Queen Victoria’s ‘Liberated African’: Sarah ‘Sally’ Forbes Bonetta and Her Extraordinary Apprenticeship by the British Royal Family, 1850–1862

ABSTRACT

In 1848, Dahomey’s army enslaved a five-year-old Yoruba girl, named Aina, whose fate on the surface was unusual. She was given as a ‘gift’ to a British diplomat who presented her to Queen Victoria in England in 1850. This girl was ‘liberated’ according to anti-slavery law that was applied to Africans taken off slave ships, and she can be identified as a ‘Liberated African’. The Queen’s special interest in Aina was expressed further through her baptism as Sarah Forbes Bonetta (c. 1843–1880), although she was generally known as ‘Sally’. Because of this relationship, British newspapers romanticized her as an ‘African princess’ who symbolized public endorsement of anti-slavery policy. Sally’s apprenticeship centres a fascinating story within the context of the suppression of the slave trade and imperial ambitions in Africa. While not captured on a ship, as 200,000 ‘Liberated Africans’ were, she was enslaved by Dahomey’s army, British diplomats ‘liberated’ her, and the Queen became her legal guardian until the age of 21. The Queen paid for her Christian education in Sierra Leone and England, and in 1862, arranged her marriage to James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy merchant based in Lagos.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jacob Adesina for locating many materials about Sally in the National Archives of Nigeria, Ibadan; Alison Day for finding the baptism record at the Berkshire Record Office; and librarians at CU Boulder’s University Libraries and Cambridge University Library for helping me locate a sketch from 1853. I would also like to thank Paul Lovejoy, Érika Melek Delgado, Suzanne Schwarz and peer reviewers of this journal for revising earlier drafts.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Quote from ‘Lieutenant Forbes’ Journal’, National Archives, England (NA), FO 84/827, f. 292v, 5 July 1850. Beecroft clarified they received ‘1 little girl each’, see ‘Consul Beecroft’s Journal’, NA, FO 84/816, f. 229, 5 July 1850. For their transcriptions and analyses see Robin Law, (ed.), Consul John Beecroft’s Journal of His Mission to Dahomey, 1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). For more information about this case in global perspective, see Henry B. Lovejoy, Liberated Africans, www.liberatedafricans.org, RegID LA-E-5543, (accessed 2023).

2 ‘An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade’, Parliamentary Archives (PA), HL/PO/PU/1/1807/47G3s1n60, 47 Geo. III cap. 36, 25 March 1807; ‘An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies’, PA, HL/PO/PU/1/1833/3&4W4n223, 3&4 Wil. IV, cap. 73, 15 Aug. 1833.

3 ‘Beecroft to Palmerston’, NA, FO/84/816, f. 148–52, 22 July 1850. According to ‘The Coast of Africa’, Portsmouth Times and Naval Gazette, 21 Sep. 1850, the King of Dahomey gave Forbes ‘a present of a princess aged 7 years, whom he has brought to England. During the feast of the “Customs” 30 human sacrifices were made: two of these poor infatuated victims, aged respectively 40 and 50, (soldiers from Attaphame [Atakpamé]), Commander Forbes purchased for 100 dollars, and sent them to Fernando Po to be liberated’.

4 Frederick E. Forbes, 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, vol. 2 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1851), 207.

5 ‘Sarah Forbes Bonetta,’ The Berkshire Record Office (BRO), Winkfield Parish Records, D/P151/1/12, no. 578, p. 73, 17 Nov. 1850; ‘The Dahoman Princess: Her Life, Presentation to Her Majesty, and Christening’, Bucks Herald, 23 Nov. 1850.

6 Such descriptors were repeatedly published in hundreds of newspaper articles about Sarah Forbes Bonetta in England.

7 For new totals and maps of ‘Liberated Africans’ see H. Lovejoy, Liberated Africans.

8 ‘Marriage solemnized at St. Nicolas Church’, County Archives of East Sussex (CAES), PAR 255/1/3/35, no. 343. 14 Aug. 1862; c.f. Adeyemo Elebute, The Life of James Pinson Labulo Davies: A Colossus of Victorian Lagos (Lagos: Prestige, 2013), 38; ‘James Pinson Labulo Davies; Aina (Sarah Forbes Bonetta (later Davies))’, National Portrait Gallery (NPG), Ax61385, Photographer Camille Silvy, London, 15 Sep. 1862.

9 ‘An Act for the Abolition of Slavery’, PA, HL/PO/PU/1/1833/3&4W4n223, 3&4 Wil. IV, cap. 73, 15 Aug. 1833.

10 ‘Journal Extracts of Daniel Henry Schmid’, Church Missionary Society Archives (CMSA), CA 1 O 193, 19 June 1851, f. 50; ‘Julia Sass to Venn’, CMSA, CA 1 O 187, 13 Dec. 1851, doc. 7.

11 ‘The African Princess’, Morning Advertiser, 17 Dec. 1855.

12 Anonymous, ‘How Queen Victoria Adopted a Black Girl’, The Drum (Aug. 1971); c.f. Adelola Adeloye, African Pioneers of Modern Medicine: Nigerian Doctors of the Nineteenth Century (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1985), 93–4; 227 n16.

13 Walter Dean Myers, At Her Majesty’s Request: An African Princess in Victorian England, 1st ed. (New York: Scholastic Inc., 1999), 102–6.

14 Forbes, Dahomey, 2 vols.

15 By searching The British Newspaper Archive, www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk (accessed 2023), I created a spreadsheet of over 550 newspaper articles by searching Sally’s many names between 1850 and 1880. Since it is not possible to cite all these articles here, I attempt to cite the earliest known printing of each story from which all other syndicated articles likely derived. For her arrival in Portsmouth, see ‘The Coast of Africa’, Portsmouth Times. Newspapers followed the progression of events as Sarah Forbes Bonetta travelled from Portsmouth to Chatham, then London, Winkfield, and Windsor Castle. Versions of this storyline ran until at least 17 Dec. 1850 in England (118 articles), Scotland (18), Ireland (13), and Wales (2).

16 ‘The African Princess’, Morning Advertiser, 17 Dec. 1855. Versions of this story ran until at least 29 Dec. 1855 in England (17 articles), Scotland (1), and Wales (1).

17 Visit of an African Princess to the Princess Royal’s Wedding’, Daily News, 19 Jan. 1858. Versions of this story ran until at least 20 Aug. 1858 in England (81 articles), Scotland (7), Ireland (5), and Wales (5); ‘Marriages’, South Eastern Gazette, 30 Aug. 1859. Versions of this story ran until at least 9 Sep. 1859 in England (31 articles), Ireland (5), and Wales (1).

18 ‘Interesting Marriage in Britain’, Brighton Gazette, 14 Aug. 1862. Versions of this story ran until at least 18 Sep. 1862 in England (161 articles), Ireland (36), Scotland (30), Wales (7), Jersey (1), and India (1). For a long description of the ceremony see ‘A Marriage with an Ante-Nuptial Romance’, Brighton Guardian, 20 Aug. 1862. First reporting on a fire at 60 Bruton Crescent, see ‘Destructive Fires’, Sun, 25 Aug. 1862; or ‘The Recently Married African Couple Burned Out’, Dundee Advertiser, 27 Aug. 1862.

19 ‘On Thursday Night Last’, The Anglo-African, 3 Oct. 1863; ‘The Queen’s African Protégée’, Chatham News, 14 Nov. 1863. Versions of this story ran until at least 17 Sep. 1864 in England (13 articles), Wales (2), and Scotland (1).

20 Adeloye, African Pioneers, 89–95.

21 Elebute, The Life of Davies, Chap. 1.

22 ‘Notice’, The Anglo-African, 7 Nov. 1863; ‘Notice’, The Anglo-African, 5 Dec. 1863. Davies held land grants on Water St. and Ehingbeti St. in Lagos.

23 ‘The Iwe Irehin gives … ’, The Anglo-African, 21 Oct. 1865.

24 ‘Bankruptcy Court: Bankruptcy of a Merchant’, Echo, 8 Jan. 1877.

25 ‘The Story of King Gezo's Gift to Queen Victoria’, The Church Missionary Gleaner, vol. 12 (London: Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday, 1880), 134–5; Annie C. Higgins, ‘Queen Victoria’s African Protégée’, The Church Missionary Gleaner, vol. 13 (London: Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday, 1881), 25; ‘An Exonian’s Story of the Slave Trade’, Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 22 Sep. 1885.

26 ‘Diary of Bonetta Forbes Davies’, National Archives Nigeria, Ibadan (NAI), J. K. Coker Family Papers, Coker 3/7/1, 6 July – 4 Sep. 1867.

27 ‘Sarah Forbes Bonetta: The African Captive’, in Forbes, Dahomey, vol. 2, facing title page; ‘Sally Forbes’, Cambridge University Library (CUL), Royal Commonwealth Society Collections, RCS/RCMS 147, Owen Emeric Vidal, 21 Feb. 1853; ‘Sarah Forbes Bonetta (Davies): In Her Younger Days, and in Native Dress’, The Church Missionary Gleaner, vol. 12, 135; ‘An Interesting Marriage at Brighton’, Penny Illustrated Paper, 23 Aug. 1862; ‘Aina (Sarah Forbes Bonetta (later Davies))’, NPG, Ax61380, Ax61382, Ax61384, Ax61385, Camille Silvy, London, 15 Sep. 1862; ‘Victoria Davies (b. 1863: Daughter of Sally Bonetta Forbes, Mrs. Davies’, Royal Collection Trust (RCT), RCIN 2907192, RCIN 2907194, A. Debenham, London, c. 1863; ‘Mrs. Victoria Randle with Her Two Children’, RCT, RCIN 2915313, Killick & Abbot, London, Oct. 1901. See also Francis Dimond, and Roger Taylor, Crown & Camera: The Royal Family and Photography 1842–1910 (London: Penguin Books, 1987), 112–3; M. Haworth-Booth, Camille Silvy: Photographer of Modern Life (London: National Portrait Gallery Publication, 2010), 96–7. For her family line up until the modern-day, see Arnold Awoonor Gordon, Reflections on My Life (London: Sondiat Global Media, 2015), 9–20.

28 The title of the photograph mixes up her name: ‘Sally Bonetta Forbes’, Royal Collections Trust, RCIN 2083208, RCIN 2800762, RCIN 2906613, RCIN 2932515, William Bambridge, London, 1856.

29 Myers, At Her Majesty’s Request; Walter Dean Myers, An African Princess: From African Orphan to Queen Victoria’s Favourite, 2nd ed. (London: Walker Books, 2014). Letters from the Myers Collection might be held by his estate since his death in 2014. Email with the Myers estate’s legal representation, Aug. 2023. See also Walter Dean Myers, https://walterdeanmyers.net/ (accessed 2023).

30 ‘Lieutenant Forbes’ Journal’, NA, FO 84/827; ‘Consul Beecroft’s Journal’, NA, FO 84/816.

31 ‘Sarah Forbes Bonetta,’ BRO, Winkfield Parish Records, D/P151/1/12, no. 578, p. 73, 17 Nov. 1850.

32 Adeloye, African Pioneers, 93.

33 Kristen Mann, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status and Social Change among the Educated Elite in Colonial Lagos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 58.

34 Joan Anim-Addo, ‘Queen Victoria’s Black “Daughter”’, in Black Victorians/Black Victoriana, ed. G. H. Gerzina (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 17.

35 Caroline Bressey, ‘Of Africa’s Brightest Ornaments: A Short Biography of Sarah Forbes Bonetta’, Social & Cultural Geography 6, no. 2 (2005): 253–66.

36 Elebute, The Life of Davies, 42–9.

37 David Olusoga, Black and British: A Forgotten History (London: Macmillan, 2016), 332–3.

38 Sandra Gunning, Moving Home: Gender, Place, and Travel Writing in the Early Black Atlantic (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021), 183.

39 Denny S. Bryce, The Other Princess: A Novel of Queen Victoria’s Goddaughter (New York: William Morrow, 2023); Victoria Princewell, The Diary of Sarah Forbes Bonetta: A Novel (London: Scholastic, 2023); Megan Orr, ‘Ladylike in the Extreme: The Propagandism of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Britain's ‘African Princess’ (Research Report: Brigham Young University, 2021); Samantha Pinto, Infamous Bodies: Early Black Women’s Celebrity and the Afterlives of Rights (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020); Isis Davis-Marks, ‘The Little-Known Story of Queen Victoria’s Black Goddaughter’, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Oct. 2020.

40 Forbes, Dahomey, vol. 2, 206–9.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid., vol. 1, 16.

43 ‘Marriage solemnized’, CAES, PAR 255/1/3/35, no. 343. 14 Aug. 1862.

44 Elebute, The Life of Davies, 41; c.f. Adeboye Bablola, and Olugboyega Alaba, A Dictionary of Yoruba Personal Names (Lagos: West African Book Publishers Ltd., 2003), 94.

45 ‘A Marriage with an Ante-Nuptial Romance’, Brighton Guardian, 20 Aug. 1862. This article described how Sally’s bridesmaid signed the document on her behalf.

46 Bablola and Alaba, A Dictionary, 94.

47 Elebute, The Life of Davies, 42–3.

48 Kola Folayan, ‘Egbado to 1832: The Birth of a Dilemma’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 4, no. 1 (1967): 5; see also Kola Folayan, ‘International Politics in a Frontier Zone: Egbado, 1833–63’, Odù 8 (1972): 3–32; G. O. Oguntomisin, ‘Political Change and Adaptation in Yorubaland in the Nineteenth Century’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 15, no. 2 (1981): 223–37; and, Henry B. Lovejoy, ‘Mapping Uncertainty: The Collapse of Oyo and the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 1816–1836’, Journal of Global Slavery 4, no. 2 (2019): 127–61.

49 Toyin Falola, and G. O. Oguntomisin, Yoruba Warlords of the Nineteenth Century (Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc., 2001), 17.

50 Robin Law, The Oyo Empire, c.1600- c.1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 277.

51 Robert S. Smith, The Kingdoms of the Yoruba, 3rd ed. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 128.

52 ‘The Story of King Gezo's Gift to Queen Victoria’, The Church Missionary Gleaner, vol. 12 (London: Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday, 1880), 134–5. While the original image has not been located, an obituary re-published it in 1880, stating that it first ‘appeared in the [Church Missionary] Intelligencer thirty years ago’.

53 ‘Sally Forbes’, CUL, RCS/RCMS 147, drawn by Owen Emeric Vidal, 21 Feb. 1853. A listing of the drawings appears in Donald Simpson, The Manuscript Catalogue of the Library of the Royal Commonwealth Society (London: Mansell, 1975), 91–2.

54 Samuel O. Johnson, The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate (Lagos: C.M.S. (Nigeria) Bookshops, 1921), 104–7. This book was published posthumously.

55 E. Dunglas, ‘La première attaque des Dahoméens contre Abeokuta’, Études Dahoménnes 1 (1948): 7–19.

Thomas Mouléro, ‘Guézo ou Guédizo Massigbé’, Études dahoméennes 4, no. 5 (1965): 51–92.

56 ‘Consul Beecroft’s Journal’, NA, FO84/816, 16 June 1850.

57 Forbes, Dahomey, vol. 2, 10.

58 August Le Hérissé, L’ancien royaume du Dahomey: Moeurs, religion, histoire (Paris: E. Larose, 1911), 321.

59 All quotations from Forbes, Dahomey, vol. 2, 207–8.

60 Edna G. Bay, Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press,1998), 199.

61 According to Forbes, ‘Mayo [mehu], Eeavoogau (yovogan), and Caoupeh (“storekeeper to the king”) came to deliver His Majesty’s present’, which included two girls. Interpretation of these terms from Law, Beecroft’s Journal, 25 n149, 27 n 160, and 83 n397.

62 Law, John Beecroft’s Journal, xv.

63 H. Lovejoy, Liberated Africans. Forbes cases include: Dois Amigos (RegID LA-E-3553); Farfão (LA-E-4497); Traga Milhas (LA-E-4498); Andorinha (LA-E-3572); Alert (LA-E-4554); Louisa (LA-E-4556).

64 Law, John Beecroft’s Journal, xvi.

65 ‘The Coast of Africa’, Portsmouth Times.

66 Forbes, Dahomey, vol. 2, 107.

67 ‘Promotions: Chatham, Oct. 1’, Sun, 2 Oct. 1850.

68 ‘Dahoman Princess’, Bucks Herald.

69 ‘November 9’, Royal Archives United Kingdom (RAUK), Queen Victoria's Journal, vol. 30, 9 Nov. 1850.

70 All quotations from ‘Dahoman Princess’, Bucks Herald; ‘Sarah Forbes Bonetta,’ BRO, D/P151/1/12, no. 578, p. 73, 17 Nov. 1850.

71 ‘January 11’, RAUK, Queen Victoria's Journal, vol. 31, 11 Jan. 1851.

72 ‘Charles Beaumont Phipps to Henry Venn’, RAUK, PP Vic A38a, 25 Jan. 1851; c.f. Gunning, Moving Home, 223 n 20.

73 H. Lovejoy, Liberated Africans. Filtered by Vice Admiralty Court and Mixed Commissions in Sierra Leone between 1807 and 1850.

74 Érika Melek Delgado, ‘Children, Childhood, and Slavery in Sierra Leone: The Experiences of Liberated African Children, c. 1808–1834’ (PhD diss., University of Worcester, 2017).

75 ‘Dahoman Princess’, Bucks Herald.

76 ‘Journal Extracts of Daniel Henry Schmid’, CMSA, CA 1 O 193, 19 June 1851, f. 50.

77 ‘Report of the Female Institution’, CMSA, CA 1 O88, 30 March 1854. See also, Filomena C. Steady, ‘Protestant Women’s Associations in Freetown, Sierra Leone’, in Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change, eds. Nancy J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976), 218.

78 ‘Julia Sass to Venn’, CMSA, CA 1 O 187, 13 Dec. 1851, doc. 7.

79 ‘Report: Female Institution’, CMSA, CA 1 O 224 29 Sep. 1855, doc. 5.

80 ‘Sally Bonetta Forbes’, RCT, RCIN 2906613, William Bambridge, London, Dec. 1855.

81 ‘The African Princess’, Morning Post, 18 Jan. 1856.

82 James Frederick Schön, Vocabulary of the Haussa Language (London: Church Missionary Society, 1843); James Frederick Schön, Grammar of the Hausa Language (London: Church Missionary Society, 1862). Schön also translated parts of the bible into Hausa.

83 Register of Missionaries (Clerical, Lay, and Female) and Native Clergy,1804–1894 (London: Church Missionary Society, 1894), 32–3.

84 Annie C. Higgens, ‘Queen Victoria’s African Protégée’, The Church Missionary Gleaner, vol. 13 (London: Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday, 1881), 25.

85 ‘Visit of an African Princess to the Princess Royal’s Wedding’, Daily News, 19 Jan. 1858.

86 ‘Marriages’, South Eastern Gazette, 30 Aug. 1859. Her parents’ names were Anastasio Serrano and Clara Collarzo, who were both listed in the newspaper article, in addition to a list of ‘Cuban Emancipados’, Hampshire Archives, England, 16M97/13/11, Nov. 1855. See also Henry B. Lovejoy, ‘The Commodification of Freedom in Cuba during Second Slavery’, in The Atlantic and Africa: The Second Slavery and Beyond, ed. Dale W. Tomich, and Paul E. Lovejoy (Albany: SUNY Press, 2021), 107–30.

87 Anonymous, ‘How Queen Victoria Adopted a Black Girl’.

88 Myers, At Her Majesty’s Request, 102–6.

89 ‘Sarah Bonetta to Catherine Schön’, Myers Collection, 16 May 1861; c.f. Myers, At Her Majesty’s Request, 106–7; Gunning, Moving Home, 172–3.

90 ‘A Marriage’, Brighton Guardian; ‘Aina’, NPG, Ax61385, Photographer Camille Silvy, London, 15 Sep. 1862.

91 ‘A Marriage’, Brighton Guardian.

92 ‘Marriage solemnized’, CAES, PAR 255/1/3/35, no. 343. 14 Aug. 1862.

93 ‘Dahoman Princess’, Bucks Herald.

Additional information

Funding

Research for this article was supported in part by a Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship (NN-2006-08535).

Notes on contributors

Henry B. Lovejoy

Henry B. Lovejoy is an Associate Professor, and Director Digital Slavery Research Lab, University of Colorado Boulder, 204 Hellems, 234 UCB, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA. Email: [email protected]