The Queen's Goddaughter

tied to it. It's basically an episode of Noble Blood, except times longer made up and you have to read words on a page unless you get the audio book. But it would mean the world to me if you're interested or you're a fan of this podcast, if you went to your local indie bookstore and picked up a copy. And as always, thank you so much for listening to the show, and for your support on the Patreon and

everything you do to make the show happen. It was eighteen fifty and Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was holding court at Windsor Palace, waiting to receive a very special guest, a young girl who was arriving by boat from the western coast of Africa. Victoria had been queen for thirteen years by this point, and though she was only thirty one years old, she was already mother to seven children, all seven of which

were born without anesthesia for the record. Chloroform would be introduced for her eighth child's birth in eighteen fifty three, and she would finally experience such a relief that she would go on to have a ninth child. As a young female monarch, a mother and wife, Victoria represented a new era for the British Empire, an age that was

celebrated as civility Incarnate. Her reign began just a few years after Parliament banned slavery throughout the Empire, a further expansion of the law prohibiting the slave trade that they

had passed a few decades earlier. Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, was an outspoken opponent of slavery, and so the early years of Queen Victoria's reign were an optimistic moment for Great Britain, one of self satisfied idealism and notions of their own enlightenment, especially when British citizens could compare themselves

to the Americans across the Atlantic. In America, eighteen fifty was the year that Congress passed the Second Fugitive Slave Act, a cruel and draconian law that allowed the seizure and return of enslaved people even after they had arrived in a free territory a northern state where slavery would be illegal.

This new law would allow some to capture anyone they might suspect of being a runaway slave and bring them in front of local officials, who were deputized to decide, without a jury trial, the status of whether or not that kidnapped person was or was not the property of the white person who claimed them. Eighteen fifty was the year Harriet Beecher Stowe would begin writing her best selling novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, of which he would send a copy to the Royal Palace, writing a letter to Prince

Albert raising his abolitionist sensibilities. Queen Victoria was such a fan of Stow, and she found herself so emotionally affected by her book that the Queen would eventually flout diplomatic protocol in order to meet her. But the larger issues of race in Victorian Britain were more complicated and nuanced than it might appear from the incredibly belated and self congratulatory progress made to free the people throughout the realm whom they had enslaved in the first place. In eighteen

seventy seven, Victoria would become Empress of India. She would be the face used to legitimize colonialism under the guise of civility, the woman who would be known globally as the Great White Queen. In the words of historian David la Sauga in his book Black and British Are Forgotten History,

Victoria was a quote cipher for British power. Colonialism was framed as expanding the gift of quote unquote civilization and Christianity, and by the middle of the eighteen hundreds, those in power in Great Britain were eager to justify their own efforts to other nations around the world, but also to themselves. To that end, success stories were needed, narratives that fueled

into their preconceived notions of their own virtue. We brings us to Queen Victoria's special visitor at Windsor Castle November nine, eighteen fifty. It was a young girl seven or eight years old, taking small steps in the large echoing hallway. She was taught what to do when she reached the Queen, which was to dip into a low curtsey. After she rose, the young girl looked over her shoulder at the man who had brought her here, a captain named Frederick E. Forbes.

The young girl was black. Captain Forbes had quote unquote rescued her from where she was enslaved in the palace of the African Kingdom of Daomi and presented as a gift to the English Captain. Forbes baptized her with the name Sarah Forbes Bonetta Forbes after himself, and Bonetta her surname after the boat on which they sailed back to England together. During the voyage, Sarah learned English, astonishing Captain

Forbes and the crew with how intelligent she was. He wrote to Queen Victoria to let her know about the unexpected passenger joining them on the return trip, and to his surprise, word came from Queen Victoria that she intended to adopt and care for the girl to act as her godmother. A November ninth Sarah Forbes Bonetta met her royal godmother in person for the first time. Queen Victoria, who famously stood only five feet tall, was probably about the same size as her. Even still, we can't imagine

how terrified Sarah Banetta must have been. Here was a girl whose life had been destroyed, whose family had been murdered by a rival kingdom, who was captured and enslaved, only to be handed off like dry goods to a stranger. Baptized in a new RelA jen forced to learn a new language as quickly as she could so that she could be presented to the most powerful woman in the world for her approval. Sarah Bonetta, whom the Queen would soon nickname Sally, would spend the rest of her life

as a fixture of royal courtly life. She would be a regular guest at palaces around England. She would attend royal events and have her education fully funded. Her children would also be god children of the Queen, and her grandchildren would continue to benefit from Victoria financially for their entire lives. That relationship, the story of the black, formerly enslaved girl being effectively adopted by Queen Victoria, is why Sarah Forbes Banetta is famous and why we know her

story today. In her book Infamous Bodies author Samantha Pinto writes, quote, Bonetta's proximity to the sovereign gave her access to the emerging mass media technologies that appended royalty, and also gave her and us access to her image via the Royal Archive. End quote. We have photos of Sarah Bonetta because she

had access to the famous photographers of the day. There are newspaper articles about her that we can read, because she was considered a curiosity, a Cinderella story to modern audiences. Her photographs, in which Bonetta is wearing elaborate Victorian dress are sometimes paraded out under clickbait headlines akin to Wow, You'll never believe who this woman's godmother was, akin to that, or,

in the case of BuzzFeed, exactly like that. As Samantha Pinto writes, quote, these fashions and this era have been so associated with whiteness that their encounter with Bonetta's flesh pique's immediate contemporary interest. As if Bonetta's skin and the fashion are so in hungry with in their proximity that

the image demands explanation and explication end quote. It reminds me a little bit of an episode of Doctor Who, in which The Doctor played by Peter Capaldi, at this point visits regency era England to see the freezing of the Thames. His new companion Bill remarks that the London population is quote a bit more black than they show in the movies. The Doctor responds, so was Jesus. History

is a whitewash. In recent years, there's been an effort by the British public to draw more attention to Seravonetta's life. The British Heritage commissioned a portrait of her by the artist Hannah Ozar, one of a series of quote previously overlooked black figures from British history. But Sarah's fame is a complicated paradox. In a way, the very reason Sarah is famous, and the reason we have information and about her life is because of her forced participation in a

power structure that absorbed her individual agency. We know almost nothing about who she actually was as a person. Samantha Pinto continued to write, quote, Vanetta is a uniquely blank canvas of black agency, as she doesn't offer any significant text or performance. Instead, she persists almost entirely through the images of her card to visit a photographs as well as in some letters, histories and news report where it is her unlikely proximity to British Royalty that marks her

as of public interest end quote. All we can do now is squint and look at the photographs of the beautiful girl in the giant Victorian dress, and remember that before she was a symbol, she was a real person. I'm Danish Wartz and this is noble blood. For about three hundred years, beginning in the sixteen hundreds, Daomi was an African kingdom that existed on the western coast of

Africa within present day Benin. Originally, Daomi was a tributary kingdom to the Oyo Empire, which extended through present day Nigeria, but Daomi eventually became an independent and conquering power. Their rise in power was thanks to a few factors. An incredibly brutal expansionist approach to conquering neighboring kingdoms, a disciplined military which included an all female unit, and finally, and perhaps most importantly, a willingness to engage with the Atlantic

slave trade. The Daomi Kingdom was one of the largest suppliers of the Atlantic slave trade, selling prisoners of war for money and advanced weaponry that allowed them to further dominate surrounding kingdoms and continue the cycle all over again.

Military discipline and brutality was also on display during an annual ritual called the Customs of Daomi, which began around seventeen thirty and involved parades, the exchanging of gifts and tributes, and finally, the beheading of hundreds of prisoners of war as human sacrifices. The name for the ceremony in the

Fond language Uenteno, translates to yearly head business. It was meant to be a massive display of strength, a strength that was only possible thanks to the arrival of Western European powers who wanted to purchase human beings and enslave them. The girl that would eventually come to be known as Sarah Forbes Vanetta was captured by Doaomi troops in eighteen forty eight during a slave hunt in which the soldiers burned her village, okay Odin in Yarhuba to the ground

and murdered her siblings and parents. Prints Sarah was captured, but rather than being sold to Europeans, she was brought to the Daomi palace to serve King Gezo. The reigning monarch at the time. Historians speculate that Sarah might have been noble born because she was brought to the palace instead of being sold or killed, but we don't know

for sure. However, by the time that she arrived in England and her story became well known throughout Great Britain, she was mythologized to the point where people would refer to her as an African princess or the daughter of a chief. But we don't know that for sure. We can only speculate, just like we don't know Sarah Forbes Vanetta's real name, the name she was born with and

used for the first seven years of her life. Some historians speculate that her birth name was Aina or some variation on it, sometimes spelled A I N A, because later that name appears on her marriage license. Her marriage certificate is the one piece of writing we have in her own handwriting the words Ainah Sarah Forbes Bonetta. For clarity's sake, I'll continue to refer to her as Sarah because that's the name by which she's most commonly referenced.

A few years after Sarah was taken by the Daomi soldiers to King Gezo's palace, a British captain arrived in Daomi. Captain Frederick E. Forbes was a naval captain of the West African Squadron or w A S, which was a collection of ships patrolling the western coast of Africa with

the goal of stopping the slave trade. England had abolished the slave trade in eighteen o seven and then went on to abolish slavery in its colonies in eighteen thirty three, but the slave trade still continued from France and Spain, and of course the slave trade continued to the United States. It actually be King Gezo's son, the next King of Diaomi, who would go on to oversee the trade of the last ever, by then a legal ship of enslaved African

people bound for America. According to Captain Forbes's account, King Gezo was a uniquely harsh leader. Forbes referred to him as an African nero. We also get a drawing from the captain of what the king looked like. In the drawing, King Gezo has a thin Gomez Adam style mustache. He wears a one shoulder robe in bright, astonishingly bright blue that looks like a cross between a French king's robe and a toga. His wide brimmed hat is edged with tassels.

Captain Forbes was part of the British movement to eliminate the slave trade globally, which required negotiations with their neighboring European countries as well as making treaties with Africa nations. The captain was in Daomi with the purpose of getting the king to agree to no longer sell enslaved prisoners and to instead begin to engage more heavily in palm

oil trading. At this point, the selling of enslaved people was King Gezo's kingdom's primary source of income, and so while he greeted Captain Forbes with respect, he denied his request to eliminate the supply of slaves. It was already

the bedrock of his kingdom's economy. But even unsuccessful diplomatic missions engage in the appropriate rituals of politeness, and so as gifts to Captain Forbes to pass along to his sovereign Queen Victoria, King Gezo gifted quote a rich country cloth, a captive girl, a kabusiers stool, ten heads of coweries, and one keg of rum. Did you catch that second thing listed there. A small captive girl was given to Captain Forbes so that he might pass her along to

Queen Victoria as a gift. Forbes writes that, as abhorrent as he believed slavery to be, he feared rejecting the gift because Daomi culture commonly involved ritual sacrifice. It's also possible that he saw the young girl enslaved in the palace and bargained for her so that he could quote

unquote rescue her. Either way, the young girl accompanied Captain Forbes back to his ship, the h M. S. Bonetta, and he christened her with the name that she would use for the rest of her life, Sarah Forbes Bonetta. Almost immediately, young Sarah surprised the crew with how quickly she learned English. Forbes would later write, quote for her age, she is a perfect genius. She now speaks English well

and has a great talent for music. She has won the affections with but few exceptions of all who have known her by her docile and amiable conduct, which nothing can exceed. But for all of his fairly condescending benevolence towards his new ward there was also a slightly nefarious edge to Forbes's interest in her from the moment that Sarah joined the crew on the Vanetta, she was a specimen.

With that in mind, the rest of Captain Forbes's quote continues quote, she is far in advance of any white child of her age in aptness of learning, and strength of mind and affection, and with her being an excellent specimen of the Negro race, might test the capability of the intellect of the Black it being generally and erroneously supposed that after a certain age the intellect becomes impaired and the pursuit of knowledge impossible, that though the Negro

child may be clever, the adult will be dull and stupid. Her head is considered so excellent a phrenological specimen, and illustrating such high intellect, that M. Pistrucci, the medalist to

the Mint, has undertaken a bust of her. As Olasoga writes in Black and British Quote, Victoria ruled over an empire that, in the latter decades of the nineteenth century was increasingly influenced by racial thinking and new quote unquote scientific racial theories, and Victoria, like most Victorians thought in terms of racial types, and may well have believed to some extent that the races of mankind possessed innate inner

characteristics end quote. Almost as soon as Sarah arrived in London, she was brought to Windsor Palace to meet the Queen, her new godmother, who remarked that the girl spoke perfect English and was quote dressed as any other the girl, presumably meaning Victorian dress. As the girl's godmother, Queen Victoria was determined to arrange for Sarah's education. For the next few months, Sarah was educated and cared for by a woman named Mrs Phipps, who would periodically bring the girl

to see Queen Victoria. In one of the Queen's diary entries, she wrote, after luncheon, Sarah Bonita, the little African girl, came with Mrs Phipps and showed me some of her work. This is the fourth time I have seen the poor child, who is really an intelligent thing. But the English climate didn't agree with Sarah, or at least that's what people believed when she became withdrawn and melancholy with a deep cough.

To get her to a more amiable climate, Sarah was sent to the church missionary Society School in Freetown, Sierra Leone, a British colony. The British at the time viewed Sierra Leone as a toe hold for bringing Aristianity into Africa. The hope was that the Africans educated at the missionary school would continue east, building missionary momentum and eventually helping the anti slave trade movement. Many of the other students at the school were liberated from intercepted slave ships, or

they were the children of those who were rescued. While Sarah was studying in Sierra Leone's favorable climate, Queen Victoria continued to send along books and little gifts, and allegedly it was Sarah's own unhappiness that prompted the Queen to bring her back to England after four years abroad. Now twelve years old, Sarah was put under the care of two former missionaries who had served in Africa, Mr. And

Mrs Shown, who lived in Kent. Sarah studied with them, learning English and French, alongside their daughter Annie, who became a friend of hers. All the while her godmother kept an active presence in her life. A any Shown wrote Queen Victoria gave constant proofs of her kindly interest in Sarah.

At the Midsummer and Christmas seasons, she often went either to Windsor or Osborne to stay in the family of one of the officers of her Majesty's household, and was frequently sent for by the Queen to see her privately. But being in the royal orbit with its privileges, also has its costs, the sacrifices that people, but especially women,

were forced to make to exist in high society. In January eighteen sixty two, the Queen's daughter, Princess Alice fulfilled her duty of marrying one of the royal princes of Europe, Louis of Hesse, who was scoped out for her by her older sister, The Queen's eldest daughter, Victoria. Sarah Bonetta attended the royal wedding, and later that year the Queen

would compel Sarah to get married herself. Sarah was taken away from the Shawns, not by her own choice, and forced to move to a miserable house in Brighton with two elderly ladies, with the stated purpose of them preparing Sarah to enter British high society. It was while Sarah was living in Brighton miserable and far from the people

who loved her. That she received a proposal by a man named James Pinson Lubulo Davies, who was a relatively wealthy Eurobo businessman thirty one years old living in Britain. James Davies was the son of parents who had been freed by the British from a slave ship, and like Sarah, he had been educated at the missionary school in Sierra Leone. Sarah, eighteen years old, had very little interest in marrying him.

In a letter to her former guardian, Mrs Shown, Sarah wrote, quote, others would say he is a good man, and though you don't care about him now, will soon learn to love him. That I believe I never or could do. I know that the generality of people would say, he is rich, and you're marrying him, would at once make you independent? And I say, am I to barter my peace of mind for money? No? Never. But Queen Victoria

had made up her mind. She thought it was a wonderful, convenient, and altogether prudent match, and so Queen Victoria granted her permission for the marriage, which meant that in effect, she issued an order. The wedding itself was a spectacle which began with a promenade of ten horse drawn carriages arriving at the St. Nicholas Church in Brighton. Sarah Bonetta had sixteen bridesmaids, twelve of whom were white and four were black.

I think the best way to describe what the event was like is through the lens of how it was reported at the time. This article, originally from the Brighton News, was published in the Daily News on August fo eighteen

sixty two. The headline is interesting marriage in Brighton. I'm quoting directly now quote this morning, a marriage is to be performed at the Parish Church, Brighton to unite a lady and gentleman of color whose previous history gives to the ceremony a peculiar interest, chiefly to those who have been so long and so deeply interested in the African race, and who have watched the progress of civilization caused by the influence of Christianity on the Negro and the ceremony

will also tell our brethren on the other side of the Atlantic that British ladies and gentlemen consider it a pleasure and a privilege to do honor those of the African race who have proved themselves capable of appreciating the advantages of a liberal education. Several things I want to point out about that framing, but first is that the newspaper has not yet mentioned Sarah Bonetta's name. The reference to brethren across the Atlantic is of course a dig

at the United States. The newspaper article continues, quote, the lady supposed to be an African chieftain's daughter was presented when about the age of five years to the late Captain Frederick Forbes. The next paragraph features a long excerpt from a book that Forbes wrote about his experience in Daomi, in which he says that the girl he met was

about eight years old the very next paragraph. It's also worth noting that this is a point where the mythology of Sarah being a chieftain's daughter is deeply embedded in the public consciousness. A few weeks after their marriage, the newlyweds had their portrait taken by Comis Sylvie, a photographer

to the rich and famous. Sylvie, still in his twenties at this time, had photographed almost the entirety of the British royal family, with the exclusion of the Queen, Sarah and Aimes getting their photograph taken was a clear status symbol. Thanks to Sarah's royal benefactor, they had arrived in the

upper echelon of British society. The two eventually moved to Lagos, where James worked with middling success as a shipping merchant, and where Sarah would give birth to her first child, a daughter, whom she named Victoria, with the Queen's permission. Of course, the Queen was the baby Victoria's godmother as well, and as a gift she sent the infant a gold cup, tea tray and a knife, fork and spoon. The cup was inscribed to Victoria Davies from her godmother Victoria, Queen

of Great Britain in Ireland eighteen sixty three. Sarah and James would have two more children in relatively quick succession, and Sarah periodically returned to England to visit the Queen and to show the Queen her namesake children. But by the mid eighteen seven and these Sarah was suffering from tuberculosis, and no doubt her condition wasn't helped by the stress of her husband's failing business, which by this point was

twenty thousand pounds in debt. It was thought, for the second time in her life, that a gentler climate would help Sarah's health, and so she was moved to Madeira, the island region off the coast of Portugal. In eighteen eighty, at only thirty seven years old, Sarah Forbes Banetta died. Her daughter Victoria, was en route to visit her godmother, Queen Victoria when she heard the news of her mother's death.

Queen Victoria received her at Osborne House and wrote in her diary, my black god child was dreadfully upset and distressed. Her father had failed in business, which aggravated her poor mother's illness. I shall give her an annuity. Sarah Forbes Panetta was buried on Madeira, but back in Laga, her husband erected an obelisk in her honor. It's a small, permanent stone reminder of a woman who was thrust across the sea, forced to live a new life, and who

died too young. It's strange to try to unravel the legacy of Sarah Forbes Banetta when so much of her story has been told through the words of others. But there's one absolutely fascinating modern figure with a direct tie to her. Sarah Forbes, Vanetta's great great granddaughter, was born in Nigeria. She graduated from the University of Lagos College of Medicine and worked as a resident at the Lagos

University Teaching Hospital. Her name was a Mayo Dadavo, and when she correctly recognized that a patient, a Liberian businessman, was exhibiting symptoms of ebola, she forced him into quarantine. Despite pressure from the Liberian ambassador, who wanted the patient discharge without the proper protective equipment a data vote, still

tried to isolate the patient and prevent widespread infection. She herself was infected and she died of the Ebola virus in two thousand and fourteen, but her quick thinking and brave actions saved countless lives. Later that year, after the Nigerian Ministry of Health set up an Ebola Emergency Operation Center, the World Health Organization declared Nigeria Ebola Free. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted

by Dana Schwartz. Executive producers include air Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble Blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M