How were black people treated in elizabethan times?
In 1596 Elizabeth I wrote to the lord mayors of major cities stating there were ‘of late divers blackmoores brought into this realm, of which kind of people there are already here too manie…’. She ordered that ‘those kinde of people should be sente forth of the land’. This was the start of Elizabeth’s attempt to repatriate the African community in England, which numbered several thousands, living mainly in London and other port cities such as Plymouth. Elizabeth had concerns about the increasing number of Blackmoores living in England and attempted to secure the services of a Dutch merchant, Casper van Senden, to exchange English prisoners for black people in England.
