Sarah Forbes Bonetta
West African princess (1840s–1880)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sarah Forbes Bonetta[a] or Sally Forbes Bonetta (born Aina or Ina; c. 1843 – 15 August 1880)[b][2][3] was ward and goddaughter of Queen Victoria. She was believed to have been a titled member of the Yewa clan 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.[3]
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1843
Sarah Forbes Bonetta | |
|---|---|
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 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, including Victoria Davies |
| Relatives | John Randle (son-in-law) Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh (great grandson) Ameyo Adadevoh (great-great-granddaughter) |
Early life
Originally named Aina (or Ina),[1] 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.[4] The Kingdom of Dahomey was under subjugation by Oyo, and it was a historical enemy of the Yoruba people.[3] 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.[5] 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.[4]
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.[3] 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:[6][7][8]
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.[9]
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.[10]
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."[11]
Although her actual ancestry is unknown,[12] 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".[11][13]
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.[10] Victoria was impressed by the young princess's "exceptional intelligence", and had the girl, whom she called Sally,[14] raised as her goddaughter in the British middle class.[14][15][16]
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.[14] 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,[17] who lived at Palm Cottage, Canterbury Street Gillingham. The house survives.[18] In January 1862, she was invited to and attended the wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Alice.[19]
Marriage and children
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.[20]
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).[21] Following the births, she began to work as a teacher.[c][3] 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.[22] She married the successful Lagos doctor Dr. John Randle, becoming the stepmother of his son, Nigerian businessman and socialite J. K. Randle.[23] 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.[21] A descendant of Sarah's through her line was the Ebola heroine Ameyo Adadevoh.[3] Many of Sarah'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.[22][24][25]
Death and legacy
Sarah Forbes Bonetta died of tuberculosis on 15 August 1880[2][3] 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.[26] The inscription on the obelisk reads:[2]
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.[27] A plaque commemorating Forbes Bonetta was placed on Palm Cottage in 2016,[28] as part of the television series Black and British: A Forgotten History.[29] 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.[30][31] She has also been painted by Joy Labinjo.[32] Forbes Bonetta was portrayed by Zaris-Angel Hator in the 2017 British ITV television series Victoria.[33] Victoria Princewill, the British novelist, has written a coming-of-age novel based on Bonetta's life, called The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta.[34]
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.[35]
Gallery
Sarah Forbes Bonetta photographed in 1862 by Camille Silvy
The English Cemetery in Funchal, Madeira
Sarah Forbes Bonetta's gravestone, Madeira
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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.
- 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.
