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Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a princess of the Egbado clan of the Yoruba people, is best known as the goddaughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain. Bonetta was born in 1843 in what is now southwest Nigeria. Her parents’ names are unknown as are the names of her siblings who were all killed in the 1847 slave raid that made Bonetta a captive. Shortly after her marriage, Sarah gave birth to a daughter and was granted permission by the Queen to name the child Victoria – the Queen also became her Godmother. There’s nothing like a photograph for reminding you about difference. There it is. It stares you ineradicably in the face Caroline Bressey, 'Of Africa's brightest ornaments: a short biography of Sarah Forbes Bonetta', Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2005
Born, orphaned and enslaved in West Africa, then sent to England, cared for by Queen Victoria and lauded as a high-society celebrity figure, the remarkable life of Sarah Forbes Bonetta (1843-1880) is one that often slips under the historical radar.
James Pinson Labulo Davies was born to James and Charlotte Davies in the village of Bathurst, Sierra Leone, then a British colony. His parents were recaptive Yoruba people liberated by the British West Africa Squadron from the Atlantic Slave Trade, and whose origins were in Abeokuta and Ogbomoso respectively. [1] Plaque commemorating Sarah Forbes Bonetta who was under the protection of Queen Victoria - BBC". Google Arts & Culture. Archived from the original on 18 April 2022 . Retrieved 7 October 2020. Davies was first married to Matilda Bonifacio Serrano, a Spanish lady from Havana, who died in 1860, nine months after their marriage. [7] [8] In August 1862, Davies married Sara Forbes Bonetta, a protégée of Queen Victoria. [9] Originally named Aina (also Ina), [10] she was enslaved following the raiding of her village in Okeadan and the death of her parents at the hands of Dahomean warriors, subsequently kept in King Ghezo of Dahomey's court. She was liberated by Captain Forbes of the Bonetta after a meeting with Ghezo. Sara died of tuberculosis in 1880, and Davies married Catherine Kofoworola Reffle in 1889. [8] [7] [11] Cocoa farming pioneer in West Africa [ edit ] In 1890 at the age of 27, Victoria marriedDr. John Randle, a Scottish-trained medical doctor who was also active in politics in Lagos, two hundred guests – including the governor of theLagos Colony– were in attendance at the wedding at St. Paul’s Church in Lagos. The service was officiated by the ReverendJames Johnson, the assistant bishop of Western Equatorial Africaand her wedding gown was given to her by the queen. Sara Forbes Bonetta died of tuberculosis on 15 August 1880 [2] 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. [19] The inscription on the obelisk reads: [2]
Smith, Robert (1 January 1979). The Lagos Consulate 1851–1861. Macmillan. p.27. ISBN 9780520037465.Collis, Rose (2010). The New Encyclopaedia of Brighton: (based on the original by Tim Carder) (1sted.). Brighton: Brighton & Hove Libraries. ISBN 978-0-9564664-0-2.
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