Title: Belle
Description: The illegitimate daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy and an enslaved African woman, Dido Belle was sent to live with her great-uncle, the Earl of Mansfield, one of the most powerful men of the time and a leading opponent of slavery. Growing up in his lavish estate, Dido was raised as a sister and companion to her white cousin, Elizabeth. When a joint portrait of the girls, commissioned by Mansfield, was unveiled, eighteenth-century England was shocked to see a black woman and white woman depicted as equals.
Subjects: Race relations, Family, Racially mixed people, Nobility, Slaves, Illegitimate children, Antislavery movements, Biography, History, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical, Women, biography, Women, great britain, Nobility, great britain, Antislavery movements, great britain, Great britain, race relations, Enslaved persons
Places: England
People: William Murray Mansfield Earl of (1705-1793), Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804)
Time periods: 18th century