Sara Forbes Bonetta, (born Omoba Aina; 1843 – 15 August 1880), was a princess of the Egbado clan of the Yoruba people in West Africa who was orphaned during a war with the nearby Kingdom of Dahomey as a child, and later became enslaved to King Ghezo of Dahomey.
Sarah Forbes Bonetta | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Sarah Forbes Bonetta photographed by Camille Silvy in 1862 | |
| Born | Aina (also Ina)[1] 1843 Oke Odan, Yorubaland |
| Died | 15 August 1880 (aged 36–37) Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal |
Cause of death | Tuberculosis |
Resting place | Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal |
| Other names | Sarah Forbes Bonetta Sally Forbes Bonetta |
| Education | Female Institution Kissy, Sierra Leone. Palm Cottage, home of James and Elizabeth Schön |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4, including Victoria Davies |
| Relatives | John Randle (son-in-law) Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh (great grandson) Ameyo Adadevoh (great-great-granddaughter) |
Sarah Forbes Bonetta[a] or Sally Forbes Bonetta (born Aina or Ina; c. 1843 – 15 August 1880)[b][3][4][2] was enslaved in West Africa. She was given as a diplomatic gift, taken to England and apprenticed by Queen Victoria. She was captured and orphaned as a child from her hometown of Oke Odan in West Africa during a war with the nearby Kingdom of Dahomey under King Gezo. She spent two years in Abomey and Gezo gave her as a diplomatic "gift" to Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the British Royal Navy who went to Abomey to try to negotiate ending the slave trade in the kingdom, which he ultimately failed to do. He then petitioned the admiralty for her to become the "property of the crown," and presented her to Queen Victoria, who became her guardian. The Queen sent her to Sierra Leone to be educated among other "Liberated Africans." She then travelled to England where she was educated in Palm Cottage Chatham, until she was forced to marry Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy Lagos merchant. She would return to England another two times, and although unpublished, became one of the prolific Atlantic travel writers of her day.
Early life
Originally named Aina (or Ina),[1] she was born in 1843 in Oke-Odan, a Yoruba village in West Africa which had recently formed by Egbado refugees during the collapse of the Oyo Empire (present-day southwestern Nigeria).[5] Before 1823, Oyot had subjugated the Kingdom of Dahomey.[2] Oyo and Dahomey began to engage in a war in 1823 after Gezo, the new King of Dahomey, refused to pay annual tributes to Oyo and asserted independence. During the conflict, Oyo was weakened and destabilised by the Islamic jihads launched by the growing Sokoto Caliphate.[6] The Oyo Empire disintegrated by 1836. Dahomey's army subsequently began to expand eastwards into Oyo's former territory, including Egbado, capturing various towns and enslaving people in the process.[5]
In 1848, Oke-Odan was invaded and captured by the army of Dahomey. Aina's parents were decapitated during the attack and other residents were either killed or sold into the Atlantic slave trade.[2] Aina ended up in the court of King Gezo of Dahomey as a child slave for two years until Frederick Edwyn Forbes and John Beecroft went to the captial at Abomey. After the British abolition of slavery, Gezo fought against British attempts to curtail Dahomey's exportation of slaves, from which the kingdom profited greatly.
Captain Forbes at Dahomey
In July 1850, Captain Frederick E. Forbes and Consul John Beecroft of the Royal Navy arrived in West Africa on a British diplomatic mission, where he unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate with Gezo to end Dahomey's participation in the slave trade.[7] As part of the diplomatic mission, Forbes witnessed the Annual Customs of Dahomey – a famous annual ceremony in which a series of tributes were paid to the king and sometimes captives were executed at the graves of Dahomey's deceased nobility. Toward the end of the custom, King Gezo presented the British diplomats with gifts, such as stools, textiles, and a girl each "to wash their clothes."[8] Forbes accepted, noting in his journal that to refuse "would have been to have signed her death-warrant, which probably would have been carried into execution forthwith."[9]
While one girl was taken to Fernando Po with Consul Beecroft, Forbes renamed the other girl Sarah Forbes Bonetta, after himself and his ship HMS Bonetta. He took her to England where British newspapers called Sarah Forbes Bonetta an "African Princess." Forbes then presented Sarah to Queen Victoria, who became her guardian and provided for her education as a type of apprenticeship per the terms of anti-slave trade law.
Although her actual ancestry is unknown, Forbes believed Aina to be of high-status origin, citing the tribal markings on her face and the fact that she had not been sold to European slave traders. In his journal he described her as one of "the best born", reserved for "the high behests of royalty and the immolation on the tombs of the deceased nobility".[9][10] It is likely he claimed this royal ancestry to further his career, gain an audience with the Queen, and perhaps promote his book on the kingdom of Dahomey.
Queen Victoria's "Liberated African"
Captain Forbes Forbes never intended to raise the girl himself, had her baptized in St. Mary's Church Winkfield, where he and his sisters served as godparents. Due to Walter Dean Myer's youth novel, Sarah is frequently called the Queen's goddaughter which is untrue. Sarah was in essence indentured to the Queen, who paid for her travel and education in the Church Missionary Society's all-girls residential school, called the Female Institution, in Kissy, Sierra Leone. Queen Victoria wrote about Sarah in her journal. She was impressed by the young princess's "exceptional intelligence", and had the girl, whom she called Sally.[11][12][13]
She returned to England in 1855, when she was about 13. She was entrusted to the care of Rev. Frederick Scheon and his wife Elizabeth,[14] who lived at Palm Cottage, Canterbury Street Gillingham.[15] The house survives and was a center of West African scholarship in England. Sarah lived with Dorugu who helped Schön produce the first Hausa-English dictionary. In January 1858, she was invited to and attended the wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Alice.[16] Sarah learned to write and wrote numerous letters, which were transcribed in Walter Dean Myers youth novel.
Due to Sarah's relationship to the Queen, Sarah was well-educated and had at least sixteen known works of art produced of her in various mediums. She travelled to England on four different occasions, although she spent the vast majority of her life in West Africa. Her works of art included a daguerreotype, prints, paintings, photographs, and a bust. In 2025, Henry Lovejoy recently discovered the bust from a private collection.[3]
At best, Sarah had a marginal relationship with the Queen. She is often portrayed in novels, film, television, and modern media as being very close to the royal family. However, historical evidence shows the relationship involved short and sporadic visits to Windsor Castle. The Queen frequently gave Sarah gifts, such as dresses, jewelry, and other things.[3]
Marriage and children
Queen Victoria approved her marriage to Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies at St Nicholas' Church[17][18] in Brighton, East Sussex, in August 1862, after a period spent in the town preparing for the wedding. During her subsequent time in Brighton, she lived at 17 Clifton Hill in the Montpelier area.[17]
Captain Davies was a Yoruba businessman of considerable wealth, and after their wedding the couple moved to colonial Lagos, where they had four children: Victoria Davies (1863), Alice Davies (1865), Arthur Davies (1871), and Stella Davies (1873).[19] Following the births, she began to work as a teacher.[c][2] Sarah Forbes Bonetta had various relationship with prominent members of the Church Missionary Society, such as Henry Venn, Owen Emeric Vidal, and Samuel Ajayi Crowther.
Victoria Matilda Davies, Bonetta's first daughter, was named after Queen Victoria, who was her godmother.[20] She married the successful Lagos doctor Dr. John Randle, becoming the stepmother of his son, Nigerian businessman and socialite J. K. Randle.[21] Bonetta's third daughter Stella Davies and Herbert Macaulay, the grandson of Samuel Ajayi Crowther, had a daughter together: Sarah Abigail Idowu Macaulay Adadevoh, named after her maternal grandmother Sarah and her paternal grandmother Abigail.[19] A descendant of Bonetta's through her line was the Ebola heroine Ameyo Adadevoh.[2] Many of Bonetta's other descendants now live in either the United Kingdom or Sierra Leone; a separate branch, the Randle family of Lagos, remains prominent in contemporary Nigeria and in England.[20][22]
Death and legacy
Sarah Forbes Bonetta died of tuberculosis on 15 August 1880[4][2] in the city of Funchal, the capital of Madeira Island, a Portuguese island in the Atlantic Ocean. Her legacy is often confused. She is frequently the Queen’s goddaughter, however she technically wasn't.
In her memory, her husband erected an over-eight-foot granite obelisk-shaped monument at Ijon in Western Lagos, where he had started a cocoa farm.[23] The inscription on the obelisk reads:[4]
IN MEMORY OF PRINCESS SARAH FORBES BONETTA
WIFE OF THE HON J.P.L. DAVIES WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE AT MADEIRA AUGUST 15TH 1880
AGED 37 YEARS
Her grave is number 206 in the British Cemetery of Funchal near the Anglican Holy Trinity Church, Rua Quebra Costas Funchal, Madeira.[citation needed] A plaque commemorating Forbes Bonetta was placed on Palm Cottage in 2016, as part of the television series Black and British: A Forgotten History.[24] A newly commissioned portrait of Forbes Bonetta by artist Hannah Uzor went on display at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight in October 2020 as part of an effort by English Heritage to recognise black history in England.[25][26] She has also been painted by Joy Labinjo.[27] Forbes Bonetta was portrayed by Zaris-Angel Hator in the 2017 British ITV television series Victoria.[28] Victoria Princewill, the British novelist, has written a coming-of-age novel based on Bonetta's life, called The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta.[29]
A mural of Bonetta was included in a series of murals displayed in Gillingham between 2022 and 2023 as part of Medway Libraries' Circle of Six project.[30]
In 2026, Henry Lovejoy published the biography Becoming Sarah Forbes Bonetta: A Yorùbá Woman in Queen Victoria’s Court, which has corrected many of the historical inaccuracies about Sarah's life, including how she was not an "African Princess" or the Queen's goddaughter. He argues she was apprenticed to Queen Victoria as a "Liberated African."[3][31] In an October 2026 interview, Bonetta's great-great-grandson Bayo Randle said, "Whether [Lovejoy’s] book is comfortable for me is beside the point. [...] Where the real discomfort lies is in what [Bonetta] was the symbol of, what she was used for." He added that Bonetta was "very capable, courageous and dignified through adversity".[31]
Gallery
Sarah Forbes Bonetta photographed in 1862 by Camille Silvy
The English Cemetery in Funchal, Madeira
Sarah Forbes Bonetta's gravestone, Madeira
.jpg)
See also
- Black British elite, the class that Forbes Bonetta belonged to
- Nigerian aristocracy, the class that Forbes Bonetta belonged to
- Nigerian bourgeoisie, the class that Forbes Bonetta married into
Notes
- ↑ Some sources say "Sara" instead of "Sarah".
- ↑ Aina is a Yoruba name that describes the fact that she was born through a nuchal cord complication.[2]
- ↑ The cited books in the Further reading section state that she was the Acting Principal of CMS Female Institution in 1870; the school was founded in 1869, the first principal was Mrs. Annie Roper, wife of Reverend Roper of CMS Mission Ijaiye. Mrs. Forbes Bonetta Davies was succeeded by Rev. and Mrs. Henry Townsend.
References
- 1 2 Anim-Addo, Joan (2015). "Bonetta [married name Davies], (Ina) Sarah Forbes [Sally] (C. 1843–1880), Queen Victoria's ward". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/75453. ISBN 978-0198614128. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ominira-Bluejack, 'Shèun (30 April 2025). "Princess Aina". African Writer. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 Lovejoy, Henry B. (2026). Becoming Sarah Forbes Bonetta: A Yorubá Woman in Queen Victoria's Court. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1049804767.
- 1 2 3 Elebute, Adeyemo (2013). The Life of James Pinson Labulo Davies: A Colossus of Victorian Lagos. Kachifo Limited/Prestige. p. 138. ISBN 9789785205763.
- 1 2 Elebute (2013), pp. 41–42
- ↑ Akinjogbin, I.A. (1967). Dahomey and its Neighbours 1708–1818. Cambridge University Press.
- ↑ "Sarah Forbes Bonetta and Family". Black and Asian History and Victorian Britain. Royal Collection Trust. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020.
- ↑ Law, Robin (2019). Consul John Beecroft's Journal of His Mission to Dahomey, 1850. Oxford University Press.
- 1 2 Chiba, Akira. "Queen Victoria and the African Princess". Museyon Books. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ "Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Queen Victoria's African Protégée". History and Stories. English Heritage. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Rappaport, Helen (2003). Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion. ABC-Clio. p. 307. ISBN 978-1851093557.
- ↑ Wasson, Ellis (2009). A History of Modern Britain: 1714 to the Present. Wiley. p. 235. ISBN 9781405139359.
- ↑ Marsh, Jan, ed. (1990). Black Victorians: Black People in British Art 1800–1900. Lund Humphries. pp. 62, 86. ISBN 978-0853319306.
- ↑ "Sarah Forbes Bonetta". The Black Presence in Great Britain. 25 October 2009. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Jordan, Nicola (16 October 2016). "Gillingham man Arnold Awoonor-Gordon discovers Queen Victoria adopted his great-great grandma Sarah Forbes Bonetta". Kent Messenger. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Higgen, Annie C. (1879). "Queen Victoria's African Protégée". Church Missionary Quarterly Token (93): 6 – via Google Books.
- 1 2 Collis, Rose (2010). The New Encyclopædia of Brighton (fully revised and updated ed.). Brighton & Hove Libraries. p. 33. ISBN 978-0956466402.
- ↑ "311 Sarah Forbes-Bonetta". Names on the buses. Brighton & Hove Buses. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- 1 2 Elebute (2013), pp. 77–79
- 1 2 Braimah, Ayodale (5 June 2014). "Bonetta, Sarah Forbes (1843–1880)". blackpast.org. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Adeloye, Adelola (1974). "Some early Nigerian doctors and their contribution to modern medicine in West Africa". Medical History. 18 (3): 275–93. doi:10.1017/s0025727300019621. PMC 1081580. PMID 4618303. Archived from the original on 21 June 2019.
- ↑ "The Nineteenth Century | 1862 - Sarah Forbes Bonetta - The African Princess in Brighton". Brighton and Hove Black History Project. Archived from the original on 8 May 2003.
- ↑ Elebute (2013), pp. 111–119
- ↑ "Plaque commemorating Sarah Forbes Bonetta who was under the protection of Queen Victoria | BBC | 2016". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ "Sarah Forbes Bonetta: Portrait of Queen Victoria's goddaughter on show". BBC News. 7 October 2020. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Brown, Mark (7 October 2020). "New portrait of Queen Victoria's African goddaughter unveiled". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Spence, Rachel (27 November 2020). "Joy Labinjo, an artist making black lives visible". Financial Times. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Gordon, Naomi (20 December 2017). "Victoria creator "challenging" perspectives of the era". Digital Spy. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Bearn, Emily (9 February 2023). "The unlikely meeting of Queen Victoria and a young African princess". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ "Circle of Six". Medway Council. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- 1 2 Osuh, Chris (18 October 2026). "An extraordinary life: descendant welcomes biography of woman 'gifted' to Queen Victoria". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
Further reading
- Henry Lovejoy, Becoming Sarah Forbes Bonetta: A Yorùbá Woman in Queen Victoria's Court University of Toronto Press, 2026. ISBN 978-1-0498-0476-7
- Ade-Ajayi, Oyinkan (2020). Heritage Schools Nigeria: An Illustrated History. Phoenix Visions World Limited. ISBN 978-1916032828.
- Gunning, Sandra (2021). "Sarah Forbes Bonetta and Travel as Social Capital". Moving Home: Gender, Place, and Travel Writing in the Early Black Atlantic. Duke University Press. pp. 160–196. ISBN 978-1478013624.
- Morgan, Kemi; Bullock, Christine, eds. (1989). The Making of Good Wives ...Leading Lights of Society: The Story of St Anne's School Ibadan. Y-Books & Associated Bookmakers of Nigeria Ltd. ISBN 9783453246.
- Van der Kiste, John (2018). Sarah Forbes Bonetta: Queen Victoria's African Princess. CreateSpace Independent. ISBN 978-1719186377.
External links
- "In focus: Sarah Forbes Bonetta". Kamal Simpson talks to Clare Gittings about Sarah Forbes Bonetta, who was photographed by Camille Silvy and featured in the National Portrait Gallery, London. YouTube.
- The Lost Child (BBC documentary)
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