Among the most noted of the several thousands of the free blacks in England in the second half of the eighteenth century was Francis Barber. Unlike others, such as Olaudah Equiano, Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, and Ignatius Sancho, whose claim to attention was their roles as former slaves who became authors or active in the abolition movement, Barber, born a slave in Jamaica, was freed when taken to England in 1750, and he served as Samuel Johnson's servant on and off for more than thirty years, until Johnson's death in 1784. Barber's claim to fame was primarily for being Samuel Johnson's servant while Johnson was working on his Dictionary of the English Language and for the attention he received as heir to the bulk of Johnson's estate after Johnson's death.

Barber was not, then and now, an invisible presence, as he figured somewhat favorably in the descriptions of Johnson's life in James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), but treated considerably less favorably by John Hawkins in The Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1787). Michael Bundock, the author of The Fortunes of Francis Barber, is a longtime Johnson scholar who also published several articles on Barber and Johnson and is generally quite sympathetic to Barber's action and thought. This book is primarily a biography of Barber, but it also describes various aspects of racial attitudes, laws, and judicial cases regarding blacks in late eighteenth-century England and about attitudes towards blacks and slavery. Although Barber's life was rather atypical for a black in England at that time, his relations with blacks and whites were extensive enough to cast some interesting light on patterns of English race relations.

Barber was born a slave on a large sugar plantation in Jamaica in the early 1740's. Then named Quashey, he was owned by Colonel Richard Bathurst, a member of the Jamaican Assembly. When Bathurst's plantation was failing, he sold his plantation, including most of the slaves, and returned to England in 1750, taking Quashey, then seven or eight years old, with him. After arrival, Quashey spent several years at schools, probably the only black there, before Bathurst's son gave him to his friend Samuel Johnson in 1752. He became Johnson's resident servant, residing in Johnson's home with several other people until Johnson's death. In between his residences as Johnson's servant, he worked for an apothecary in London, before serving voluntarily in the Royal Navy from 1758 to 1760. Barber died in poverty in 1801, having exhausted his inheritance. He had been an important source for Boswell's Life of Johnson, and other works.

There are some problems in any attempt to use Barber to define British racial beliefs and actions. There is only a limited amount known about Barber's own thinking on many issues, so Bundock, of necessity, needs to resort to reasoning back from his behavior. This difficulty is most acute in the discussion of Barber as a slave in the West Indies, where there is almost nothing established in the way of his experiences, and we are led to references from the relevant works of James Walvin, Michael Craton, and others. While we are given some general indications about British whites' attitudes about the presence of blacks, it is at times unclear whether some of the antagonism felt by Barber was more due to the personal feelings of Johnson's friends, relatives, and others, particularly intense when it came to the terms of Johnson's will providing a generous settlement to Barber.

Barber remained with Johnson for more than three decades, and was treated relatively kindly and gently. He and his white wife, married in 1773, remained married for almost thirty years and had several children. On occasion Barber attended schools with white children. He seemed to be able to walk through London without being assaulted and to attend all-black and racially mixed parties, and to live, when with Johnson or by himself, among white residents. Given that London's population in 1750 was 675,000, and the black population was about 1 percent of London's overall population, blacks were not a very conspicuous part of London or England's population, but, of course, as in other places and times, small numbers did not necessarily mean a quiet life for blacks or the absence of discriminatory behavior by whites.

Bundock's book tells in detail the story of this rather atypical black in England. Towards the end of his life he may have been, through his inheritance, among the wealthiest of blacks in England. Barber's story is well told and while it is no doubt difficult to generalize from his experiences, this is still a quite interesting case to contemplate, and Bundock provides much useful context.