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Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804) was an illegitimate daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay and an enslaved African woman known as Belle. Very little is known about Belle except that she was black. Her daughter Dido was sent to live in the household of William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, who was Lindsay's uncle and thus Dido's great-uncle.
Early life
Dido Elizabeth Belle was born around 1761. She was baptised in 1766 at St. George's Church, Bloomsbury. Her father, John Lindsay, nephew of the Earl of Mansfield, was at the time a Royal Navy captain on HMS Trent, a warship based in the West Indies that took part in the capture of Havana from the Spanish in 1762. It has previously been suggested that her mother was an enslaved African on board one of the Spanish ships captured during this battle, but the dates are inconsistent and there is no reason why any of the Spanish ships (which were immobilised in the inner habour) would have had women on board when they were delivered up on the formal surrender of the fortress. Dido's baptism record, however, shows that she was born while Lindsay was in the West Indies and that her mother's name was Maria Belle.
At Kenwood House
Lindsay sent the child to his uncle, the Earl of Mansfield, who lived with his family at Kenwood House in Hampstead, which was then just outside London, England. Mansfield and his wife, who were childless, were already raising her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray after her mother's death; Dido was about the same age as Elizabeth. It is possible that Mansfield took Dido in to be Elizabeth's playmate and, later in life, her personal attendant (her role within the family as outlined below suggests that her standing was more that of a lady's companion than a lady's maid).
Dido spent some 30 years at Kenwood House. Her position was unusual because she was formally the daughter of a slave, and as such would have been considered a slave outside of Britain. But she was to some extent treated as a member of the family. Lord Mansfield himself resolved this paradox in his capacity as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. When called on to judge the case of an escaped slave, Somersett's Case, he decreed: "The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England." Mansfield's decision was taken by abolitionists to mean that slavery was abolished in England, although his wording reserves judgment on this point, and he later said it was only to apply to the slave at issue in the case. Historians have since suggested that his personal experience influenced his decision.
Social position
Despite his revulsion for slavery, the social conventions of Mansfield's household were discriminatory. Dido would not dine with the rest of the family, especially if they had guests, but joined the ladies for coffee afterwards in the drawing-room. As she grew older, she took responsibility for the dairy and poultry yards at Kenwood, and she also helped Mansfield with his correspondence - an indication that she was fairly well educated. The running of the dairy and poultry yard would have been a typical occupation for ladies of the gentry, but helping her uncle with his correspondence was less usual, since this was normally done by a secretary or a male clerk. Dido also received an annual allowance of £30 10s, several times the wages of a domestic servant; by contrast, Elizabeth received around £100, but she was after all an heiress in her own
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