In the autumn of 1753, a young, enslaved girl arrived in London from Jamaica to be exhibited and studied. Separated from her family, Amelia was born with albinism, a condition that made her skin white and her hair blond, at a time when albinism was not understood medically and shrouded in superstition. For this reason, Amelia was shown as a curiosity across Britain, examined by some of Europe’s leading physicians and scientists, and painted by one of its most celebrated artists. Though largely forgotten today, by the end of the eighteenth-century Amelia was a household name throughout the country. Drawing on the fragmentary archives that document the scientific and medical examinations Amelia endured, this talk will reveal the intimate history of ‘race making’ in Britain and legacies that continue to shape racial politics today.

Meleisa Ono-George is a social-cultural historian of race and gender, with a focus on Black women’s histories in Britain and the Anglo-Caribbean. She is interested in the everyday ways people oppressed within society negotiate and navigate structures of power and inequality, as well as the legacies and politics of writing such histories within contemporary society. She is Associate Professor and Brittenden Fellow in Black British History at the Queen’s College.