The girl who crossed worlds
In 1850, a seven-year-old girl stood among prisoners marked for execution at the court of King Ghezo of Dahomey. She was a Yoruba princess from Oke-Odan, orphaned by Dahomey's warriors and brought to Abomey as a captive of war.
Two years later, she was Queen Victoria's goddaughter.
The story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta is one of the most extraordinary human narratives to emerge from the Dahomey kingdom. It connects the slave ports of West Africa to the drawing rooms of Victorian England, and it raises questions about rescue, identity, and belonging that still resonate today.
The capture
Sarah was born Aina (or Ina) around 1843 in the Yoruba town of Oke-Odan, in what is now southwestern Nigeria. Her parents were likely of royal lineage, connected to the ruling families of the region.
In 1848, King Ghezo's army swept into Oke-Odan. The kingdom of Dahomey was at war with the Egba and other Yoruba states, and Ghezo was expanding his slave-raiding operations. The assault was brutal. Aina's parents were killed. Many of the town's inhabitants were taken prisoner and marched to the coast, destined for the Atlantic slave trade.
But Aina was not sold. She was taken to Abomey, the Dahomey capital, where she was presented to King Ghezo himself. In the court of the most powerful king of Dahomey, she became a palace captive.
The rescue
In July 1850, Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the Royal Navy arrived in Dahomey on a diplomatic mission. Britain was pressuring Ghezo to end Dahomey's involvement in the slave trade, and Forbes was part of that effort.
During his visit, Forbes was permitted to attend the Annual Customs of Dahomey — the grand ceremonial event that included human sacrifices. There, among the captives designated for execution, he noticed a young girl. She was intelligent, composed, and terrified.
Forbes described her as "a perfect genius" and recognised that she would be killed if left behind. He asked King Ghezo for her. The king offered her to Forbes as a gift — a diplomatic gesture — with the understanding that she would be presented to Queen Victoria.
Forbes accepted. He later wrote that to refuse "would have been to have signed her death-warrant."
He renamed her Sarah Forbes Bonetta — "Sarah" after the ship's wife or a family name, "Forbes" after himself, and "Bonetta" after his vessel, HMS Bonetta.
The goddaughter of a queen
Sarah arrived in England in late 1850. She was presented to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle, and the Queen was immediately struck by her intelligence and bearing. Victoria wrote in her journal that the girl was "sharp and intelligent" and took a personal interest in her welfare.
Queen Victoria became Sarah's godmother — a relationship that was both spiritual and practical. The Queen paid for Sarah's education and ensured she was raised as a gentlewoman in the British middle class.
But the English climate proved harsh for a child from West Africa. Sarah developed a chronic cough, and her doctors feared tuberculosis. In 1851, she was sent to school in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where the climate was more familiar. She attended the Annie Walsh Memorial School, a mission school for African girls, and thrived.
She returned to England in 1855 at the age of 12 and was entrusted to the care of Reverend Frederick Schon and his wife in Gillingham, Kent. She continued her education in music, languages, and the arts. Queen Victoria received regular reports on her progress.
Sarah became a familiar figure at court. She attended the wedding of Princess Alice in 1862, seated among the royal guests. Victoria called her "Sally" in private correspondence.
A marriage commanded by the queen
In 1862, Queen Victoria decided that Sarah should marry. She selected Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy Yoruba merchant and naval officer from Sierra Leone. Davies was a man of considerable means and standing in the British colonial establishment.
Sarah was not entirely enthusiastic. She had hoped to continue her education and was uncertain about marriage to a man she barely knew. But the Queen commanded, and at 19 years old, Sarah married Davies at St Nicholas' Church in Brighton on August 14, 1862.
The wedding was a major social event, attended by British nobility and African dignitaries. Queen Victoria sent gifts and her personal blessing.
Life in lagos
After the wedding, the couple moved to Lagos, in what was then the British colony of Nigeria. Sarah returned to Africa — but to a different Africa than the one she had been taken from.
She adapted to her new life with characteristic intelligence. She worked as a teacher, serving as Acting Principal of the CMS Female Institution in Lagos in 1870. She maintained her relationship with Queen Victoria through regular correspondence, and the Queen's gifts and letters arrived by ship. Sarah and Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther were the only Lagos residents for whom the Royal Navy had standing orders to evacuate in case of an uprising.
She had three children:
- Victoria Davies (born 1863), named after Queen Victoria, who was her godmother
- Arthur Davies (born 1871)
- Stella Davies (born 1873)
Her eldest daughter Victoria later married Dr John Randle, a prominent Lagos physician. Her great-great-granddaughter, Ameyo Adadevoh, became famous in her own right: she was the Nigerian doctor who contained the 2014 Ebola outbreak by quarantining the index patient.
Death and legacy
Sarah Forbes Bonetta died of tuberculosis on August 15, 1880, in Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal. She was 36 or 37 years old. She had gone to Madeira hoping the climate would restore her health, but the disease that had troubled her since childhood finally claimed her.
She was buried in the British Cemetery of Funchal. Her husband erected a granite obelisk at Ijon, in western Lagos, in her memory.
What are we to make of her story? She was rescued from execution and given extraordinary opportunities. She was also separated from her culture, her name, and any possibility of returning to her original family. She was a princess, a goddaughter, a teacher, a mother, and a woman who navigated two worlds without fully belonging to either.
Her story is not a simple one. It is a Dahomey story, a British story, a Yoruba story, and a human story. And it reminds us that the kingdom of Dahomey reached farther than the Abomey plateau — its influence, and its captives, crossed oceans.
Explore further: King Ghezo — the king who captured Sarah and later ended the Dahomey slave trade · The Mino Amazons — the warriors of Ghezo's army · How Dahomey fell to France · Kingdom of Dahomey timeline · The slave trade and Dahomey
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Walk the palaces of the kingdom that shaped Sarah's story. Our complete travel guide covers Abomey, Ouidah, and the heritage of the Fon people.