by Simon Lemieux
Queen Victoria’s statue
in Guildhall Square Portsmouth
As our current monarch approaches her Platinum Jubilee, an
unparalleled achievement, presiding over an ever more diverse realm, perhaps it
is time to cast an eye over the reign of our second longest serving queen? The
Victorian age is naturally intertwined with imperialism, colonisation and
attitudes about race (and a fair bit more besides), that are markedly different
to those of the 21st century. Though do remember that for the bulk
of her reign, Russia then as now was seen as a byword for autocracy and repression,
and there was also that war in the Crimea so not a hundred miles apart perhaps.
In addition, the issue of royalty and race reveals some interesting finds for
the student of history. The rest of this piece focuses on the African princess,
Omo’ba Aina and her link with Queen Victoria, regina et imperatrix, as
the inscription on the familiar statue below puts it.
The story of this orphaned African princess, taken under the wing of the Queen, who paid for her education and often invited her to Windsor Castle, is one less well known than it should be. The story begins with slavery but perhaps not as one might at first assume. One of the biggest misconceptions concerning Great Britain and the African slave trade, is to view it as an evil undertaken solely by White Europeans. In reality, it was more complex, slavery having existed in Africa centuries before Europeans arrived on the scene and took it to a whole new level of commercial exploitation and diasporian horror. The following background to her early life adapted from the Black History Month website, outlines how this young African child came to the attention of Queen Victoria.
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| A lithograph of Sarah Forbes Bonetta Davies, after a drawing by Frederick E. Forbes, from his 1851 book Dahomey and the Dahomans’ |
Omo’ba Aina was from the Yoruba tribe in West Africa and was
captured by the King of Dahomey in 1848 during a “slave-hunt” war in which her
parents were killed. Incidentally, the kingdom of Dahomey based in modern day Benin,
was one of the best known and most powerful African kingdoms; highly
militarised it was a major supplier of slaves to European traders. It was
eventually conquered and colonised by the French in 1904. But to return to the
story….in 1850, when she was around eight years old, she was rescued by Captain
Frederick Forbes of the Royal Navy whilst he was visiting Dahomey as an
emissary of the British Government. Forbes convinced King Ghezo of Dahomey to
give Sarah to Queen Victoria saying: “She would be a present from the King of
the Blacks to the Queen of the Whites.” She was subsequently given the name
Forbes as well as that of his ship, the ‘Bonetta’.
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The Queen retained a keen interest in her welfare and progress and was so impressed by the girl’s natural regal manner and her gift for academic studies, that she gave her an allowance and Sarah became a regular visitor to Windsor Castle. Sarah’s genius became admired throughout the royal court, and she continued to impress her tutors with her academic ability. Perhaps in that way, she did her bit to chip away at the racial stereotypes that so often viewed Blacks as either savages or simpletons. She was invited as a guest to the wedding in 1858 of the Queen’s eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, a mark perhaps of the affection and esteem in which she was held by her regal godparent.
A formal wedding photo
of Sarah and James
By the late 1850s, Sarah had moved to the fashionable resort
of Brighton, and was placed in the care of an elderly lady called Miss Sophia
Welsh who had experienced life in India. The aim appears to have been to
introduce Sarah into what was quaintly called ‘polite society’. This appears to have worked since at the age
of 18, Sarah received a marriage proposal which she eventually accepted, from
James Pinson Labulo Davies, a 31 year old Yoruba businessman of considerable
wealth made from shipping and palm-oil, who was then visiting Britain.
Queen Victoria allowed Sarah to be married in St Nicholas
Church in Brighton in August 1862. The wedding party, arrived in ten carriages
and was made up of “White ladies with African gentlemen, and African ladies
with White gentlemen” There were sixteen bridesmaids and it was clearly a
lavish affair. The wedding was widely reported and commented upon at the time.
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| St Nicholas Church Brighton where the wedding took place |
The newlyweds moved back to West Africa. They settled in Lagos where her husband became a member of the Legislative Council from 1872-74, though he then fell heavily into debt as his business faltered. 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. Sarah subsequently visited the Queen in 1867 with her daughter then returned to Lagos and had two more children. Throughout her life Sarah had a long lasting cough that was caused by the climate change between Africa and Britain. In 1880, suffering from tuberculosis, she went to convalesce in Madeira. She died, aged 37, in 1880 and was buried in Funchal, Madeira.
Sarah’s grave
in the British Cemetery
in Madeira
Upon Sarah’s death, the Queen wrote in her diary: “Saw poor
Victoria Davies, my black godchild, who learnt this morning of the death of her
dear mother”. Victoria was given an
annuity by the Queen, and she continued to visit the royal household throughout
her life. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies college, the fees paid by the
palace.
So, what to make of this story? Well, it certainly reminds
us that Black people at least from the right social class, could be accepted in
society, in part at least too on their own merit and not merely as objects of
curiosity or novelty. The queen certainly had a genuine liking for her, and her
descriptions of Sarah in her letters are caring and concerned, devoid of racist
assumptions and terminology. Equally, there are disturbing dimensions to this
tale. The whole notion of terming children as ‘gifts’ and giving them European
names for example, and the stereotypes about race and climate strike us as both
absurd and wrong. Would an inter-racial marriage by Sarah have been met with
equal approval? But perhaps most poignantly, what we know about Sarah comes
from the writings of others, Queen Victoria herself, Captain Forbes and
newspapers of the time. What would Sarah herself had said about her traumatic
early years being violently orphaned, her dual identity in Africa and England,
and her encounters with royalty and high society? It is the absence of her own
words and recollections, that is the sad gap in the story; sadly she was not
alone.
If you want to take the story further…..
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/osborne/history-and-stories/sarah-forbes-bonetta/
https://web.archive.org/web/20030508111257/http://www.black-history.org.uk/bonetta.asp
Fun Fact: Omo'ba means 'King's child' in Yoruba.
ReplyDeleteVery good article
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