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A good place to start would be:

1. How would an English clergyman in the first half of the 1700s typically describe someone who was of African descent? This appears to be the guy who wrote the description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cole_(antiquary). My intuition is that the wouldn't just use "black," but would probably use something more specific, like "African" or "negro."

2. At that time, would a "black" person (in the modern sense) have been accepted into the kinds of positions John Michell had (like being a member of the Royal Society), with so little comment on his race?