Sarah Forbes Bonetta: The Young African Girl Who Entered Queen Victoria’s Court
Artist: Camille Silvy
Princess Sara Forbes Bonetta
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Sarah was originally born as Aina around 1843 in Oke-Odan in Yorubaland, in what is now called Nigeria. At the time, parts of West Africa were being torn apart by war and slave raids. When she was still only a very young child, her village was attacked during a war involving the Kingdom of Dahomey. Her parents were tragically killed and many other people from the area were either captured or forced into slavery. It is difficult not to imagine the fear she must have felt as a child, losing everything and being torn away from everything familiar to her.
Aina eventually ended up in the court of King Ghezo of Dahomey. According to later accounts, she was being kept for royal purposes and may even have faced the threat of sacrifice, but that is unclear. In 1850, a British naval officer named Captain Frederick Forbes arrived in Dahomey during a diplomatic mission. The mission was to try and discourage the slave trade. During his visit he met the young girl and intervened on her behalf. The king offered her the small girl, and refusing the king’s offer may have placed her life in danger, so Forbes accepted her and brought her to England on HMS Bonetta.
He renamed her Sarah Forbes Bonetta, combining his own surname with the name of the ship. She was introduced to Queen Victoria. The Queen was said to be very impressed by Sarah’s intelligence and her character. Victoria became her godmother and took a personal interest in her education and wellbeing. Entering the British court must have felt overwhelming and surreal.
Although many people imagine Sarah living permanently with the royal family, her life was actually more complicated. Queen Victoria arranged for her to be cared for by guardians and teachers rather than raised at court full time. She spent periods living with families connected to the church and education, including Reverend James Schön and his wife in Kent.
Sarah’s life was never really easy. The British climate badly affected her health and she developed a chronic cough, she possibly had tuberculosis. Because of this, she spent some time studying in Sierra Leone. She was well educated, multilingual, and respected in Victorian society, although sadly she still lived in a world of prejudice and rigid social expectations.
In 1862, Sarah married James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy Yoruba businessman, in Brighton. Queen Victoria took such an interest in the marriage that she even helped to oversee some of it. They returned to West Africa and had three children together. Their first daughter was named Victoria after the Queen, who became the child’s godmother.
Image info:
James Pinson Labulo Davies and Sarah Forbes Bonetta
Artist: Camille Silvy
Sadly, Sarah’s health declined over the years, and she died from tuberculosis in 1880 at only around thirty-seven years old while staying on the island of Madeira. Some of you may already recognise Sarah from the ITV series Victoria, where her connection to Queen Victoria was shown. The series helped introduce more people to her story and her unusual place within the Victorian court.
I think her story raises so many questions about identity, survival, and belonging. Do you think Sarah Forbes Bonetta ever truly felt at home in Britain or Africa after everything she had been forced to experience?
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