How did Kaufmann uncover Black Tudors?

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infoWhy this? The lives of John Blanke, Jacques Francis, Mary Fillis, Diego, and other Black Tudors broaden our understanding of Tudor society and England’s connections with the wider world. Exploring Miranda Kaufmann’s research also shows how historians combine fragmentary visual and written evidence to recover lives often overlooked in conventional narratives.

scheduleWhy now? Placed directly after the mid-Tudor enquiry, this unit complicates and enriches our picture of sixteenth-century England. It develops more demanding source work, including inference, provenance, utility, and limitation, before later enquiries ask us to evaluate contested historical interpretations.

Black Tudors were people of African descent living in Tudor England between 1485 and 1603.
The lives of Black Tudors show that Tudor England was more diverse than many people used to think.
Black Tudors had different roles and experiences, including work in royal courts, households, trade, and skilled jobs.
Miranda Kaufmann is the historian who researched and wrote Black Tudors: The Untold Story.
Kaufmann built these histories using original Tudor sources such as parish records, court records, tax records, letters, household accounts, and royal documents.
Historians often have to piece together the past from small clues rather than one complete story.
Kaufmann found that African descent did not automatically mean enslavement in Tudor England, as Black Tudors included wage-earners, servants, skilled workers, court musicians, and legal witnesses, although some individuals had experienced enslavement elsewhere.
John Blanke is one of the best-documented Black Tudors.
John Blanke was a royal trumpeter for Henry VII and Henry VIII.
A figure in the Westminster Tournament Roll of 1511 is generally identified as John Blanke, providing important visual evidence of a Black man at the Tudor court.
Written records show that John Blanke was paid for his work and successfully asked Henry VIII for a pay rise.
Jacques Francis was a Guinean salvage diver whose evidence survives in a 1548 Admiralty Court case.
Moroccan-born Mary Fillis is recorded through her service in London and her baptism in 1597.
Diego escaped Spanish enslavement and allied and sailed with Francis Drake.
The stories of Black Tudors such as Jacques Francis, Mary Fillis, and Diego help us understand that Black people were part of Tudor history and that England was connected to the wider world.

rocket_launchYou must be able to

Identify what a source is and whether it is a primary source or a later interpretation.
Describe what can be seen or read in a source clearly and accurately.
Use a source to make inferences about the lives of Black Tudors.
Explain what a source suggests about John Blanke's status, job, and importance.
Use provenance by asking who made the source, when, and why.
Assess how useful a source is for an enquiry about the Black Tudors.
Explain the limitations of a source, including what it does not reveal.
Compare visual and written sources to build a fuller picture of the past.
Support ideas with precise evidence from the source.
Reach a judgement about what sources reveal about diversity in Tudor England.

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