When she was seven years old, Bayo Randle’s great-great-grandmother Sarah Forbes Bonetta was presented to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle as a “diplomatic gift” from an African king.
asserted
grandmother → present → king
Victoria would go on to pay for Bonetta’s education, approve her marriage to one of west Africa’s wealthiest men, and become godmother to her eldest daughter.
But while Victoria took a genuine interest in Bonetta’s welfare, making the orphan a royal protege and meeting with her over the years, their relationship was part of a bigger agenda.
asserted
relationship → go → agenda
Now, as a biography is published – Becoming Sarah Forbes Bonetta: A Yorùbá Woman in Queen Victoria’s Court – Randle has spoken of his family history.
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Randle → publish → history
“I don’t think a human being, who has agency, could be ‘gifted’ from one to another, but had she not been gifted to Queen Victoria, would I be here today?” said Randle, a British-Nigerian barrister from London.
uncertain
Randle → think → London
The new book, by a Canadian academic, Prof Henry Lovejoy, charts how Bonetta was brought to England by Frederick Forbes, of the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron, which was set up to enforce the abolition of the transatlantic trade.
asserted
which → chart → trade
Born in 1843 in Òkè-Òdàn, south-west Nigeria, Bonetta was originally called Àìná.
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Bonetta → bear → Òdàn
Her family was killed in 1848 when her town was attacked by King Ghezo of Dahomey’s forces.
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town → kill → forces
Bonetta, then five, is believed to have been captured by the agodjié – the all-female regiment depicted in the Hollywood movie The Woman King – and held at King Ghezo’s court.
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Bonetta → believe → court
In 1850, Forbes went to Dahomey – which is now Benin – to petition Ghezo to sign an anti-slavery treaty.
asserted
which → go → treaty
The mission failed but Forbes
asserted
mission → fail → ?
asked Ghezo if he could take Bonetta to England.
uncertain
he → ask → England
Bonetta would go on to live a life of renown, becoming one of the most artistically represented and widely reported African women of her time.
asserted
Bonetta → go → time
Lovejoy’s book describes how, before Forbes arrived in England with her – giving her his own name and that of his ship, the Bonetta – he petitioned for her to be “the property of the crown”.
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her → describe → crown
This meant Bonetta was “effectively indentured to Queen Victoria until age 19” under the post-abolition legal structures, Lovejoy said.
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Lovejoy → mean → structures
Bonetta was then married off to James Pinson Labulo Davies, a merchant and philanthropist, of whom she would write: “I don’t feel a particle of love for him.
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I → marry → him
Lovejoy’s research for the website liberatedafricans.org, developed with Kartikay Chadha, documents how, after abolition, more than 700,000 Africans “liberated” from enslavers were forced into indentures of up to 14 years “to pay for the cost of their own freedom” by governments including Britain’s.
asserted
Africans → develop → Britain
Lovejoy claims Bonetta was at the elite end of this bonded labour system, “educated to be a missionary who would Christianise Africa”.
uncertain
who → claim → Africa
In her lifetime her image was exploited as imperial iconography, promoting the idea that British colonialism of Africa was a “civilising mission”.
asserted
colonialism → exploit → Africa
Lovejoy, of the University of Colorado Boulder, said: “Sarah’s imagery was used to project the idea of the queen’s benevolence – at a time when ‘liberated’ Africans are being forced into indentures.”
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Africans → say → indentures
Nonetheless, when Bonetta attended the 1858 wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter, the Princess Royal, American abolitionists saw it as proof that Victoria, then the most powerful woman on Earth, believed in equality.
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Victoria → attend → equality
For Randle, a plaster bust of Bonetta sculpted in 1851 by Benedetto Pistrucci, the Royal Mint’s chief engraver, symbolises the story’s “duality”.
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bust → sculpt → duality
Randle saw it last year after Lovejoy had tracked it down to a private family collection in his research.
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Lovejoy → see → research
“Who gets to see what their great ancestor looked like as a child, the cultural markings on her face?
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ancestor → get → face
But at the same time it was a bust prepared for phrenological purposes, within a racist framework, where [Bonetta] was shown as an ‘excellent specimen’,” Randle said.
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Randle → prepare → specimen
Randle first learned his family history from his father, Adekunle Randle, a retired lawyer.
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Randle → learn → father
The family still has the engraved goblet and plate that Queen Victoria gave to Bonetta’s daughter, Victoria, who, with the queen’s help, was educated at Cheltenham ladies’ college.
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who → have → college
Lovejoy’s book challenges the myths that Bonetta was a Yoruba princess, that she herself was Queen Victoria’s goddaughter, and that she spent most of her life in England.
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she → challenge → England
Randle, 37, who maintains his family’s ancestral ties with Òkè-Òdàn, welcomes research into Bonetta, who was a gifted linguist, musician, travel writer, educator and leading woman in 19th-century Lagos, until her death from tuberculosis in Madeira in 1880, aged 37.
asserted
who → maintain → 1880
“Whether [Lovejoy’s] book is comfortable for me is beside the point,” Randle said.
asserted
Randle → say → point
“It’s for the advancement of knowledge and how we learn from the past.
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we → ’ → past
Where the real discomfort lies is in what [Bonetta] was the symbol of, what she was used for.
asserted
she → lie → what
“But it would be a mistake to paint her story as entirely tragic,” he added.
asserted
he → paint → story
“My great-great-grandmother was very capable, courageous and dignified through adversity – through the trauma of losing her family, being displaced, and changing like a chameleon to fit into a culture so alien from what she’d known, she thrived.
asserted
she → lose → what
The Aporia
