English Heritage has commissioned portraits of forgotten black figures to hang in its properties, beginning with an African girl who was sold into slavery and became Queen Victoria’s goddaughter.
The portrait of Sarah Forbes Bonetta will go on display at Osborne, the Queen’s holiday home on the Isle of Wight.
Bonetta was born as Aina, daughter of a West African ruler, who was orphaned and captured by King Gezo of Dahomey (modern-day Benin)during the Okeadon War in 1848.
The following year, Gezo was visited by a Royal Navy officer, Captain Frederick Forbes. During negotiations, Gezo offered the then-five-year-old Aina as a diplomatic gift to Queen Victoria.
The little girl was re-named Sarah Forbes Bonetta – Bonetta was the name of Forbes’ ship – and taken back to England, where she became the Queen’s godchild. When she married and had children of her own, she named her first child Victoria.
There is no sold into anything there. Although there’s very definitely slavery. Except no wipipo are involved in her slavery anywhere. Purely and entirely a function of ructions among the indigenes of West Africa. All happening in West Africa too.
The confusion will stem, of course, from how can this be possible. For slavery is a wipipo sin, right?
There’ll be no ‘confusion’ because they aren’t ignorant, they are mendacious.
More akin to a desperate move to get black people into English history so we can have a black history month too. It’s all over the telly now too. Problem is there aren’t many blacks at all in English history, and the ones there are made little difference. They just didn’t figure on a national stage. Indeed, most people don’t. The Wokerati are looking for folks who were important who were secretly black and folks who were actually black who were somehow hard done by in the UK. It isn’t there, but they will find it.
” More akin to a desperate move to get black people into English history”
100% true Rhoda.
Did anyone else see ‘Alison Hammond: Back to School’ on ITV last night? I managed about 20 minutes before I got sick of the nonsense: evidently Henry VIII had a Sub-Saharan African who played the trumpet, therefore Africans are English! Also, Hannibal was black (he wasn’t) and they had a picture of him to prove it! Therefore: we wuz Romanz! Honestly the desperation was palpable; couldn’t take any more of the BS after that.
One certainly does get tired of this.
Of course, perhaps Gezo was tired of Aina. She’d take considerable time and effort to raise to a point where she’d have some real value, and he knew the whites made a fuss about slavery. So why not dump her on them, and pretend he was doing them a favour.
The renaming of the girl from her original to European names is a heinous crime of white privilege as was forcing her to live in a house and not a mud hut and offering her prepared food rather than allowing her to hunt for wild animals in Green Park.
You’re right BraveFart. Not only compelling the poor girl to appropriate a foreign culture, but horrid white culture as well.
So this King Gezo bloke,, was he the original geezer?
Bonetta was born as Aina, daughter of a West African ruler, who was orphaned and captured by King Gezo of Dahomey
Hmm, why do I feel there is a word missing in there somewhere? A word like “eaten”?
Julia +1
“Although there’s very definitely slavery.”
Be clearer Timmy.
There was definitely slavery in Dahomey. Some historians estimate a third of the population was enslaved.
There was definitely not slavery in the British Empire. It was abolished in 1834 and the West Africa fleet was working to intercept slavers from other nations, contrary to International Law.
Indeed, Lord Mansfield’s judgement (“positive law”) of 1772 could be interpreted as denying that slavery in England was ever legal.
“contrary to International Law”: yup, it was a brutish imposition of the values of a bunch of Quakers and Evangelical Anglicans on furriners. Shameful really.
‘English Heritage has commissioned portraits of forgotten black figures’
Will they use stereotypical black features? I.e., how do they know what ‘forgotten black figures’ looked like?
One can only conclude that English Heritage doesn’t like English heritage, and is trying to invent a different one.
It’s all right if you’re as woke as Madonna or Angelina but I see no evidence that Captain Forbes qualifies on that account.
Today’s Tel says that she didn’t become Victoria’s god-daughter, but that her daughter did. Which still makes a good yarn.