Black History Month: 31 October 2020
Sara Forbes Bonetta was the goddaughter to Queen Victoria and was an Egbado princess of the Yoruba people in West Africa. During a war with the nearby Kingdom of Dahomey, she was orphaned, and became the slave of King Ghezo of Dahomey. In a turn of events, two years later, she was liberated by Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the British Royal Navy on a diplomatic mission. From her birth name of Omoba Aina, she was renamed after Forbes and his ship HMS Bonetta. In 1850, she met Queen Victoria, who was impressed with the princess' intelligence. She had Sara, whom she called Sally, raised as her goddaughter in the British middle class.
In 1862, she was given permission by the Queen to marry Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies. He was a Yoruba businessman of considerable wealth, and after their wedding, the two moved back to Africa, where they had three children: Victoria, Arthur, and Stella. Sara kept such a close relationship with Queen Victoria that she and Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther were the only Lagos residents the Royal Navy had orders to evacuate in the event of an uprising. Many of Sara's descendants now live in either England or Sierra Leone, where she was educated. She died of tuberculosis in 1880. An obelisk-shaped monument was raised by her husband in her memory in Western Lagos.
Want to find out more about Sara Forbes Bonetta? Click here for more information, or watch the 2017 ITV series 'Victoria', where Sara is portrayed by Zaris-Angel Hator.
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