1800s

Hugo’s influence extended beyond books and politics—he was deeply invested in humanitarian causes. He championed the abolition of the death

Dido Elizabeth Belle, born in 1761 to an enslaved African woman and a British naval officer, was raised in aristocratic England by her great-uncle, Lord Mansfield. Her life challenged 18th-century norms of race and class, and she may have influenced key legal decisions against slavery. Despite the barriers she faced, Dido lived as a free, educated woman—her story a rare and powerful testament to resilience in Georgian Britain.