Synopsis
"The film is inspired by the 1779 painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle beside her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray, at Kenwood House, which was commissioned by their great-uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, then Lord Chief Justice of England. Very little is known about the life of Dido Belle, who was born in the West Indies and was the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of Mansfield's nephew. She is found living in poverty by her father and entrusted to the care of Mansfield and his wife." [Wikipedia]
This is another story about the abolishment of slavery. A judge and his wife raise a mulatto neice (Dido) in high society England. The judge hears an important case regarding a slave ship in which the captain ordered the slck slaves to be thrown overboard to collect the insurance. The judge eventully rules that this is a case of fraud, and that slavery is wrong. Much of the movie is about the two nieces (Dido and Elizabeth) who are raised as sisters and who must follow the rules of society regarding dinner parties, inheritance, courting, and marriage.