Francis Williams

Francis Williams was a Jamaican polymath, scholar, astronomer and poet who was one of the most notable free black people in Jamaica. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, into a slaveholding family, Williams subsequently travelled to England where he officially became a British subject. After returning to Jamaica, he established a free school for free people of colour in Jamaica. His portrait is considered to be the earliest-known example in the canon of western art to have been commissioned by a known Black person to record their own intellectual achievements.