The life of James Pinson Labulo Davies : a colossus of Victorian Lagos

Product Information

She returned to England with Forbes who presented her to Queen Victoria, who in turn gave her over to the Church Missionary Society to be educated. Sarah suffered from fragile health and in 1851 she returned to Africa to attend the Female Institution in Freetown, Sierra Leone. When she was 12 years old, Queen Victoria commanded that Sarah return to England, where she was placed under the charge of Mr and Mrs Schon at Chatham. I love to move, to leap, to float …well, just let the spirit seize me at the sound of drums or music.’ Queen Victoria was so impressed by the girl’s natural regal manner and her gift for academic studies, Literature, Art and Music that she gave her an allowance for her welfare and Sarah became a regular visitor to Windsor Castle. Sarah’s genius became admired throughout the royal court and she continued to outshine her tutors with her advanced abilities in all studies.

Her marriage eventually fell apart in 1909; she lived in exile with the children thereafter, first in the United Kingdom and then in Sierra Leone, only returning to Lagos in 1917. Transported to England, Sarah lived at first with Captain Forbes’s family. On 9 November, she was taken to Windsor Castle and received by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Queen was so impressed with Sarah that she paid for her education and met with her on several occasions, even writing about her in her journal. 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] At the meeting, some slaves were about to be executed for religious rituals. One of them was Aina, a seven-year-old girl whose parents had been killed, a year before in 1848, by Ghezo’s army when they invaded their village, Oke-Odan in Egbado and took her as a slave. Forbes did everything in his power to persuade Ghezo to release the little girl to him. But the adamant king refused.

2. She was liberated from slavery by a British Captain

Caroline Bressey, 'Of Africa's brightest ornaments: a short biography of Sarah Forbes Bonetta', Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2005

It is suggested that Sarah did, however, visit Windsor regularly, upon invitation, and the Queen mentions seeing her once or twice in her journals, as well as Sarah's daughter Victoria who was the Queen's godchild." Rappaport emphasizes this point, and for good reason, as it is often misreported that Sarah was Queen Victoria's godchild, rather than Sarah's daughter, Victoria. "Sarah is said to have formed a friendship with Princess Alice, the queen's second daughter, but sadly there are no surviving letters or documents to confirm this. I personally would have so liked to prove this was the case."Being invited to meet the Queen was the highest honour a visitor could receive in 19th-century England. Crowther was invited to Windsor Castle with Lord Russell on November 18, 1851, when he met Prince Albert and his wife, Queen Victoria. Ajayi described his enslavement, the atrocities he endured, and the state of slavery in Lagos as of 1851. L. C. Gwam (1967). Great Nigerians: First Series. 1. Times Press. p. 40 . https://books.google.com/?id=5rsMAQAAIAAJ&q=Catherine+Kofoworola+Raffle&dq=Catherine+Kofoworola+Raffle. Forbes Bonetta's life and story formed the basis for the novel Breaking the Maafa Chain by Anni Domingo, published by Jacaranda Books in 2021. 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.

Born in 1843 in Oke-Odan, an Egbado Yoruba village in West Africa, Bonetta was originally named Aina (or Ina). Her village had recently become independent from the Oyo Empire (modern-day southwestern Nigeria) after its collapse.Elebute, Adeyemo (2013). The Life of James Pinson Labulo Davies: A Colossus of Victorian Lagos. Kachifo Limited/Prestige. p. 9. ISBN 9789785205763. Lawrence, Andrew G.; Afe Adogame (29 September 2014). Africa in Scotland, Scotland in Africa: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Hybridities. p.123. ISBN 978-9-00-4276-9-01 . Retrieved 4 February 2015. Olukoju, Akyeampong, Bates, Nunn, & Robinson. Africa's Development in Historical Perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2014. pp. 218–219. ISBN 9781139992695. Elebute, Adeyemo (2013). The Life of James Pinson Labulo Davies: A Colossus of Victorian Lagos. Kachifo Limited/Prestige. p. 1. ISBN 9789785205763.