5 - The African Population, 1600–99

Summary

Women: Christiana Niger and Rosanna Blunt

The details of the baptism of Peter Lynn seem to indicate that the ideas about enslavement being developed in the colonies began to gain some purchase in Norfolk and Suffolk from around the middle of the seventeenth century. This timeline would seem to be relevant in considering the situations of two African women who lived in the region in this period. The first was named Christiana and was mentioned in the parish register of Sibton, Suffolk, in 1634. In this Latin record, Christiana was described as ‘Christiana niger’, which was then rendered in English as ‘blackamore’, supporting the argument already made for the close equivalence between these two terms at this point. This surname was also used in relation to a woman named Mary Niger, in the Suffolk village of Stowmarket, a decade later.

There are no extra details in the Sibton register to link Christiana to a specific local family or hall, so her exact status, and the route by which she arrived in Suffolk, is unclear. Nonetheless, some suggestions can be proposed. This record is similar in context to those of the sixteenth century. This was an adult baptism, which suggests that Christiana was not born in England, or anywhere in Europe – since she would have been baptised in those cases. Furthermore, as with many of the early African inhabitants of Norfolk and Suffolk, Christiana was baptised in a village that was close to the coast. Sibton is not far from the small ports of Aldeburgh and Southwold and is equidistant between Ipswich and Lowestoft. This makes some form of connection with the merchant routes possible, although as a woman Christiana could not have been a crew member on a ship. This then points us towards an explanation that might involve some form of slavish servitude. The lack of any mention of a local family or place makes it difficult to be certain of this and the date, 1634, predates the widespread enslavement of Africans on the plantations in the English colonies. This would all tend to suggest that Christiana had arrived from the traditional origin suggested for the early African migrants into the region, the Mediterranean, as opposed to arriving because of the English/British transatlantic slaving economy.