Talk:Sara Forbes Bonetta

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Military history: Biography / Maritime / African / British / European

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This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ESSAY AND A BIOGRAPHICAL PIECE?

I dont see why this "company" thinks thaT there is a difference between this piece and the one on Queen Elizabeth II?

The two are worlds apart in writing style. This had a lot of unsource material that read like "lore". QEII is a straight biographical piece that reads like it was professionally written. Akradecki 02:27, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edit

I've pared this down quite a bit, to only the material that I could find verification for. The rest can be restored if there are sources to support it. Given the dates when this happened, I highly doubt that there's sufficient historical records to provide a record of actual conversations of the tribal chiefs. Akradecki 02:09, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Move

I've moved the article per Wikipedia policy to the most common name. No sources hyphenate her name, she's not referred to as a Princess, and her name almost never includes Davis. Sara Forbes Bonetta is how all the refs refer to her, so it is the best name for this article. Akradecki 02:57, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Royal status

Given that, per every source I could find, little is known about her parentage, how was it established that she was a "Princess" (or whatever the equivalent would have been)? Surely the identity of her parents would be the integral factor in determining her status? From the narrative given, her parents died in the invasion of Oke-Odan, and she ended up in the court of Ghezo as a "young child slave", but from whom did these details come? English Heritage - https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/osborne/history-and-stories/sarah-forbes-bonetta/ - gives "The child, whose name was Omoba Aina, was from the Egbado (known today as Yewa) clan of the Yoruba people. She had been captured two years earlier when Gezo’s army attacked her village, Oke-Odan. Her parents were killed during the raid. It is not clear whether Gezo offered the child freely or whether Forbes bargained for her, but she clearly impressed him. Forbes believed that the fact that Gezo had held her for two years and not sold her to slave traders meant she was likely to be of high status. He also feared (with reason, as Gezo was known to sacrifice high-status captives) that she was destined to be offered as a human sacrifice." If Forbes's "belief", however plausible it might be, was the deciding factor in proclaiming the girl a "princess", it stands to reason that this might well not be based in actual fact. The fact that her name is given as "Omoba" Aina, indicating the status of "child of a monarch" per the Wikipedia article, is of course corroborative, but again, where did this fact come from? Did the five-year-old state this to be her name after her capture? Did Forbes, knowing/ learning the word "Omoba", add it to her given name to indicate what he believed to be her status? Are there no records of this royal (albeit in fact probably more accurately "chiefly" family) that would allow identification of her parentage/ ancestry?

Featured picture scheduled for POTD

Hello! This is to let editors know that File:James Pinson Labulo Davies and Sara Forbes Bonetta.jpg, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for October 1, 2025. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2025-10-01. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. Start of (the British) Black History Month If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.8% of all FPs.} 01:38, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Photograph of James Pinson Labulo Davies and Sara Forbes Bonetta around the time of their marriage.

Sara Forbes Bonetta, otherwise known as Sally Forbes Bonetta, (born Aina or Ina; c. 1843 – 15 August 1880), was ward and goddaughter of Queen Victoria. She was believed to have been a titled member of the Egbado clan of the Yoruba people in West Africa, who was orphaned during a war with the nearby Kingdom of Dahomey as a child, and was later enslaved by King Ghezo of Dahomey. She was given as a "gift" to Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the British Royal Navy and became a goddaughter of Queen Victoria.

She married Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy Lagos philanthropist. Davies was a lieutenant aboard HMS Bloodhound during the Bombardment of Lagos under the command of Commander Wilmot and Commodore Henry William Bruce and in which Oba Kosoko was ousted, resulting in the ascension of Oba Akitoye. He later pioneered cocoa farming in west Africa after obtaining the cocoa seeds from a Brazilian ship and also from the island of Fernando Po in 1879 and 1880.

Photograph credit: Camille Silvy; restored by Adam Cuerden

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