Sarah Forbes Bonetta

Omoba
Sarah Forbes Bonetta
Sarah Forbes Bonetta photographed by Camille Silvy in 1862
Born
Aina (also Ina)

1843
Oke Odan, Yorubaland
Died15 August 1880 (aged 36–37)
Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal
Cause of death
Tuberculosis
Resting place
Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal
Other namesSarah Forbes Bonetta
Sally Forbes Bonetta
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1862)​
Children3, including Victoria Davies
RelativesJohn Randle (son-in-law)
Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh (great grandson)
Ameyo Adadevoh (great-great-granddaughter)

Sarah Forbes Bonetta or Sally Forbes Bonetta (born Aina or Ina; c. 1843 – 15 August 1880) was ward and goddaughter of Queen Victoria. She was believed to have been a titled member of the Yewa subgroup of the Yoruba people in West Africa who was orphaned during a war with the nearby Kingdom of Dahomey as a child, and was later enslaved by King Ghezo of Dahomey. She was given by Ghezo as a "gift" to Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the British Royal Navy and became a goddaughter of Queen Victoria. She married Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy Lagos philanthropist.

Early life

Lithograph of Forbes Bonetta, after a drawing by Frederick E. Forbes, from his 1851 book Dahomey and the Dahomans; being the journals of two missions to the king of Dahomey, and residence at his capital, in the year 1849 and 1850

Originally named Aina (or Ina), she was born in 1843 in Oke-Odan, a Yewa Yoruba village in West Africa which had recently become independent from the Oyo Empire (present-day southwestern Nigeria) after its collapse. The Kingdom of Dahomey was under subjugation by Oyo, and it was a historical enemy of the Yoruba people. Oyo and Dahomey began to engage in a war in 1823 after Ghezo, the new King of Dahomey, refused to pay annual tributes to Oyo. During the conflict, Oyo was weakened and destabilised by the Islamic jihads launched by the growing Sokoto Caliphate. The Oyo Empire began to disintegrate by the 1830s, fragmenting Yorubaland into various small states. Dahomey's army subsequently began to expand eastwards into Oyo's former Yewa territory, capturing slaves in the process.

In 1848, Oke-Odan was invaded and captured by the army of Dahomey. Aina's parents died during the attack and other residents were either killed or sold into the Atlantic slave trade. Aina ended up in the court of King Ghezo of Dahomey as a child slave. After the British abolition of slavery, Ghezo fought against British attempts to curtail Dahomey's exportation of slaves, from which the kingdom profited greatly. Biographer and historian of Africa Martin Meredith quotes Ghezo telling the British:

The slave trade has been the ruling principle of my people. It is the source of their glory and wealth. Their songs celebrate their victories and the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery.

Captain Forbes at Dahomey

In July 1850, Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the Royal Navy arrived in West Africa on a British diplomatic mission, where he unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate with Ghezo to end Dahomey's participation in the slave trade.

During his visit, Forbes witnessed the Annual Customs of Dahomey – a series of human sacrifice rituals in which captives were executed at the graves of Dahomey's deceased nobility. Forbes attempted to intervene and negotiate with Ghezo during the ritual, including attempts to stop the executions. Ghezo eventually allowed Forbes to bargain for some of the captives. However, Ghezo's interpreters clarified that the custom could not be discontinued without dishonouring the Dahomey people.

Among the captives was Aina, who had been designated for sacrifice. Forbes intervened on her behalf, assuring Ghezo that Queen Victoria would not honour a king who would kill a child. Ghezo then offered her to Forbes as a gift for Victoria. 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."

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".

Queen Victoria

Captain Forbes renamed her Sarah Forbes Bonetta, after himself and his ship HMS Bonetta. Forbes initially intended to raise her himself. However, Sarah was later taken to meet Queen Victoria. Victoria was impressed by the young princess's "exceptional intelligence", and had the girl, whom she called Sally, raised as her goddaughter in the British middle class.

In 1851, Sarah developed a chronic cough, which was attributed to the climate of Great Britain. Her guardians sent her to school in Africa in May of that year, when she was aged eight. She attended the Annie Walsh Memorial School (AWMS) in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

She returned to England in 1855, when she was 12. She was entrusted to the care of Rev. Frederick Scheon and his wife Elizabeth, who lived at Palm Cottage, Canterbury Street Gillingham. The house survives. In January 1862, she was invited to and attended the wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Alice.

Marriage and children

A portrait of James Pinson Labulo Davies and Sarah Forbes Bonetta, photographed in London in 1862 by Camille Silvy

She was later commanded by the Queen to marry Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies at St Nicholas' Church 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.

Captain Davies was a Yoruba businessman of considerable wealth, and after their wedding the couple moved back to their native Africa, where they had three children: Victoria Davies (1863), Arthur Davies (1871), and Stella Davies (1873). Following the births, she began to work as a teacher. Sarah Forbes Bonetta continued to enjoy such a close relationship with Queen Victoria that she and Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther were the only Lagos indigènes the Royal Navy had standing orders to evacuate in the event of an uprising in Lagos. Victoria Matilda Davies, Bonetta's first daughter, was named after Queen Victoria, who was also her godmother. She married the successful Lagos doctor Dr. John Randle, becoming the stepmother of his son, Nigerian businessman and socialite J. K. Randle. Bonetta's second 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. A descendant of Bonetta's through her line was the Ebola heroine Ameyo Adadevoh. 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.

Death and legacy

Sarah Forbes Bonetta died of tuberculosis on 15 August 1880 in the city of Funchal, the capital of Madeira Island, a Portuguese island in the Atlantic Ocean. 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. The inscription on the obelisk reads:

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. 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. She has also been painted by Joy Labinjo. Forbes Bonetta was portrayed by Zaris-Angel Hator in the 2017 British ITV television series Victoria. Victoria Princewill, the British novelist, has written a coming-of-age novel based on Bonetta's life, called The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta.

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.

In 2026, Henry Lovejoy published the biography Becoming Sarah Forbes Bonetta: A Yorùbá Woman in Queen Victoria’s Court. 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".

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Some sources say "Sara" instead of "Sarah".
  2. ↑ Aina is a Yoruba name that describes the fact that she was born through a nuchal cord complication.
  3. ↑ 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. 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.)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Ominira-Bluejack, 'Shèun (30 April 2025). "Princess Aina". African Writer. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  3. 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.
  4. 1 2 Elebute (2013), pp. 41–42
  5. ↑ Akinjogbin, I.A. (1967). Dahomey and its Neighbours 1708–1818. Cambridge University Press.
  6. ↑ Meredith, Martin (2014). The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed and Endeavour. PublicAffairs. p. 193. ISBN 9781610396356.
  7. ↑ "Slavery". The Story of Africa. BBC World Service. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  8. ↑ Thomas, Hugh (2013). The Slave Trade. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1476737454.
  9. ↑ "Sarah Forbes Bonetta and Family". Black and Asian History and Victorian Britain. Royal Collection Trust. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020.
  10. 1 2 Myers, Walter Dean (1999). At Her Majesty's Request: An African Princess in Victorian England. Scholastic. ISBN 978-0590486699.
  11. 1 2 Chiba, Akira. "Queen Victoria and the African Princess". Museyon Books. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  12. ↑ Teukolsky, Rachel (2020). Picture World: Image, Aesthetics, and Victorian New Media. Oxford University Press. p. 267. ISBN 978-0198859734.
  13. ↑ "Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Queen Victoria's African Protégée". History and Stories. English Heritage. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  14. 1 2 3 Rappaport, Helen (2003). Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion. ABC-Clio. p. 307. ISBN 978-1851093557.
  15. ↑ Wasson, Ellis (2009). A History of Modern Britain: 1714 to the Present. Wiley. p. 235. ISBN 9781405139359.
  16. ↑ Marsh, Jan, ed. (1990). Black Victorians: Black People in British Art 1800–1900. Lund Humphries. pp. 62, 86. ISBN 978-0853319306.
  17. ↑ "Sarah Forbes Bonetta". The Black Presence in Great Britain. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  18. ↑ 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.
  19. ↑ Higgen, Annie C. (1879). "Queen Victoria's African Protégée". Church Missionary Quarterly Token (93): 6 – via Google Books.
  20. 1 2 Collis, Rose (2010). The New Encyclopædia of Brighton (fully revised and updated ed.). Brighton & Hove Libraries. p. 33. ISBN 978-0956466402.
  21. ↑ "311 Sarah Forbes-Bonetta". Names on the buses. Brighton & Hove Buses. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  22. 1 2 Elebute (2013), pp. 77–79
  23. 1 2 Braimah, Ayodale (5 June 2014). "Bonetta, Sarah Forbes (1843–1880)". blackpast.org. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  24. ↑ 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.
  25. ↑ "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.
  26. ↑ Elebute (2013), pp. 111–119
  27. ↑ "Plaque commemorating Sarah Forbes Bonetta who was under the protection of Queen Victoria | BBC | 2016". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  28. ↑ "Sarah Forbes Bonetta: Portrait of Queen Victoria's goddaughter on show". BBC News. 7 October 2020. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  29. ↑ Brown, Mark (7 October 2020). "New portrait of Queen Victoria's African goddaughter unveiled". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  30. ↑ Spence, Rachel (27 November 2020). "Joy Labinjo, an artist making black lives visible". Financial Times. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  31. ↑ Gordon, Naomi (20 December 2017). "Victoria creator "challenging" perspectives of the era". Digital Spy. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  32. ↑ Bearn, Emily (9 February 2023). "The unlikely meeting of Queen Victoria and a young African princess". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  33. ↑ "Circle of Six". Medway Council. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
  34. ↑ Lovejoy, Henry B. (2026). Becoming Sarah Forbes Bonetta: A Yorubá Woman in Queen Victoria's Court. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1049804767.
  35. 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