Kind Victoria adopted an African girl
IT’S a little known fact that Queen Victoria actually adopted a 10th child, Sarah Forbes Bonetta Davies.
Sarah wasn’t just any child. The little princess was Yoruba royalty from Nigeria, before her parents were brutally killed during a military raid.
Aged just five, she was captured by the King of Dahomey in 1848 and destined for human sacrifice.
But the African orphan was then rescued by British naval officer Frederick Forbes, who was on a mission to end the slave trade among the Dahomans.
He convinced slave hunters to present young Sarah “as a gift” to Queen Victoria and took her back on his ship, the HMS Bonetta - hence her adoptive name.
The little-known story – which took Sarah from slavery to royalty – is featured in Victoria’s festive special on Christmas Day.
Sarah’s great-great grandson Arnold Awoonor-Gordon, who lives in Kent, said: “For an African slave to be taken on by the British royal family in the 19th century is remarkable.
“Sarah grew up with the Queen’s children around her and was treated just like a member of the Queen’s own family.
“Victoria was very kind to her – it was a relationship that was really ahead of its time.”
Arnold, 84, first discovered his amazing ancestry when he researched whether his great-grandma Emily’s stories of a family member being saved from the West African slave trade before being shipped to Buckingham Palace were true. A call he made to Windsor Palace 10 years ago confirmed it.
The retired broadcaster, originally from Sierra Leone, said: “Victoria was a pioneer at the time – she was fascinated by other cultures and very open-minded.
“Captain Forbes essentially saved Sarah’s life, rescuing her from years of slavery and even death.
“Sarah, who the queen called Sally, loved Victoria and even named her oldest daughter after her.”