Introducing the latest article for Historycal Roots by John Ellis.
This is such an interesting one and something of a departure from John’s usual field. As he himself says, this is ‘the first time in over twenty years of researching, writing and educating’ he has written a historical article about a female, let alone a ‘woman of colour’. Let us hope it is the first of many!
This is an important subject because, again, as he comments, the voices of women of mixed heritage like Mary Ann Aguirra are rarely heard. They are marginalised by virtue of class, gender and race. I enjoyed history at school but it was very much white history, dominated by white men and men of a particular class at that. It was only many years later that I came to understand how much more varied (and interesting!) British history is.
There are many ways of viewing the story that unfolds of Mary Ann Aguirra and her daughter, Isabella. I choose to see it as a case of a tightly knit working class community coming together and resisting threats to their way of life and livelihood, more about class than race (though that might also have played a part). But I freely acknowledge that there are other ways of reading the incidents played out at the Old Bailey in September 1866. However you read the story it is hard to dispute that Mary Ann Aguirra was a determined and formidable woman. Although we don’t have an image of Mary Ann herself there is a photo of one of her grand daughters and I like to think that we can see something of her grandmother’s character in it.
History isn’t just about ‘facts’, it’s about interpretations too. You can read John’s article here and make up your own mind about the events, but the story of Mary Ann’s appearance at the Old Bailey is only one aspect of a thought provoking article:
https://www.historycalroots.com/mary-ann-aguirra-a-londoner-of-colour-1814-1878/
John is in more familiar territory with a second recent article. In this one he identifies John Charles as ‘the last Black drummer’ in the British Army to have served at the time of the campaign against Napoleon. Charles left the Army in 1845 and died in 1862:
https://www.historycalroots.com/the-last-black-drummer-john-charles-of-the-32nd-foot-1808-1845/