Talk:Dido Elizabeth Belle

Question

This is remarkably similar to our aricle. Which came first?

Untitled

Another potential source at the BBC. -- ALoan (Talk) 09:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

We seem to have some internal errors - Did Dido leave at the age of 20 (when she was married) or when after thirty years? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hugh Petrie (talk • contribs) 11:23, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Dido (Queen of Carthage)

It was the custom in the 18th an 19th centuries name African slaves after people in antiquity, thus Dido (Queen of Carthage) might have been the name chosen for Belle.--DThomsen8 (talk) 22:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Some contradictions and points of confusion:

The article mentions that she died in 1804, this was also the date given for her spouse's death, yet in the section marked later life it says she was survived by her husband who remarried and had 2 other children. which is right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.172.125 (talk) 21:24, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

The first paragraph never says that her mother was known only as "Belle". Apart from the one reference to "Maria Belle", the name "Belle" is used to refer to Dido. The reference to how she would have been treated outside of Britain merely indicates how precarious her position was (slave / aristocrat). After all, she was born out of Britain. The dates 1793-1804 next to her husband's name in the infobox record the period of the marriage, not his lifespan (he's unlikely to have married and fathered children if he died at the age of 11). You are right about the family tree. That seems to be a slip-up, but the tree is technically a separate article. Paul B (talk) 22:13, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

"...was illegitimate, in a time and place when great social stigma usually accompanied such status."

Really? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.157.48 (talk) 11:57, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

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Excessively strong inference

Premise:

In his will written in 1783, Lord Mansfield officially granted Belle her freedom from slavery.

Excessive conclusion:

The fact that Mansfield granted Belle her freedom in his will indicated that he also believed that his ruling did not abolish slavery in England.

Somewhat more justifiable conclusion:

The fact that Mansfield granted Belle her freedom in his will indicated that he also believed that his ruling did not abolish slavery in England incontrovertibly.

Hard to argue against the wisdom of adding an official document in the belt-and-suspenders mode as a hedge against legitimate challenge and willful misinterpretation of his past ruling. — MaxEnt 07:43, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Mansfield's ruling didn't abolish anything, it stated that there was no legal basis to hold someone in Slavery under English law; slavery as an institution in England had not existed since the Norman conquest. In so far as slaves may have existed in England, their status was de facto, not de jure. Regarding the explicit grant of freedom in his will, one might consider that Belle may have wanted to travel at some point in the future, so it was prudent of him to explicitly spell out a grant of freedom to assure her status should she visit a slave jurisdiction.2001:470:1F09:133E:64:D18B:4357:8E13 (talk) 20:08, 27 March 2019 (UTC)