Dido Elizabeth Belle
Listen to ArtMuse’s two part episode on Dido Elizabeth Belle, England’s first female aristocrat of color. Dido was born at the height of the transatlantic slave trade, to an enslaved mother and white father. She was eventually taken in by her great uncle Lord William Murray, who raised her at Kenwood House as part of the family, despite her mixed race.
Dido’s life story is undeniably remarkable. That a woman born into slavery could later be raised as a member of an important aristocratic family at the height of the transatlantic slave trade was virtually unheard of.
But though Dido was in many ways the exception, her story cannot be removed from the dark history of slavery itself. And while we honor Dido and her incredible life, we also honor the lives of the innumerable black men and women whose stories have been unfairly lost to history.
Listen to ArtMuse’s two part episode on Dido Elizabeth Belle:
This episode is produced by Kula Production Company.
REFERENCES
Byrne, Paula. Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice. Harper Perennial, 2014.
Fergus, Mason. Dido Elizabeth Belle: A Biography. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
“Dido Belle.” English Heritage.
IMAGES
Kenwood House, where Dido lived for over 30 years, as it looks today.
Martin, David. Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray. Oil on canvas. 1778.
Lord Chief Justice William Murray, who took Dido in in her infancy.
Captain Sir John Lindsay, Dido’s father.
An engraving of trafficked Africans from 1619.
Martin, David. Lord Mansfield. Oil on canvas. 1775.
A 1799 engraving of St George’s Church in Bloomsbury, London where she was baptized at age five, and later married.
Kenwood House in 1788, showing the house as it would have looked while Dido was living there.
Poster for Belle, a bio-pic based on Dido’s life released in 2014.
