Was King James Black?

To most people who have any idea of who King James was this is going to sound like an odd question. The answer of course is simple, no, King James was not Black. King James was a White man from Scotland. We have many paintings of King James that he personally sat for. We have paintings of his mother and his father, who are also both white.

My book the Holy Bible vs The Hebrew Israelites

You can buy my book on Amazon (here is a link to the Amazon.com site)
Amazon.co.uk

King James

Mary Queen of Scots (Mother)

Henry Stuart (Father)

So why ask the question? Well the reason is because many Hebrew Israelites claim that King James was a Black man. They claim that his image has been “whitewashed” and that he was in fact not White as the paintings would depict but rather he was Black just like most of the Kings and queens of history. The Hebrew Israelites use the KJV Bible and yet call the White man Esau. It has been used against them that they utlise a White mans Bible and so it seems that they have set out to demonstrate that this is not so.

So what is the evidence for this claim? Well there is not much at all, well in reality there is NONE. However, this does not stop many Hebrew Israelites from making the claim.

They will attempt to support the claim by providing “proof” via a few pictures of King James that apparently show King James’ true image as a Black man.

The image below shows 2 of the pictures that the Hebrew Israelites will use.

These images supposedly show King James as a Black man. Well, I will grant that the images are “dark”. But a simple investigation of these images will show the error of the Hebrew Israelites. I will give them the benefit of the doubt that they are simply mistaken and not trying to deceive by using these images.

Here is a video of one of the largest Hebrew Israelite camps, IUIC, attempting to demonstrate that King James was Black.

#IUIC | 15 Minutes with the Captains | Who Was King James? – YouTube

The images that are used are actually examples of line Engraving print templates.

What is line engraving? It is a picture or design that is cut into the surface of metal….usually COPPER …well, there is where the darkness comes in.

Line Engraving

Term applied to a method of making prints (and the print so made) in which the design is cut directly into the surface of a metal (usually copper) plate. In normal parlance the word ‘engraving’ usually refers to line engraving, but it is also used as a generic term, covering a variety of printmaking processes (see print). The line engraver cuts the design into a smooth metal plate with a tool called a burin. The essential character of the medium is linear, though shading and tone may be suggested by parallel strokes (hatching), cross-hatching, or textures compounded of various dots and flicks. Typically, line engravings have a quality of metallic hardness and austere precision, compared with the spontaneity of etching or lithography, in which the artist draws the design freely. Often, however, engraving has been combined with etching (or with other intaglio techniques such as mezzotint) on the same plate. Line engraving seems to have originated towards the middle of the 15th century in the workshops of goldsmiths, arising independently in Germany and (perhaps slightly later) in Italy (see niello). Martin Schongauer, who died in 1491, was the first major artist to work mainly as an engraver, and the medium had its finest flowering in the early 16th century in the work of Albrecht Dürer and Lucas van Leyden. Active at the same time was Marcantonio Raimondi, who was the great pioneer in the use of engraving as a means of reproducing the works of other artists. This soon became the primary function of line engraving, and ‘the entire history of Western art would have been quite different if engravings had not rapidly disseminated every stylistic innovation all around Europe’ (Antony Griffiths, Prints and Printmaking, 1980). Line engraving remained the principal method of reproductive printing until the 19th century, when it was challenged by wood engraving in the popular market and then superseded by photomechanical processes. In the 20th century, however, line engraving was revived as a means of original expression, the most important impetus coming from S. W. Hayter.
Line engraving – Oxford Reference

Here are the tools used in the process.

The image of King James was produced by Hendrik Hondius in 1608 AD.

Lets have a look at one of the images a little closer:

As we can clearly see, this is not an image of a black man. The “darkness” comes from the material the image is carved into and the lines of the engraving itself.

This image is can be found at the National Portrait Gallery in London. You can even purchase a print for yourself. NPG D18247; King James I of England and VI of Scotland – Portrait – National Portrait Gallery