How many blacks were in England in 1609?

Answer 1

There was no census in England in 1609 (the first UK national census was in 1801) so we don't really know how common black faces were on London streets during the seventeenth century.

We know that there were some blacks, since there is a law from Elizabeth I's time calling for the arrest and deportation of negroes and black moors. For there to be such a law suggests that England had some blacks, but not many.

Shakespeare's Othello shows indications of fairly severe popular stereotyping of blacks, but not the coherent and established racial hatred which we see against Shylock in the Merchant of Venice (and even more against Barabbas in The Jew of Malta). Again, this suggests that blacks were not unknown, but far from commonplace.

Since it remained technically illegal to be a negro in England for many years, it seems probable that a black face was a rarity until well into the seventeenth century. Eventually England's involvement in the Triangular Trade - together with the long-established principle that you couldn't (quite) own a slave in England - led to a steady trickle of black people into British society as footmen and assistants to traders. Integration would need to wait until the abolitionist efforts of Cowper, Newton, Wilberforce and the early nineteenth century Methodists.

In the case of Othello it is worth remembering that the play is set in Venice, and that by 1600 Venice had already an established reputation as a city full of independent (and often promiscuous) women like Desdemona, and a racially and culturally diverse demographic.

In 1609 London was perhaps still a little parochial in its own attitudes to religious and racial diversity - but it knew about big, and bustling, and explosive cosmopolitan cities like Venice.