Sarah Forbes Bonetta

Sarah Forbes Bonetta was born around 1843 into a Yoruba royal family in the Egbado region of present-day Nigeria, and originally bore the name Aina. Around 1848, her village was attacked by forces of the Kingdom of Dahomey, her parents were killed, and she was taken captive, held for a period at the Dahomeyan royal court where she was reportedly being held for eventual ritual sacrifice, a practice associated with certain Dahomeyan royal ceremonies of the period.

In 1850 British naval officer Captain Frederick Forbes negotiated her release from the Dahomeyan king as what was framed as a diplomatic 'gift' to Queen Victoria, intended to demonstrate opposition to Dahomey's continued involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, which Britain had formally abolished decades earlier and was actively working to suppress internationally. Forbes brought the young girl to Britain aboard his ship, renaming her Sarah Forbes Bonetta after himself and his vessel, the HMS Bonetta.

Queen Victoria personally received Sarah at Windsor Castle and, struck by the child's evident intelligence and composure, took a direct personal interest in her upbringing, eventually becoming her official godmother and providing for her education and maintenance throughout her childhood, an extraordinary and unusual relationship between the reigning British monarch and a formerly enslaved African child that placed Sarah in a genuinely singular position within Victorian British society.

Sarah was educated in England and later, at Queen Victoria's arrangement, at the Church Missionary Society's female institution in Freetown, Sierra Leone, receiving an education considered highly advanced for a woman of any background in this period. She returned to England in her late teens, continuing to make regular visits to the royal court and maintaining her close relationship with Queen Victoria throughout her life.

In 1862 Sarah married James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy Yoruba-British businessman and philanthropist based in Lagos, in a lavish wedding held in Brighton, England, that drew considerable public attention and press coverage. She continued corresponding with Queen Victoria and maintained her royal connection even after relocating to West Africa with her husband, and Queen Victoria became godmother to Sarah's first daughter as well, whom the couple named Victoria in the Queen's honour.

Sarah Forbes Bonetta Davies died in 1880 from tuberculosis while seeking treatment on Madeira, at a relatively young age, having lived an extraordinary life spanning capture and enslavement in West Africa, an unprecedented personal relationship with the British monarch, formal education in both England and Sierra Leone, and eventual return to prominent society in colonial Lagos. Her life has drawn increasing modern historical attention as a uniquely documented example of the complex, often contradictory relationships between African individuals, British colonial power, and abolitionist politics during the height of the Victorian era, and her story has been the subject of biographies and historical research examining this singular life.