this system enabled efficient calculation, paving the way for algebra, arithmetic, and modern accounting.

🧮 c. 1202 CE – Fibonacci Introduces Hindu-Arabic Numerals to Europe

Leonardo Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci promoted the superiority of Hindu-Arabic numerals over Roman numerals. Merchants quickly adopted the system, revolutionizing trade, record-keeping, and financial management. The decimal system, positional notation, and the concept of zero transformed European mathematics.

📊 c. 1400–1700 CE – The Foundation of Modern Mathematics

Arabo-Hindu numerals facilitated advances in algebra, geometry, and calculus. Renaissance mathematicians like Descartes and Newton built upon this foundation, using the system’s precision for equations and scientific discovery. Without Arabo-Hindu numerals, European mathematical progress would have stagnated.

⚔️ 1000–1500 CE: The African Presence in Medieval Britain

🌟 c. 1100 CE – St. Maurice in English Churches

Depictions of St. Maurice, an African Christian knight, were common in medieval England, showing how African warriors were respected (Kaplan, 2020).

Beyond St. Maurice, Moorish soldiers and merchants frequented medieval England. Iberian records show Black traders in London as early as the 13th century, while artworks depict Black nobles in European courts. This presence challenges myths that medieval Britain was racially homogenous.

🌟 1381 CE – Black Peasants in the English Revolt

African workers in medieval London joined the Peasants’ Revolt, proving they were part of England’s labor force (Earle, 2015).

🌟 c. 1440 CE – John Blanke, the Black Trumpeter

A royal musician to Henry VII and Henry VIII, John Blanke was a paid court employee, appearing in official records and art.

🏴‍☠️ 1500–1800 CE: The Transatlantic Slave Trade, Black Explorers, Pirates & Intellectuals

✳️ 1500–1807 – Britain’s Role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade; For over 300 years, Britain was at the heart of the forced migration of millions of Africans, supplying ships, finance, and infrastructure to sustain the transatlantic trade. British slavers transported at least 3 million Africans, stripping them of their identities as Yoruba, Igbo, Akan, and Kongolese, and dispersing them across the Americas. The “trade triangle” fueled Britain’s economy. Sometimes Englishmen engaged in slave raids on unsuspecting and undefeated villages along the West Africa coast, which academics downplay despite indisputable evidence. Sometimes European goods were exchanged for captives in Africa, enslaved Africans were shipped to the Americas in brutal conditions, and plantation products—sugar, cotton, tobacco—returned to Britain, driving industrial growth. British slave traders, particularly in Liverpool, Bristol, and London, made vast fortunes from human suffering, shaping the modern financial and political landscape. The Transatlantic Slave Trade provided massive wealth, funding universities, industries (tobacco, rail, iron, sugar), and financial institutions (banks, stock markets, the marine insurance industry, the reinsurance market including Lloyd’s of London, and the Bank of England 🏦).

🏴‍☠️ c. 1500–1800 CE – The Barbary Corsairs: When North African Pirates Terrorized England’s Coast

Forget Johnny Depp—real pirates didn’t wear eyeliner, and the scariest ones came from North Africa. The Barbary Corsairs, skilled sailors from Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis, prowled the English Channel, snatching ships, raiding coastal towns, and even kidnapping entire villages for the North African slave markets. Devon and Cornwall’s sleepy fishing communities lived in fear of waking up in a Tunisian auction house. Even Oliver Cromwell, for all his bluster, couldn’t fully stop them. England’s response? Fortifying ports, boosting the Royal Navy, and occasionally paying ransoms—because nothing says ‘global superpower’ like wiring money to Barbary warlords. The Corsairs proved the British weren’t always the masters of the sea.

🤿 1560s – The “Moors of London”: Records show free Africans in Tudor England, working as sailors, artisans, and traders (Kaufmann, 2017). There were at least 5000 black Britons in London alone according to a study by the City of London Museum. 

⛓️ 1687 – Olaudah Equiano, The Abolitionist Thinker: Born in West Africa, Equiano was enslaved but later bought his freedom, becoming a leading abolitionist.

📜 1772 – James Somerset Case: A Landmark in British Legal History; Somerset, an enslaved man, challenged his captivity in court, leading to Lord Mansfield’s ruling that slavery had no legal basis in England, a decision that emboldened abolitionists.

⚖️ 1800–1900 CE: Black Britons & the Fight for Freedom

✳️ 1805 – Dido Elizabeth Belle: Britain’s Black Aristocrat: A noblewoman raised at Kenwood House, Belle’s life challenged racist assumptions in British high society.

✳️ 1833 – Mary Prince: The First Black Woman to Publish in Britain; Prince’s autobiography exposed British slavery, influencing Parliament’s abolition vote.

✳️ 1834 – The Abolition of Slavery & Its Cost; The Slavery Abolition Act 1834 freed enslaved people across the British Empire, but at a price—£20 million (equivalent to £300 billion today, 20% of GDP) was paid to slave owners, not the enslaved. Originally demanding £100 million, planters settled for cash plus the “apprenticeship” system, forcing formerly enslaved people to work unpaid for another 4–6 years, depending on their skill level. The British government took until 2015 to finish paying off the debt incurred to compensate slaveholders, ensuring that the financial burden of abolition fell not on the enslavers, but on taxpayers, including the descendants of the enslaved.

✳️ 1881 – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Britain’s First Black Classical Composer: A musical genius, Coleridge-Taylor’s compositions were performed for British royalty.

✳️ 1900–Present: Black Britons Today

💜 1919 – Walter Tull, Britain’s First Black Army Officer: A war hero, Tull was the first Black officer to lead British troops in battle.

✳️ 1948 – The Windrush Generation Reshapes Britain: Thousands of Caribbean Britons arrived, permanently shaping modern Britain’s economy, culture, and identity.

📚 100 Great Black Britons by Patrick Vernon and Angelina Osborne highlights the profound impact of Black Britons in the 19th and 20th centuries, showcasing leaders in politics, activism, arts, and science. Figures like Mary Seacole, Claudia Jones, and Learie Constantine reshaped British society, civil rights, and culture, proving Black Britons were central to Britain’s modern evolution.

The impact of Ignatius Sancho (first Black Briton to vote), Henry Sylvester Williams (Pan-African Congress founder), and Claudia Jones (Notting Hill Carnival founder) shows how Black Britons shaped politics, activism, and culture. Their legacies continue in modern Britain’s civil rights movements and Black British identity.

🚀 1987 – Diane Abbott, Britain’s First Black Female MP: Abbott broke political barriers, paving the way for future generations.

🔥 Conclusion: Black History is British History

From Cheddar Man to modern leaders, Black people have been part of Britain’s history for tens of thousands of years.

📜 Next time someone asks, “When did Black people arrive in Britain?” tell them—

We were always here. 🔥

References

Brace S, Diekmann Y, Booth TJ, et al. “Ancient genomes indicate population replacement in Early Neolithic Britain.” Nature Ecology & Evolution. 2019;3(5):765–771.

Earle, T. (2015). ‘The Peasants’ Revolt and the Government of London’. The London Journal, 40(3), 195–212.

Feldman, M., Fernández-Domínguez, E., Reynolds, L., Baird, D., Pearson, J., Hershkovitz, I., Goring-Morris, N., Benz, M., Gresky, J., & Pinhasi, R. (2019). ‘Late Pleistocene Human Genome Suggests a Local Origin for the First Farmers of Central Anatolia’. Nature Communications, 10(1), 1218.

Hublin, J.-J., Ben-Ncer, A., Bailey, S. E., Freidline, S. E., Neubauer, S., Skinner, M. M., Bergmann, I., Le Cabec, A., Benazzi, S., Harvati, K., & Gunz, P. (2020). ‘New Fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the Pan-African Origin of Homo sapiens’. Nature, 546(7657), 289–292.

Kaplan, P. H. D. (2020). The Rise of the Black Magus in Western Art. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Kaufmann, M. (2017). Africans in Tudor and Stuart Britain. London: Boydell Press.

Leach, S., Lewis, M., Chenery, C., Müldner, G., & Eckardt, H. (2010). ‘Migration and Diversity in Roman Britain: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Identification of Immigrants in Roman York, England’. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 140(3), 546–561.

Martiniano, R., Caffell, A., Holst, M., Hunter-Mann, K., Montgomery, J., Müldner, G., McLaughlin, R. L., Teasdale, M. D., van Rheenen, W., & Veldink, J. H. (2016). ‘Genomic Signals of Migration and Continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons’. Nature Communications, 7, 10326.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. The Phoenicians (1500–300 B.C.). October 2004. Accessed February 2025. 

Olalde, I., Brace, S., Allentoft, M. E., Armit, I., Kristiansen, K., Booth, T., Rohland, N., Mallick, S., Szécsényi-Nagy, A., & Mittnik, A. (2018). ‘The Beaker Phenomenon and the Genomic Transformation of Northwest Europe’. Nature, 555(7695), 190–196.

Quinn, J. (2023). How the West Was Made: The Mediterranean Origins of Ancient Greece and Rome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 

Rankov, N. B. (2015). ‘The Role of Auxiliaries in Roman Britain’. In A. Morillo, N. Hanel, & E. Martín (Eds.), Limes XX: Estudios sobre la frontera romana (pp. 219–226). Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

Tusa, S. (2009). ‘The Phoenicians in the Mediterranean: Between the Orient and the West’. In C. Sagona (Ed.), Beyond the Homeland: Markers in Phoenician Chronology (pp. 1–12). Leuven: Peeters.