Elizabeth Dickson or Elizabeth Dalzac ( – 30 April 1862) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

woman who raised the British public profile of the Christian white slaves held in north Africa by the

Barbary Slave Trade The Barbary slave trade involved the capture and selling of European slaves at slave markets in the largely independent Ottoman Barbary states. European slaves were captured by Barbary pirates in slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal ...

Life

Elizabeth Dalzac was born in

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

in about 1793. Her father had been sent to Africa as a doctor but he turned to trading slaves in his spare time. One later source presumes her mother to have been "a wench". Her father rose to be governor of Cape Coast Castle and he wrote an apology for the slave trade called ''The History of Dahomy''.James A. Rawley, ‘Dalzel , Archibald (1740–1818)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 21 Dec 2014
/ref> Elizabeth was sent on a visit to her brother, Edward in

Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...

. She was a teenager but her brother was an agent and consul for the Portuguese government. She was alarmed to hear of the white slaves captured by the Barbary pirates. The pirates there had Christian prisoners from Spain, France, Portugal and Britain. Together with those at Tripoli and Tunis there were thousands of captive slave. Dalzac's letters to British journalists attracted the attention of the

Knights Liberators and Anti-Piratical Society A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

. This organisation awarded her with membership and a gold medal.J. R. Oldfield, ‘Dickson , Elizabeth (c.1793–1862)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 21 Dec 2014
/ref> The plight of these people was taken up by the politician Henry Brougham in the British Parliament and in August 1826 the slave trade in Algiers was obliged to release 3,000 Christian slaves following the Bombardment of Algiers by a force led by

Lord Exmouth Viscount Exmouth, of Canonteign in the County of Devon, is a title in the peerage of the United Kingdom. History The title was created in 1816 for the prominent naval officer Edward Pellew, 1st Baron Exmouth. He had already been created a baro ...

. By this time Dalzel had married John Dickson and she was a mother to at least one of the six children she is known to have had. Dickson died a widow in

Tripoli Tripoli or Tripolis (from , meaning "three cities") may refer to: Places Greece *Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece * Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in the Pelasgiotis district, Thessaly, near Larissa ...

in 1862.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickson, Elizabeth 1862 deaths 19th-century Ghanaian people 1790s births 19th-century British philanthropists