Sara Forbes Bonetta

Who was Sara Forbes Bonetta?

Sara Forbes Bonetta was a West African Egbado Omoba who was orphaned in inter-tribal warfare and subsequently captured by slave-raiders. Intended by her Dahomeyan captors to be a human sacrifice, she was rescued by Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the Royal Navy, who convinced King Ghezo of Dahomey to give her to Queen Victoria, "She would be a present from the King of the Blacks to the Queen of the Whites," Forbes wrote later. He named her Sara Forbes Bonetta, Bonetta after his ship the HMS Bonetta. Victoria was impressed by the young princess' exceptional intelligence, and had Sara raised as her goddaughter in the British middle class.

In 1851 Forbes Bonetta gained a long lasting cough, believed to be caused by the climate of Great Britain. She was sent to school in Africa in May of that year, at age eight, but was unhappy and returned to England in 1855 at the age of twelve. In January 1862 she was invited to and attended the wedding of the princess royal Victoria. She was later sanctioned by the Queen to marry Captain James Davies at St Nicholas' Church in Brighton in August, 1862, after a period which was to be spent in the town in preparation for the wedding.