Elizabeth Frazer Skelton

Elizabeth Frazer Skelton (1800–1855) also called "Mammy Skelton" was a Euro-African slave trader.[1]

She was the daughter of the Afro-American John Frazers, who had been banished from Liberia as a slave owner, and an African woman. She married William Skelton and founded the famous trading house of Skelton. She and her spouse founded the slave fort Victoria at the river Nunez in 1825, which she managed herself as a widow. At that time, the slave trade was banned by the British and United States, but continued in practice. She has a powerful position as a dominant figure in the regional business community, and was for a time responsible for half of the export of the region. In about 1840, under the pressure of the British West Africa Squadron and the Blockade of Africa, the slave traders of the region gradually shifted to growing peanuts with slave labour, an industry in which she also became one of the leading figures.