ABSTRACT
Colour was not always the chief index of difference, but its role is fundamental and deep-rooted. Although a topical play about real people, it is presented within the conventions of the day, which can be traced back to the morality figure of Vice and the depiction of a black Satan in medieval drama. Treatment of interracial themes was not always this crude; the examples of the black slaves in pantomimes who turn into Harlequin offer a more intricate use of blackness on the white stage. As Julia Swindells argues, the liberal representation of black people, because it was popular and bogus, promoted anti-slavery sentiment by diverting attention from the cruel and violent reality of slavery and the racism that supported it. The subject of mocking engravings, he fled to India, having been accused of rape, where he taught riding and fencing, and may have appeared as Othello and Mungo.
