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Animaham, your animation destination.

0:50

Welcome to the History Tricks, where

0:52

any resemblance to a boring old history lesson

0:55

is purely coincidental.

1:01

Hello! When we last talked about Queen

1:03

Charlotte, we couldn't confirm

1:05

that she was a woman of color. But

1:08

we thought that for this week, we

1:10

would bring you the stories of two women

1:12

who were, and they lived

1:14

amongst aristocratic society

1:17

in Georgian and Victorian England.

1:19

We split up for this one. I'll start

1:21

with the story of Dido Elizabeth Bell and

1:24

Beckett will tell you the story about Sarah

1:26

Forbes Bonetta. A quick warning

1:28

for little ears. The second

1:30

subject in this episode

1:33

has a traumatic childhood, which

1:35

we can't really sanitize

1:38

effectively and still tell her story. So

1:41

this is your notification to listen

1:43

to especially the first section

1:46

of Sarah Forbes Bonetta before

1:48

you let anyone who is sensitive

1:51

or young or disinclined

1:53

to listen to a violent story hear

1:55

this audio. Okay? And on

1:57

with the show.

1:58

And here's your thirty- 30 second summary. A

2:02

mystery was afoot in the portrait of

2:05

two 18th century aristocratic

2:08

young ladies. The identity of one

2:10

of them was known, but who was

2:12

the other? This is the tale of that

2:15

mystery girl. She lived a life

2:17

of dual societal prejudices

2:19

of being both illegitimate and

2:22

a woman of color. The

2:24

end.

2:26

Let's talk about Dido Elizabeth

2:28

Bell. But first let's drop her into history.

2:31

In 1766, after less than

2:34

a year, British Parliament repealed the

2:36

Stamp Act after colonists in British

2:38

America

2:40

kind of objected. The first

2:42

patent was granted for a fairly

2:44

ineffective fire escape consisting

2:46

of a wicker basket, a chain, and

2:48

a pulley.

2:49

A hundred and twenty-one years later, a woman,

2:52

Anna Connolly, patented an iron-railed

2:55

bridge version that was much safer.

2:58

Saint Paul's Chapel, the oldest church

3:01

building in Manhattan, was built. Queen's

3:03

College in New Jersey was founded. Nearly 60

3:06

years later, it was renamed after a

3:08

Revolutionary War hero and

3:11

philanthropist, Colonel Henry

3:13

Rutgers. James Christie

3:15

opened Christie's auction house in London.

3:18

And Queen Charlotte gave birth to her fourth

3:20

of thirteen surviving children. It

3:23

was the first girl, who they named

3:25

Charlotte. Samuel Wesley,

3:28

a composer nicknamed the English Mozart,

3:30

Robert Bailey Thomas, creator

3:32

of the Farmer's Almanac, and James

3:35

Fortin, an African-American abolitionist

3:37

and philanthropist, were all born. King

3:40

Frederick V of Denmark-Norway

3:42

and Queen's Consort to fill up the

3:45

fifth of Spain, Queen Isabella, both

3:47

died. And in 1766,

3:50

a little mixed-race girl was baptized

3:53

and began her life as a member of a British

3:55

aristocratic family.

3:57

Dido Elizabeth Bell was born some sometime

4:01

in 1761. She was the only child of Captain

4:04

John Lindsay and a woman known to history

4:06

as Mariah or Maria

4:08

Bell. I know that's a bit vague. This

4:11

is one of those stories that kind of has to be pieced

4:13

together by the stories of the people around

4:16

her. As far as legal documentation

4:19

or anything in her own words goes,

4:21

there's very little to go on. I know.

4:24

Oh goody.

4:26

But let's start with Dido's father

4:28

because his life was well-documented. John

4:31

Lindsay was the second son of four

4:33

children of a Scottish baronet,

4:35

Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evilix

4:38

and Amelia Murray. John

4:40

Lindsay's mother Amelia was the daughter

4:43

of a Viscount and the sister

4:45

of William Murray, the first

4:47

Earl of Mansfield. He is

4:50

going to play a big role in this story

4:52

in a little bit, but just tuck him

4:54

away.

4:55

Amelia herself was one of 11 of

4:57

a aristocratic Scottish clan.

5:00

So it's safe to say that Dido's

5:02

father was born into a lofty place

5:04

in Great Britain. But despite

5:06

those fiscal and societal head starts

5:09

he had, John Lindsay was the second

5:11

son. And that

5:13

path doesn't have a title at the end of it. He's

5:15

going to have to work for a living. So after

5:17

his education, that work was

5:20

in the military. He was

5:22

the naval man, my dear.

5:24

John had joined the Navy during the seven

5:26

years war. We've talked about that many times

5:29

and fought off the coast of France. He was

5:31

promoted to the captain of a warship in

5:33

the West Indies. And

5:35

by 20 he was the captain of a

5:37

brand spanking new 28 gun

5:40

warship called the HMS Trent.

5:43

Now at the time these ships were built fairly

5:45

quickly and made of fur, which is

5:47

a lesser quality wood than oak, which

5:50

shipbuilders would prefer. But when you

5:52

need to build a ship fast to

5:54

go into battle and it might sink, you're

5:57

really not going to spend a whole lot of time on

5:59

it.

5:59

These ships at the time had a lifespan

6:02

of maybe 10 years if they

6:04

weren't shot full of holes.

6:06

During this time in his life and career,

6:08

Captain Lindsay was on the Trent, sailing between West

6:14

Africa, to Haiti and Cuba,

6:16

to British American colonies, and

6:19

then repeat. His job as the

6:21

captain of a naval ship was to protect

6:23

British trade ships from enemy

6:26

attacks and then if those ships did

6:28

attack, he was to capture them, stealing

6:31

their cargo. Now, I'm sure I don't

6:33

need to tell you this, but I'm going to. Some

6:36

of the ships that he was protecting were

6:38

slave traders. It was a very

6:41

big business and British slave traders

6:43

were very active at

6:45

this time. The ships that he was capturing

6:48

were French and Spanish and

6:51

maybe some Dutch, not just

6:53

any kind of trade ships, there were again

6:56

a lot of slave traderships.

6:59

And it was during this time that

7:01

he met an enslaved young teenage

7:04

girl named Mariah Bell.

7:06

How they met is one of those either

7:09

or stories. None of

7:11

the options are great. He

7:13

could have met her when she

7:15

was a slave at a sugar plantation in the

7:17

Caribbean. We've talked about being a

7:19

slave on a sugar plantation in the Caribbean before,

7:22

physically ruling, physically dangerous.

7:24

It was basically a death sentence. Sugar

7:27

was such a huge commodity, especially

7:30

in Great Britain, once all those British

7:32

people became addicted to the teas of the West

7:34

Indies.

7:35

There is another option. It has stronger legs

7:38

as far as I'm concerned. Captain

7:40

Lindsay captured a Spanish slave ship

7:42

and Mariah was one of the enslaved women

7:45

on board. Was she from Africa?

7:48

No one knew.

7:49

She was so very young,

7:52

maybe 14 at about

7:54

the time that they met. She

7:56

could even have been born in the Caribbean to

7:58

African parents.

8:00

Regardless of how they met, she

8:02

was still enslaved, and he was not.

8:05

So it was not an equal, loving,

8:07

romantic story at all.

8:10

At some point, early in this

8:12

relationship, Captain Lindsay and Mariah

8:14

created Dido.

8:16

It's believed that he took her aboard

8:19

the Trent to live, which is technically

8:21

not allowed, but in practice,

8:24

very common. Now remember, he's the captain

8:26

of this ship. He has his own quarters.

8:29

He can pretty much do whatever he wants.

8:32

You'll read some stories that have, you

8:35

know, they met and fell in love and created.

8:37

Well, those are just fairy tales as far as I'm

8:39

concerned. So any kind of cozy

8:41

domestic situation that might be going

8:43

on, I really think it's just a matter of her

8:46

trying to survive.

8:46

By all accounts, it seems

8:49

as though he treated her OK

8:51

and he did protect her from his crew. But

8:54

again, there is no equal partners

8:57

in this relationship whatsoever.

9:00

Exactly where Dido was born

9:02

is yet another mystery. Yes, there

9:04

are records of mixed race children

9:06

being born to British soldiers

9:09

or officers in the Caribbean. But

9:11

this is not one of those. There's no record

9:14

of her birth. Some accounts have her born

9:16

in the West Indies. Others have

9:18

her born aboard the Kent. Others

9:20

have her in London. It seems

9:23

highly likely that Mariah was only

9:25

about 15 years old. Captain

9:27

Lindsay at this point was about 24.

9:30

But what is definitely true

9:32

is that by British common law, because

9:34

Dido was born to an enslaved

9:36

woman, Dido was also

9:39

enslaved.

9:40

Now the name Dido, it seems kind of unusual

9:42

to us. It's not even in the top

9:44

two thousand names for all those years. The

9:47

names have been tracked in the 18th

9:49

century. It was still not fairly common,

9:52

but it was not unheard of to name,

9:54

usually to black enslaved children. The

9:56

name Dido is actually a mythological queen

9:59

and founder of. Carthage she

10:01

was later rebranded by the poet Virgil.

10:03

So actually Dido is a great name

10:06

I was kind of surprised that it wasn't anywhere

10:08

on the 2000 list I thought maybe we'd be down towards

10:10

the bottom maybe but no it's not anywhere on there

10:13

Now

10:13

she was not given the last name Lindsay

10:16

It would be one thing for Captain Lindsay

10:18

to financially care for Dido and

10:21

for Mariah It would be one thing

10:23

for him to verbally acknowledge that Dido

10:25

was his daughter two things that he actually did

10:28

I guess it must have been too far

10:30

of a leap across societal norms

10:33

for Captain Lindsay to actually give Dido

10:35

his Last name. We

10:37

do know that Captain Lindsay came back to London

10:39

and brought Dido with him It's believed

10:42

that he also brought Mariah with

10:44

him as well. She would have been nursing

10:46

the baby So that's the best way

10:49

to take care of her if he's wanting

10:51

to take care of his daughter Where

10:53

they lived nobody knows yet He

10:55

either supported them in his own

10:58

home or put them in a home

11:00

where Mariah would have been some type

11:02

of a servant We do know that a year

11:04

after Dido's birth He was involved

11:07

in a battle in Havana Cuba

11:10

with Spanish ships He valiantly

11:12

took command of another British ship when

11:14

its captain was killed in action and

11:16

for this battle as well as other acts

11:18

of Courageousness he was knighted

11:21

a couple of years later also in the

11:23

next few years Captain Lindsay

11:25

who is not married fathered four

11:27

more children with four more women

11:30

at least Three of them were

11:32

children of mixed race. So

11:35

in take that for what you will

11:37

Another option for where Mariah and

11:39

Dido were put up to

11:41

live is at Captain Lindsay's uncle's

11:44

house Now remember at the very beginning when

11:46

I talked about his uncle William Murray

11:48

at

11:48

this point in our story William

11:51

Murray is the Lord Chief Justice

11:54

of the King's Bench He is

11:56

at the tippity top of the legal

11:59

pyramid

11:59

Great Britain.

12:01

Regardless of where Dido lived for

12:03

the first five years of her life, she

12:05

finally enters a historical

12:07

record at the age of about five

12:10

when she was baptized. Yes,

12:12

a baptismal record! The baptismal

12:15

record reads Dido Elizabeth, daughter

12:17

of Belle and Mariah, his

12:20

wife, aged five years.

12:23

Okay, there's a couple things to unpack there,

12:25

but it was on November 20th, 1766. So

12:29

that's where we get the birth date for Dido.

12:32

Five years earlier would have been 1761.

12:34

So who's this

12:36

Belle that's listed as her father? Well, they

12:39

couldn't very well list Dido's actual

12:41

father. There's that societal line

12:43

that no one's going to cross. It's also

12:46

possible that Mariah did marry, but

12:48

a man simply named Belle? Most likely

12:52

the name Belle in the father slot was

12:54

a place filler.

12:55

Like they're standing there, they're going, Oh,

12:57

what name should we put? Um, just

12:59

put Belle. Our girl now

13:01

has a name, Dido Elizabeth Belle.

13:04

And Dido Elizabeth Belle went

13:07

to live permanently with Captain

13:09

Lindsay's uncle and aunt at their

13:12

estate called Kenwood.

13:15

So who are these relatives, this aunt

13:17

and uncle of Captain Lindsay's? Well, we've already

13:19

met Lord Mansfield and his wife,

13:22

Lady Mansfield, first countess

13:24

of Mansfield. She was called by

13:27

Lord Mansfield, Lady Betty,

13:29

like in correspondence, which I thought was very

13:32

adorable. And let's call her that

13:34

because there's another Elizabeth, which is her real

13:36

name in the story.

13:38

Both Lord Mansfield and Lady

13:40

Betty were in their sixties. They had

13:42

been married for close to 30 years.

13:45

They were pillars of society. They had

13:47

very progressive viewpoints and

13:49

they were childless. Now having

13:52

nieces and nephews be raised by family members

13:54

is very common during this era. We

13:57

were just talking about it in the Martha Washington episode

13:59

where George...

13:59

and Martha raised two of their grandchildren.

14:02

In this particular situation, they

14:05

helped raise one of their nephews.

14:07

His name was David Murray. He was

14:09

the heir to this Mansfield estate.

14:12

David Murray was a diplomat, an

14:14

English diplomat, who had married a Polish

14:17

aristocratic widow, definitely

14:19

for love.

14:20

Their daughter, whose name was Elizabeth Murray,

14:23

was born a year before Dido,

14:26

and then the family went to Vienna, where

14:28

David was an ambassador.

14:30

When Elizabeth was just six, her

14:33

mother, who was only 29 at the time, died. David was devastated.

14:38

He could not

14:40

raise this child on his own. So

14:42

David took Lady Elizabeth and dropped

14:44

her off at Uncle Lord Mansfield's

14:47

house, Kenwood, in the country-fied

14:49

outskirts of London to be raised.

14:52

So Elizabeth is now there

14:54

permanently, and Dido quickly

14:57

followed. Exactly

14:59

why Dido landed at Kenwood,

15:02

there's just speculation it could

15:04

originally and most likely was

15:06

to be a playmate for Lady Elizabeth.

15:09

You know, Lord and Lady Mansfield

15:11

loved children, so what's one

15:13

more? What is obvious,

15:16

though, is that Dido was not,

15:18

was not, brought to Kenwood

15:21

to train her up in a servant capacity.

15:24

She was brought in

15:25

as a member of the family.

15:27

And at this point, Captain

15:29

Lindsay and Mariah Bell pretty

15:31

much exit, stage left, heavens

15:34

to Murgatroyd.

15:36

Give me just a second and let's close out their

15:38

stories so we can skedaddle

15:40

out of Dido's life.

15:42

Captain Lindsay did some more heroic

15:44

things, managed to miss serving

15:46

in the American War of Independence. He

15:49

did get married to a noblewoman.

15:51

They did not have any children.

15:54

Captain Lindsay worked his way up the ranks,

15:56

eventually becoming Command-Aire-in-Chief

15:58

of the East Indies Station. then Commander-in-Chief

16:01

of the Mediterranean. He did welcome

16:04

King George III and Queen

16:06

Charlotte aboard one of his ships.

16:08

When he was 50, he was

16:10

promoted to Rear Admiral.

16:13

However, his health was taking a turn at this point.

16:15

Despite several trips to Bath to

16:18

take the waters and rest, he

16:20

died in 1788 at the age of 51.

16:23

He was buried in Westminster

16:25

Abbey with no marker.

16:28

At some point, Captain Lindsay gave

16:30

Mariah a hand up, and when Dido

16:32

was about 13 in 1744 and Mariah was about 28, he

16:39

gave her a plot of land

16:41

in Pensacola, Florida. On

16:43

the property record, Mariah stated

16:46

that she was widowed, that she had been enslaved,

16:48

that she had lived in London, and had

16:50

manumitted herself for 200 Spanish

16:53

dollars. And that is

16:55

where we're going to have to leave Mariah Bell

16:58

because she just drops out of history

17:00

at that point. So, let's get on our

17:02

time machine and go back. It's 1766.

17:06

Kenwood House outside of London. Beautiful,

17:09

rolling hills, wooded suburbs.

17:12

Dido and her second cousin, Elizabeth,

17:15

are raised by Lord and Lady Mansfield.

17:18

Lord Mansfield had not

17:20

been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

17:23

He was born into a cash-poor

17:25

Scottish noble family.

17:27

He was the fourth son, again, even

17:30

if there was money to hand down our title.

17:33

He wasn't the one that was going to get it. So,

17:35

at eight, his parents left him and her

17:37

brother to be educated at a school in

17:39

Scotland. And then as a teen, he

17:42

made his way from Scotland to

17:44

London over 400 miles to

17:47

attend Westminster School, where

17:49

he earned a scholarship.

17:51

And then he attended Christ Church College

17:53

in Oxford, where he actually said he was

17:55

from Bath, not Scotland.

17:58

He made enough contacts. a

18:00

nice enough guy, he knew people that helped

18:02

support him while he studied for the bar. And

18:05

then he became a lawyer and worked his way

18:07

up.

18:08

At the age of 50 in 1756,

18:10

so that would be five years

18:12

before Dido was born, he became

18:15

the Chief Justice President of

18:17

the Courts of England and Wales.

18:20

So yes, he is up at the top,

18:22

but he came from very humble

18:24

roots. So while he is a titled

18:27

noble, he knows the value of

18:29

working his way up. And he's probably

18:31

able to relate to Dido's situation in

18:33

a way that other people in the household can't. He

18:36

is not a traditional aristocrat,

18:39

although he is doing a fine job

18:41

of being one. Kenwood House is

18:43

stunning when he became Chief Justice.

18:46

He put a lot of money into their house. It

18:49

is a beautiful

18:50

mansion. It's still there. You can

18:52

still go visit it. And it was at Kenwood

18:54

that was Dido's home.

18:56

Now London itself had over 15,000

18:59

black people at this point in time.

19:02

They had a community, but she

19:04

was not raised as part of that community.

19:07

She was raised alongside Elizabeth. They were

19:09

educated together. And by all

19:12

accounts, both of them were

19:14

adored as if they were the daughters

19:16

of Lord Mansfield and Lady Betty.

19:19

When Dido was about 11 in 1774,

19:22

Uncle Lord Mansfield made a

19:25

pretty important decision

19:27

in abolitionist history.

19:29

Slavery was present at the time. Remember

19:31

those slave ships that Dido's

19:33

father was protecting? But there

19:35

really wasn't any laws for it or

19:38

against it. It was kind of a legal

19:41

gray area.

19:42

A case came before Lord Mansfield

19:45

called Somerset versus Stewart.

19:47

Basically, James Somerset was an enslaved

19:50

by Charles Stewart when they were in

19:52

Boston. Charles Stewart then

19:55

brought James back to England with him.

19:57

But when he did, James ran away. He

20:00

was captured, Stuart imprisoned

20:02

him, and was ready to send

20:04

him to Jamaica to be sold. But

20:07

in the time that James had come to

20:09

England, he had been baptized,

20:12

he had white British godparents,

20:14

and he had an abolitionist lawyer who was

20:17

looking for a case just like this

20:19

one who partitioned for James'

20:21

freedom.

20:22

The case worked its way up through the courts for

20:24

a couple of years and eventually landed

20:26

on Lord Mansfield's desk. The

20:29

argument was that yes, slavery

20:31

was legal in the colonies, but

20:34

by bringing James to England, where

20:36

neither English common law

20:38

nor parliamentary law recognized

20:41

slavery, it was therefore unlawful.

20:44

So in this, my

20:46

overly simplified version, Lord

20:48

Chief Justice Mansfield freed

20:51

James, saying that a master cannot

20:53

by force compel a slave to go

20:56

out of the kingdom. It didn't abolish

20:58

slavery, but it was a huge step

21:01

towards that and for human rights.

21:04

It was in this decision, in the judgment

21:06

for this case, that Lord Mansfield is

21:08

still often quoted describing

21:10

slavery as, quote, so odious

21:13

that nothing can be suffered to support it

21:15

but positive

21:16

law. Lord

21:18

Mansfield, however, would go on to spend

21:20

a lot of time pointing

21:23

out to people that this ruling

21:25

applied to this

21:27

one case only, no others.

21:31

Now today in 2023, scholars are

21:33

still arguing about the precedent

21:35

that this case set

21:37

and also argued to this

21:39

day was the answer to this question,

21:42

did Dido's influence on the family

21:44

affect Lord Mansfield's decision?

21:47

As Dido is raised,

21:49

she and Elizabeth are treated pretty

21:51

equally. If Elizabeth gets a

21:53

new dress, Dido gets a new dress. If Dido's

21:56

bedroom is redecorated with new curtains,

21:58

Elizabeth is also

21:59

getting new curtains. They have the same

22:02

tutors. They participate in the same

22:04

activities. Dido was a member

22:06

of the family,

22:07

but sometimes, especially

22:09

in 18th century British society,

22:12

all family members are not equal,

22:15

especially family members born

22:17

out of wedlock.

22:19

And, oh yes, also family members

22:22

of color in a white family. So

22:24

things kind of became muddy when people

22:26

visited Kenwood House.

22:28

There are a lot of accounts of people

22:30

visiting Kenwood House and mentioning

22:33

Dido. For instance, Dido

22:36

may have eaten all her

22:38

meals with the family when nobody

22:40

else was around, when they had no visitors.

22:42

But when company came,

22:45

she was not allowed to come to the table.

22:47

Sometimes, however, she would join the family

22:49

in the drawing room afterwards.

22:52

One visitor had described her as, quote,

22:55

a Negro girl about 10 years old

22:57

who had been six years in England and

22:59

not only spoke with articulation

23:02

and accent of a native, but repeated

23:05

some pieces of poetry with a degree

23:07

of elegance which would have been admired

23:10

in any English child of her years.

23:13

However, another frequent visitor

23:15

to Kenwood, one lady

23:18

Mary Hamilton, who had served

23:20

on Queen Charlotte's Court, she

23:22

talks in her diary of all

23:24

kinds of gossip spilling the tea about

23:26

all kinds of comings and goings at Kenwood and

23:29

never once mentions Dido.

23:32

Did she just not see her? Did Dido

23:35

avoid her? Was Dido visiting

23:37

someone else? It's as anything is

23:39

possible, but Lady Mary Hamilton never

23:41

mentioned her.

23:42

But then, Thomas Hutchinson, who

23:45

was a former Massachusetts colony governor,

23:47

gave physical descriptions of Dido

23:50

and how she's viewed in the household.

23:52

He said about Dido that she was, quote,

23:55

she is sort of a superintendent over

23:57

the dairy poultry yard, etc. She

23:59

was called a

23:59

by my lord every minute for this

24:02

thing and that and showed great attention

24:04

to everything he said. Um,

24:07

oh, Susan, she's working with dairy and

24:09

chickens and ducks, so she's a servant,

24:11

right? No, not necessarily.

24:14

That was a job that was actually done by

24:16

female aristocratic family members,

24:19

so it wouldn't have been unusual.

24:21

Even if Dido was born to a married

24:24

couple and was white, she

24:26

could have had this job. Elizabeth, however,

24:29

probably didn't.

24:30

Now, you have to remember, Elizabeth's

24:32

father is the Mansfield heir.

24:35

Elizabeth's father is still alive. He's

24:37

married to another woman, having children in another

24:39

country, fiscally supporting her. So

24:42

she is an actual heiress

24:44

living in this house. So I guess my

24:47

point is, yes, they were

24:49

equal family members until they

24:52

weren't equal.

24:53

So Dido and Elizabeth, arm

24:55

in arm, grew into beautiful, intelligent,

24:59

charming young ladies, playing

25:01

and talking and really growing

25:03

up like sisters.

25:05

Lord Mansfield and Lady Betty

25:07

commissioned a portrait of the two of them

25:10

together. The official dating

25:12

of this portrait is about 1778, although that is still being

25:14

researched.

25:18

In this portrait, and I can

25:21

almost guarantee that you,

25:23

dear listener, have seen it. It's

25:25

a portrait of a blonde,

25:28

white, young lady,

25:30

maybe a teenager. She is

25:33

sitting with a crown of flowers in her hair

25:35

and a book in her hand

25:37

and next to her with an absolutely

25:40

adorable dimple and a mischievous

25:43

grin is a black

25:45

teenage girl, probably about the same

25:47

age as the white girl. She's wearing a

25:49

silver or a gray gown. She has

25:52

a turban on her head with a black feather

25:54

in it. She's holding a bounty

25:56

of flowers and fruit in one arm

25:59

and pointing

25:59

probably exactly where her dimple

26:02

on the other side of her face would be to

26:04

her cheek. Fashion historians look

26:06

at this portrait and the clothing that the two

26:08

ladies are wearing. Elizabeth's

26:10

gown is fairly

26:14

fashion of the times. Daidou's gown,

26:16

not so much. To some fashion

26:18

historians, it appears almost like a costume.

26:21

Maybe to wear to a costume ball, it does

26:23

absolutely look very expensive. But

26:27

I draw your attention to any four-year-old

26:29

girl with a Cinderella or Moana

26:32

or Belle Halloween costume, and

26:34

they want to wear it to their school picture.

26:37

Daidou could have chosen this dress herself.

26:39

Some historians are saying that the

26:41

turban was a nod to Daidou's heritage,

26:44

you know, an exotic heritage. But

26:47

turbans were being worn by

26:49

society women at this time. And

26:51

we talked about that Lady Mary Wortley Montague,

26:54

who dies at about the beginning of

26:56

Daidou's life, loved to wear turbans.

26:59

And

26:59

it honestly, it could just have been the artist's

27:01

choice. The artist, a Scottish

27:04

artist named David Martin, who did several

27:07

portraits for Lord

27:09

and Lady Mansfield, was very

27:12

good at painting fabrics. So

27:15

it may just have been artist's choice, and

27:17

he wanted to paint this beautiful silky fabric. Debate

27:20

the clothes all you want. Debate the pose all

27:22

you want. What historians are

27:24

not seeing in this portrait is a portrait

27:27

of a lady's maid and her mistress,

27:30

or a servant of any type in her mistress.

27:33

They are seeing equals.

27:35

We really don't know too much about Daidou's

27:38

day-to-day life, what life was like, what

27:40

kind of prejudice she faced. Did

27:43

she ever leave the property alone and

27:45

feel as if her life were threatened? Because

27:49

yes, she could have been grabbed and sold

27:51

into slavery at any point

27:53

by some nefarious individuals. But

27:56

she wasn't.

27:57

We do know that at about age 23, she began to

27:59

be a woman. and to work with Lord

28:01

Mansfield, writing correspondence,

28:04

basically working as his personal assistant.

28:06

He is nearing 80. His life

28:09

is getting towards the end and

28:11

Dido's life also is about

28:13

to change.

28:15

When Dido

28:18

was about 23,

28:21

Lady Betty

28:28

passed away.

28:36

The

28:42

family is changing and the very next

28:44

year, 25-year-old Lady Elizabeth

28:46

left Kenwood to marry a man named George

28:49

Fitch Hatton. He was yet

28:51

another aristocrat. It was a good marriage for her.

28:54

He had estates for her to live in. And

28:56

actually, Elizabeth's husband

28:59

was friends with a gentleman named

29:01

Edward Austin.

29:03

That's right, Jane Austin's brother,

29:05

Elizabeth and Jane Met.

29:07

Jane, however, was not that

29:09

impressed. This is what Jane Austin had to say

29:12

about now, it's Lady Elizabeth

29:14

Fitch Hatton.

29:16

Quote, I have discovered that Lady

29:18

Elizabeth, for a woman of her age

29:21

and situation, has astonishingly

29:23

little to say for herself.

29:25

Oh,

29:28

dear Jane, tell us how you really feel. I

29:32

am sure that I also would not impress

29:34

Jane Austin.

29:36

More changes were coming. We

29:38

said adieu to Rear Admiral

29:41

Lindsay, but he's going to make a little curtain call here because

29:43

this is a point where he passed away.

29:46

He did provide in his will for two of

29:48

his five children, but it's believed

29:50

that Dido is not one of them. He left

29:53

money for two of the kids, one named John

29:55

and one named Elizabeth, but it's believed

29:57

that that Elizabeth is not Dido Elizabeth.

30:00

Maybe Rear Admiral Lindsay

30:02

knew that DYTO was well cared for.

30:05

It might be something as simple as that. And

30:07

a few years later, when she was

30:09

just 32 and he was 88, Lord Mansfield died. While

30:15

Rear Admiral Lindsay was buried

30:17

in Westminster Abbey, he had

30:20

no plaque. Lord Mansfield was

30:22

buried in Westminster Abbey, and he has

30:24

a monument. So,

30:29

okay, we can see who was more important here.

30:32

When he died, his heir, Lady

30:34

Elizabeth's father, David Murray, became

30:37

the owner of Kenwood. And DYTO

30:39

was now out. He was

30:41

married, he had children, he was going to

30:43

be using the estate. DYTO wasn't a part

30:45

of his life.

30:47

In his will, Lord Mansfield

30:49

did remember both Elizabeth and

30:51

DYTO. Elizabeth, he actually

30:54

called his niece. He did not call DYTO

30:56

that for some reason, but he

30:58

did leave her 100 pounds a year annuity. So

31:01

that's every single year. He also left

31:03

her a 500 pound lump sum,

31:06

which would have been enough for her to buy a house. But

31:09

most importantly, in his will,

31:11

he spelled out that DYTO was

31:13

a free woman.

31:15

A couple of years later, DYTO was also

31:17

remembered in the will of one of Lord Mansfield's

31:20

sisters who had come to live at the house. And

31:22

this great aunt also left DYTO

31:25

some money in her will.

31:27

In March of 1793, DYTO moved out of Kenwood. She

31:31

would have been about 32 years old. She shows

31:33

up on some church rolls in Westminster.

31:36

On December 5th, 1793,

31:39

eight months after she moved out of Kenwood,

31:41

she appears on a church roll again. This time

31:44

for her marriage.

31:46

DYTO Bell married a Frenchman named John

31:48

Davenier. No, he was no nobleman. He

31:52

was, you'll see this a lot, possibly

31:54

a gentleman steward, which

31:56

was like a butler. We would have been the highest

31:59

position in an arena. aristocratic household,

32:01

he would have overseen all the servants,

32:03

but on the marriage license, it

32:06

simply says servant. So

32:09

exactly what he did, we don't know. We do

32:11

know that they lived in a middle-class area.

32:14

They went to a very tony church,

32:16

St. John's Hanover Square, where 93

32:20

years later, Theodore

32:21

Roosevelt married

32:23

his second wife, Edith. History

32:26

just keeps crossing each other, doesn't it? If

32:28

we didn't know a lot about DYDO's life when

32:30

she was living in the high-profile household

32:32

of Lord Mansfield, we know a

32:35

lot less now about the life

32:37

she lived with her husband.

32:39

DYDO had three children with John.

32:41

Twins Charles and John were baptized

32:44

within two years of DYDO and John's

32:46

marriage, and when DYDO was 41,

32:49

Thomas William was born. One

32:51

of those twins may not have survived

32:53

childhood. This isn't a family that's

32:55

going to be well recorded, but we do know

32:58

they lived in Pimlico. It was

33:00

a growing middle-class suburb.

33:02

Were they the only mixed-race family

33:04

in London? Hardly.

33:06

Was she involved in the black community

33:09

of London? Probably not.

33:11

And her history stops here.

33:14

DYDO, Elizabeth Bell, Devinee

33:17

died in July of 1804 of unknown causes. She

33:19

was buried at

33:23

St. George's Hanover Square.

33:25

As

33:25

for her sons, like I said,

33:28

one of them probably didn't survive childhood.

33:30

They were, however, educated because

33:33

now all the money that DYDO had

33:35

inherited belonged to her husband,

33:38

and he was able to not work anymore.

33:40

He was no longer a servant. Now he

33:42

was listed as a gentleman.

33:44

He had two more children by a woman

33:47

that he married after the children were

33:49

born and 15 years after

33:51

DYDO's death.

33:52

The surviving twin Charles would

33:55

get a position at the famous East

33:57

India Company at the age of 14.

33:59

Later, Charles became an officer

34:02

in the Indian Army. Charles de Vinier's

34:05

son, who he also named Charles, ultimately

34:07

in his lifetime went by the

34:10

name Lindsay de

34:12

Vinier.

34:13

So I have to think that

34:15

the stories were passed down, that

34:17

the heritage of Dido Bell, her

34:20

life stories were passed down to her children,

34:22

even though her children were

34:24

very young when she died. Let's

34:27

fast forward 166 years to 1970. Dido's

34:33

grave had to be moved for development.

34:36

No records were kept as to where those

34:38

graves were moved to, so her final

34:40

resting place is now unknown.

34:44

Okay, let's hop back into our TARDIS and advance

34:46

another 10 years. It's the 1980s. Okay,

34:49

remember that portrait of Elizabeth and

34:52

Dido? After Lord Mansfield's

34:54

death, it went into storage, not

34:56

even in a frame. Eventually, it followed

34:59

the Lord Mansfield's and landed in

35:01

the family's Scottish home, Schoon

35:04

Palace. The name on the portrait

35:07

said, The Lady Elizabeth Finch

35:09

Haddon, which would have been Lady Elizabeth's

35:11

married name. But a historian named

35:13

Jean Adams kind of took a look

35:16

at it and said, huh,

35:18

I know we assume that the other

35:21

girl in the portrait, the black girl is

35:23

a servant, but is she? So Jean

35:25

Adams dug in and found out

35:28

all about Dido Bell.

35:30

Then a few years later,

35:32

the TV show, Fake or Fortune,

35:35

a British show, got involved again

35:38

because they wanted to know who painted

35:40

that portrait. It had actually been

35:42

attributed to the wrong painter

35:44

all these years later.

35:45

And now the portrait, properly

35:48

labeled, is still in

35:50

Schoon Palace. And

35:53

now let's talk about media. Let's start with

35:55

books. The primary biography that

35:57

I used was called Bell, the slave

35:59

daughter in the book.

35:59

Lord Chief Justice by Paula

36:02

Byrne. It was published in 2014 and I personally

36:04

think they did the

36:06

book a disservice by promoting

36:08

it as the story behind the

36:10

movie. Because so little is

36:12

known about Dido's actual

36:15

life that this book is actually

36:17

very good at putting her into

36:20

the time period. Talking about Mansfield

36:24

and John Lindsay and Kenwood and

36:26

the slave trade, everything that was going

36:28

on around her. Yes, it also

36:29

gets the factual information that was known in 2014 into

36:33

the book, but it is 300 pages.

36:35

I thought it was very well done.

36:37

Another biography that I used was called Dido

36:40

Elizabeth Bell, a biography by

36:42

Fergus Mason. It is very

36:45

short and it spends a lot of time,

36:47

again, on the roosters, not exactly

36:50

on Dido, but as a quick read

36:52

for a background of what

36:54

was going on around her and the people around her. This

36:57

is a good book for that very quick read. You're

36:59

also going to see a book called Dido Bell

37:01

by Kim Blake. It is very

37:03

hard by the description and

37:05

by the book itself to realize that

37:07

it's historical fiction. It was

37:09

a mistake that I made and I started reading

37:12

it and I was like, wait a second, there's dialogue

37:14

in here. This is not nonfiction.

37:17

So I did have a little hint of betrayal,

37:19

so my opinion of it is prejudiced.

37:22

I'm not going to deny that. And

37:24

I think if you like the movie for

37:26

its entertainment value, you might

37:28

also like the book.

37:30

As for online sources that I used, there

37:32

were quite a few. See, not

37:34

a lot of books, but

37:37

the primary ones that I used were articles in The

37:39

Guardian, a really extensive

37:41

article about the portrait on a

37:43

website called Fashion History Timeline,

37:46

written by fashion historian Kenna

37:48

Leibs. There was a Thought Co piece

37:50

by Nadra Corrine Nittle that I

37:52

liked. And English Heritage,

37:55

which is also a podcast. I didn't listen to the

37:57

podcast. I just read the article, which did

37:59

have some really nice

37:59

illustrations that they commissioned because

38:02

other than that one portrait there's no pictures

38:05

of Dido out there and we

38:07

use this site quite a bit it does require

38:10

a subscription it's called Oxford Dictionary

38:12

of National Biography so

38:15

I will link you up to those. You

38:18

can visit Kenwood House and I am

38:20

going to try and drag Beckett there in

38:22

September when we go to London quite honestly

38:25

as of this recording I don't know if it's sold

38:27

out or not you might want to check we

38:29

will link you in the show

38:31

notes if there is any more openings

38:34

or if you want to get on the waitlist also

38:36

we'll link you if you would like to join us for the dinner

38:38

cruise in London it is such a

38:40

fun party even if you come alone it

38:43

is a fun party because you walk in and you are with

38:45

friends so we'll link you to like minds travel

38:47

but you can find information about that but

38:50

back to Kenwood House you can visit

38:52

it's free it's in the suburbs of London

38:55

it's 112 acres of gardens

38:57

and of course there's all the artwork and the

38:59

house

38:59

itself there are two YouTube videos

39:02

that I'm gonna put in the show notes that I really

39:05

thought were interesting the first one it's

39:07

a Crows Creek production it

39:10

is a study of Dido's life through

39:12

the lens of the portrait by David

39:14

Martins the other is called A Stitch

39:16

in Time it's a BBC production

39:19

of it's a television show it's a fashion

39:21

historians view of history so

39:24

in this one it starts

39:26

with the portrait and the historian

39:29

has other

39:30

fashion historians actually

39:32

create Dido's dress they find

39:34

out what kind of fabric they thought it was and just

39:37

look at other portraits by the same

39:39

artist and find some similarities

39:41

it's it's fascinating and I do

39:43

love the host of the show

39:45

as for more moving pictures in addition

39:47

to those YouTube videos is the 2013 movie

39:49

Bell with

39:52

Gugu Mbatha-Raw she's

39:55

one of those actresses that is fantastic

39:57

and you know her from so many productions

39:59

But honestly, this

40:02

movie, it's kind of like, do you know when

40:04

you're watching a Doctor Who episode and you're

40:06

like, I know that actor from somewhere and you pause it and

40:08

you look him up. It's like that. It's like a

40:10

pun absolutely intended who's

40:13

who of British actors. Matthew

40:15

Good from Doubt and Abbey is in it.

40:18

Penelope Wilton, Emily Watson, Sam

40:20

Reed, Miranda Richardson, Tom Wilkinson.

40:23

It's just

40:24

really well cast.

40:27

This movie was actually my introduction

40:30

to Daito's life years ago when

40:32

the movie first came out. I enjoyed

40:34

it then and I did rewatch it in

40:36

the last couple of weeks and I still

40:38

thought what I did the last time that it was very

40:41

beautiful. The production value was high. However,

40:44

this time the fiction

40:46

part of the historical fiction really

40:48

irked at me because you know, I was in

40:50

a framework of what is the truth

40:52

here. So Beckett and I

40:54

are usually very good at separating the fact

40:57

from the fiction

40:57

in our heads and enjoying the production for

40:59

what it is as a fiction. So I

41:01

can say that

41:03

I enjoy this one as well. You might want

41:06

to watch it. Just go in knowing it's

41:08

not a documentary. For instance,

41:10

the big case that is a major plot point

41:12

of this movie, Lord Chief Justice did

41:15

indeed oversee that case, but

41:17

he didn't make the ruling that was brought forth

41:20

in the movie. But anyway,

41:22

also I will link you to a frock

41:25

flicks article about

41:27

the production of Belle. The movie

41:30

frock flicks has been around forever

41:32

and they also have a podcast. The podcast that

41:35

they have for Dido is based on

41:37

the movie Belle and it's kind of like a scene by scene

41:39

discussion of the history and the fashion

41:42

and the fashion history and of

41:44

the times, but they are so good over

41:47

at frock flicks at spotting costumes

41:49

from other movie productions and

41:51

they break them down

41:52

down to their underpinnings. And

41:55

I was amused by one of the tags they had

41:57

in this article was you need

41:59

prop.

41:59

petticoats. Yeah, something the ladies over

42:02

there are always discussing. And

42:04

that's all I have!

42:06

A MOBA AINA was

42:09

born sometime

42:11

in 1843 in the village of

42:14

Oki Odon,

42:17

near the coast

42:20

in modern day

42:34

Nigeria, near its border with Benin.

42:37

She was a child of the Agbato clan

42:39

of the Yoruba people. For centuries,

42:41

Yoruba had been under the protection

42:44

and direction of the powerful Oyo

42:46

Empire. Aina's

42:47

people were sort of quasi-independent

42:49

all this time. They were the ones that

42:52

held the corridor to the sea.

42:54

But as Oyo started self-destructing

42:56

in the 1700s, some of these sort of loosely

42:59

held territories rebelled and kicked

43:01

the Oyo overlords out about

43:04

20 years before Aina was born.

43:06

What that did mean though was that those areas

43:08

having lost the mighty retribution and

43:11

protection of the Oyo were now extremely

43:14

vulnerable to the slave raids of neighboring

43:16

empires. Britain had outlawed

43:18

the trade in people in their own country and

43:20

territories in 1833. But

43:22

Portuguese and therefore Brazilian slave

43:25

traders still paid top dollar. This was

43:27

a large source of income and

43:29

of power for many leaders in Africa.

43:32

They would raid a neighbor, send survivors

43:34

to the Europeans, eliminate their rivals,

43:36

and take over their land. This is why

43:38

we do not know who Aina's parents

43:40

were. One of the Agbato's neighbors,

43:43

the Kingdom of Dahomey, had not only

43:45

freed themselves from the Oyo, they had

43:47

weakened the empire greatly. And

43:50

that left Agbato lands with their

43:52

valuable coastal areas completely

43:54

vulnerable to attack. King Gézo

43:56

was pretty ruthless. He had close ties

43:58

to Brazilian slave traders.

43:59

and had come to his throne in the first place

44:02

by violently overthrowing

44:04

his own brother.

44:05

During a raid on her village, five-year-old

44:08

Ina saw both of her parents decapitated

44:11

in the melee. Her brothers and sisters

44:13

disappeared, never to be seen again, killed

44:15

or captured, she never knew. Some

44:18

traditional scarification marks on Ina's

44:20

face gave her captors some vital information

44:23

about her lineage. It marked her out as someone

44:25

of noble birth. As such, she

44:28

was more valuable to King Gaezo as a symbol

44:31

rather than a commodity to be traded with

44:33

the Europeans. She was therefore taken

44:35

to the city of Abomi, the capital

44:37

of Dahomey, and placed in captivity. No

44:40

harm will come to you, said the reassurance

44:42

from the king. For a couple of years, she

44:45

was kept in a small cage next

44:47

to other unfortunate prisoners who

44:49

Ina watched from time to

44:51

time be taken out and placed

44:54

into the sacrificial rituals

44:57

of the king of Dahomey. Her jailers

44:59

taunted her often with the truth. She

45:01

was being saved for ceremonial purposes

45:04

too, and when it suited him, King Gaezo

45:06

intended to sacrifice her as a

45:08

gift to his royal ancestors. Unbeknownst

45:11

to Ina, her fate had just

45:13

been sealed. King Gaezo had

45:16

just the spectacle in mind because Dahomey

45:18

was about to receive a visit from an envoy

45:20

of the most powerful nation on earth. Queen

45:23

Victoria of the United Kingdom was sending

45:25

a committee to meet with him. Ostensibly,

45:28

this meeting was about trade, but King

45:30

Gaezo knew it was really about the

45:32

slave trade. Britain was going to put pressure

45:34

on him to stop and switch to other commodities,

45:37

and palm oil is fine or whatever,

45:39

but doesn't inspire fear among the neighbors

45:42

or respect. The British were known for

45:44

their strong armed tactics, and King Gaezo

45:46

was not about to be bulldozed into something he

45:48

didn't want to do. Rehearsals

45:50

began for a spectacle to impress

45:53

and intimidate his white visitors. This

45:55

was the ceremony of Ek Oni Nu'ato,

45:58

the watering of the grave. 31-year-old

46:01

Captain Frederick Forbes and his party

46:03

were no strangers to Africa or to battles

46:06

against the slave trade. In fact, not

46:08

only had they participated in a blockade

46:10

of slave ships off the coast of Sierra Leone,

46:12

Captain Forbes and his crew of the Bonetta

46:15

had been instrumental in the destruction of

46:17

the slave pens and trading posts that

46:20

were made famous during the case of

46:22

the Amistad, in which some

46:24

kidnapped Africans had been able to successfully

46:27

sue for their freedom in a New England court.

46:29

He was sent to begin negotiations

46:32

with King Gazo. However,

46:34

he was to be completely clear

46:37

that Britain was perfectly willing to have

46:39

military action if it came to that,

46:41

so he had a hard job. In

46:43

June 1850, the party arrived to

46:45

their scheduled meeting with King Gazo and

46:48

Captain Forbes wrote an extensive memoir

46:50

of this event. I'll give you a link. Almost

46:53

the first thing he saw was a gruesome edifice

46:55

and I quote, In the center of the

46:58

square was an octangular

47:00

building adorned with 148 human skulls, the

47:03

victims of the tragedy of Oke

47:06

O'Donne. This had been Aina's village.

47:08

These had been her people. She had been

47:11

regarding them every day. King

47:13

Gazo used every tactic he had to show his strength

47:15

and his refusal to be intimidated. He

47:18

positioned himself as and I quote, the

47:20

King of the Blacks, referring

47:22

to Queen Victoria as quote, the Queen

47:24

of the Whites. He had

47:26

military parades go by, an open

47:28

show of his people worshiping him, a strong

47:31

presence of the striking and surprising

47:34

all female warrior guards called

47:36

the Ahosi, which Europeans

47:38

called Amazons after the Amazons

47:40

in Greek mythology. He applied

47:42

his visitors with strong liquor. The good

47:44

captain resisted intimidation, boredom

47:47

and inebriation for days.

47:49

And then he heard the screaming. To

47:51

his horror, he watched a strange parade

47:53

moving along an upper wall. There were people

47:56

dressed all in white and tied hand

47:58

and foot who were being carried by the wall.

47:59

carried over the heads of warriors in these

48:02

little baskets. Those Dahomeans

48:04

that passed taunted the captives

48:06

in the baskets, poking them with spears, screaming

48:09

and swearing at them. And to Captain Forbes's horror,

48:12

the first captive in line was tipped out

48:14

over the wall into a pit. And at the bottom,

48:16

he was beaten and then hacked to bits.

48:20

Captain Forbes insisted that King Gaezo put a

48:22

stop to this immediately. King Gaezo

48:25

just mildly said, I couldn't possibly stop

48:27

the tradition people had carried out for hundreds

48:29

of years, it would be shocking. It would be dishonorable.

48:32

And of course, King Gaezo would look weak

48:35

if people thought the British could boss him around.

48:37

The British committee, while this slaughter continued,

48:40

were able to negotiate for and buy

48:42

two of the male captives the best they could

48:45

do. And these men were hustled out to the British

48:47

contingents lodging, like right

48:49

on the brink of being tipped over the side, they'd been

48:51

rescued. And then they saw the little

48:54

girl in her own basket making its way

48:56

down the line. And this story briefly

48:59

splits two possible ways. One

49:01

has it that Captain Forbes insisted that

49:03

Queen Victoria would look so poorly on a

49:05

man who would sacrifice a child in this way and

49:07

would be inspired to disregard his legitimacy.

49:10

Story two is King Gaezo sensing

49:13

a valuable opportunity, shrewdly

49:15

removed her from the line and presented her

49:17

as a gift. Whose idea it was exactly

49:19

depends on the author you're reading, but it all

49:22

comes down to this. Young Ina,

49:24

aged around seven, was presented to

49:26

Captain Forbes as a gift from King

49:28

Gaezo to Queen Victoria, personally

49:31

with his compliments. To quote Frederick

49:33

Forbes, "'To refuse would have been to

49:35

have signed her death warrant, "'which probably would

49:37

have been carried "'into execution immediately.'

49:41

"'Ina was given to this whole other set

49:43

of strange men "'after the sheer terror

49:46

of the day she's had "'the years of

49:48

dread ahead of this, "'the terror

49:50

of having lost her family. "'Ina was

49:53

in shock and almost catatonic "'for

49:55

the long 60-mile journey back through

49:57

the jungle "'to Captain Forbes' ship, the

49:59

Bonetta.

50:01

The two men who'd been redeemed were given

50:03

land, currency, papers of freedom,

50:06

and the new names of John and George

50:09

Forbes. But Ina was to

50:11

travel back to Britain with Captain Forbes.

50:13

The Bonetta pushed off from Dahomey and sailed

50:16

to the town of Badagri, which is in

50:18

modern-day Nigeria. Once the most

50:21

ominous place an African person could have traveled,

50:23

known as the point of no return,

50:25

the last place their feet would have touched

50:28

African soil. Captain Forbes

50:30

was headed there for a very specific reason.

50:32

There was a group of Anglican missionaries settled

50:34

there and he wanted some help from the ladies of

50:37

the Church Missionary Society to get

50:39

her ready. He recounted sort of a abbreviated

50:42

version of what she'd been through. Though

50:45

King Gazo certainly had a reputation

50:47

for brutality and struck fear into everyone,

50:49

they knew all about him. Ina was

50:52

fussed over and treated kindly and

50:54

Captain Forbes himself, the father

50:56

of four children, maybe instinctively he felt

50:58

that a break from men and soldiery for

51:01

a bit was just what she needed. The

51:03

women outfitted her with a wardrobe of English

51:05

style dresses, stockings, shoes, bonnets,

51:08

gloves, and leather slippers. We can

51:10

literally see what she looked like at this point

51:12

because a talented watercolorist called

51:14

Mrs. Vidal painted a beautiful portrait

51:17

of her. The scars on her cheeks themselves

51:19

were a common enough sight in that part of Africa

51:22

that I imagine the English missionaries had

51:24

seen these daily, you know, on everyone they met. I'm

51:26

just not sure if they could read the code if you

51:28

know what I mean. Captain Forbes, they

51:30

said, what will you do with the girl? King

51:32

Gazo gave her to the Queen. I at least

51:34

have to take her back to England and make the offer

51:37

and he couldn't imagine

51:39

she would even take notice

51:42

of her really, but that's his

51:44

job and so he's going to do it. Most likely

51:46

my wife and I will simply raise her

51:48

with all of our own children. Either way she'll be

51:51

out of here, out of her past, and

51:53

out of danger. Not out of danger,

51:55

Captain. It's a long journey. Back home

51:57

it would be best and safest if we were to baptize

51:59

her here. before you go and Captain

52:01

Forbes agreed. During the baptism

52:04

ceremony, she was given the name Sarah and

52:06

then Forbes as her middle name after

52:09

Frederick Forbes and then he gave her the last

52:11

name Bonetta after his ship. So

52:13

her name is Sarah Forbes Bonetta.

52:16

It was time to head to England. The crew of

52:19

the Bonetta had been away from home for years

52:21

and they were going home to rest, reunite

52:23

with family. They made special accommodations

52:25

for their small guests and her new belongings

52:28

and treated her as a pet. Everybody

52:30

called her Sally, which was a nickname for Sarah.

52:32

They played games, they taught her English. She

52:35

was Captain Forbes' shadow all over

52:37

the ship but everyone was very kind.

52:40

Commander Forbes, let's call him, since he's

52:42

no longer physically on his ship,

52:45

took Sarah home with him to his home near Windsor

52:47

Palace, a home he hadn't seen in years.

52:50

And there he wrote a letter, calculated

52:53

to catch the attention of Queen Victoria.

52:55

He of course recorded her story

52:58

in thrilling fashion and then wrote,

53:01

for her age, supposed to be seven or

53:03

eight years, she is a perfect genius. She

53:05

now speaks English well and has a great

53:07

talent for music. She has won the affections

53:10

with few exceptions of all those who have known

53:12

her by her docile and amiable conduct,

53:14

which nothing can exceed. She is far

53:17

in advance of any white child of her age in

53:19

aptness of learning and strength of mind and

53:21

affection. And with her being an excellent

53:23

specimen of the Negro race it

53:26

might be tested the capability of the intellect of the black.

53:28

It being generally and erroneously supposed

53:31

that though the Negro child may be clever, the

53:33

adult will be dull and stupid." I

53:37

am very disturbed by that letter. I

53:40

know he meant it well. He,

53:42

of all people, had put in the work to

53:45

eliminate the slave trade. He'd been patrolling

53:48

that area and stopping slave traders and

53:50

sending freed people to

53:52

Sierra Leone and freedom for decades.

53:55

I know he's coming from a good place, but what

53:58

he means by this letter is... as

54:00

an anti-slavery person,

54:02

we can change the narrative by, quote, civilizing

54:06

this young girl with her story. Maybe

54:08

they could use her and people like

54:10

her

54:11

as an example of the

54:14

civilizing influence of

54:17

the British Empire.

54:19

I'm sorry to put such a cynical take

54:21

on it, but that is what I'm taking from his

54:24

letter. You know, maybe I'm looking too much into

54:26

it, but it immediately caught the attention

54:28

of Queen Victoria as it was meant to do. He

54:31

was fully prepared to add Sarah

54:33

to his household. I am feeling

54:35

for her right now, she's

54:38

in strange clothes, in a strange place, learning

54:40

strange ways in a place

54:42

where no one looked or acted like

54:45

anyone she'd ever seen in her whole life. But

54:48

at least they were being kind. She was being fed.

54:50

She had freedom to walk around. There were

54:52

children her age, one in particular,

54:54

exactly her age, but two, Frederick's

54:56

great surprise or relief. I'm

54:59

not sure which Queen Victoria summoned

55:01

him to bring Sarah with him to Windsor castle.

55:03

The flurry of preparations could only be

55:05

imagined. Notably, they spent some

55:07

time teaching Sarah how to curtsy and

55:09

how to behave to royalty. November, 1850,

55:13

five months after she was rescued from the clutches

55:15

of King Gazo, Sarah was on her way

55:18

to meet Queen Victoria. What on

55:20

earth must have been going through her mind? I just couldn't

55:22

guess. But Sarah told her story very

55:24

simply and in English to Queen Victoria.

55:27

The traumas related went straight

55:29

to Queen Victoria's heart. And by now,

55:31

Sarah spoke English amazingly well. After

55:34

all, it had been a 100 percent immersion

55:36

program. No one spoke her language,

55:38

so she had to get with the program. Queen

55:40

Victoria also was very intrigued by

55:43

the scars on Sarah's cheeks and the noble

55:45

status that they represented. She was

55:47

so impressed with Sarah that Queen Victoria

55:49

offered to pay all of Sarah's expenses

55:51

to take a personal interest in her upbringing

55:54

and actually assigned the wife of her

55:56

private secretary, a Mrs. Phipps,

55:58

to be the liaison between. between the Forbeses

56:01

who were going to raise her and the crown.

56:03

The Forbeses did not send Sarah to school.

56:06

They didn't send their own children to school. It's

56:08

tough to know though, where she'd even have been able to go,

56:11

but the Forbeses provided a good education

56:13

at home, not untypical for girls

56:15

of her time. After finishing up his manuscript

56:18

of Dahomey and the Dahomeyans,

56:21

Commander Forbes went back to sea, back

56:23

to Africa. And there were many,

56:26

many visits by Sarah

56:28

to the palace over the next year. Princess

56:31

Alice, Queen Victoria's third child was

56:33

of an age with Sarah. The other children were

56:35

her friends and many an afternoon was spent

56:38

riding the royal pony cart around

56:40

the grounds with the young princes and princesses

56:42

of England. The family called her Sally.

56:45

She was allowed to return the favor and use family

56:47

nicknames back. They got really close,

56:49

really fast. But of course, as anyone

56:52

who's ever had a child in daycare can tell

56:54

you, a child's first exposure to unfamiliar

56:56

germs is going to result in a long,

56:58

unending series of colds. Sarah's

57:01

constant coughs and runny noses made Queen

57:03

Victoria very frightened for her. Sarah

57:06

was actually treated by the Queen's personal doctor,

57:08

who with his colleagues, advised the

57:10

Queen that the climate of England was actually dangerous

57:13

for African children. And the Queen immediately

57:15

asked her advisors to find a place to send Sarah,

57:17

quote, in one of her majesty's dependencies

57:20

upon the coast of Africa. It

57:22

was decided, willy-nilly by the

57:24

Queen, that for Sarah's safety, she was to be

57:26

sent to boarding school in Sierra Leone,

57:29

under the Queen's personal protection. Mrs.

57:32

Forbes was devastated, but a Queen's

57:34

whim is a Queen's law, and once

57:36

again, a group of women, high-born

57:38

English ones this time, put together her clothes,

57:41

her books, and other possessions in preparation

57:43

for a long journey. All poor

57:45

Mrs. Forbes could do was make sure

57:47

Sarah knew that the family would never forget

57:49

her. Just before her departure,

57:52

though, the news came. Captain Forbes

57:54

had died in Africa, still battling

57:57

against the slave trade, and he had

57:59

been buried.

57:59

at sea. It was a

58:02

genuinely 100% tearful departure. Queen Victoria

58:04

had paid a

58:06

considerable sum

58:08

of money to a respectable missionary and his

58:10

wife to accompany Sarah on her journey back

58:12

to Africa. She went to Freetown

58:15

in Sierra Leone where she was

58:17

to attend the female institution,

58:19

a school run by members of the Church

58:21

Missionary Society, those same people who'd

58:24

gotten her ready to go to England in the first place

58:26

over a year ago. I am so

58:28

reminded just now of A Little Princess

58:31

by Frances Hodgson Burnett. All

58:33

the other girls slept in dormitories but Sarah

58:35

had a room of her own with a personally

58:38

gifted picture of the Queen

58:40

in it. Everyone else were simple uniforms.

58:43

Sarah was outfitted in the finest upper-middle

58:45

class Victorian clothing possible. She

58:47

was the personal charge of the headmistress who

58:50

knew upon what side her bread was buttered

58:52

with this student and had made a special

58:54

point to take her on visits and invite her

58:56

to tea. Other girls at school

58:58

had also been rescued by British sailors from

59:01

the slave trade. British ships had been patrolling

59:03

this coast for decades and seizing

59:05

and liberating the victims of the slave trade.

59:08

Sierra Leone had been a hub of repatriation

59:11

for the captives for many many years.

59:13

She was not alone in having faced

59:15

trauma exactly but she was completely

59:18

unique in her status as the protege

59:21

of a queen. She studied reading, writing,

59:23

Christian religion, geography which

59:25

they called globes which I thought was funny, sewing

59:28

of all sorts decorative and practical, mathematics

59:31

and Sarah was also tutored especially

59:33

in French and taught to play the piano.

59:36

There was a lot of pressure from above.

59:38

Sarah got frequent letters and parcels from

59:40

the Queen whose personal secretary

59:42

was following up with requests for school

59:44

reports and sort of old chapping

59:47

the superintendent of all the mission

59:49

schools you know oh surely

59:51

old chap you can blah blah blah attention

59:53

was paid let's just say whole suites of

59:55

new furniture were installed in Sarah's apartments

59:58

Sarah was allowed to host a tea party for

1:00:00

the entire school at Queen Victoria's expense

1:00:03

in celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday.

1:00:06

I am just reminded of some interactions I've

1:00:08

had with people whose families have had money for

1:00:10

generations and are sort of innocently,

1:00:13

if benevolently out of touch.

1:00:16

Did anyone watch The Office? There's

1:00:18

a character of Nellie who's very rich and wants

1:00:21

to interact with the warehouse manager

1:00:23

who's told her about a thing called a taco that she's

1:00:25

never had and she reaches in her handbag and

1:00:27

says, how much is a taco? $20 and

1:00:30

hands him a whole handful of money? Yeah,

1:00:33

well, Queen Victoria is pretty much

1:00:35

just like that. She's providing Sarah with what

1:00:37

she sees as quote, the essentials of life

1:00:40

and really setting her apart in the process

1:00:42

and if you haven't seen the Shirley Temple movie,

1:00:44

Little Princess, you

1:00:47

should go find it right now and watch it because

1:00:49

it is exactly what is happening here. Well,

1:00:51

the school itself, the regular

1:00:53

school without Sarah in it had been

1:00:55

turning out teachers or educated

1:00:58

wives and mothers of local businessmen and

1:01:00

clergy. Instead, they have a surrogate

1:01:02

princess in their midst. I

1:01:05

mean, she was shown off proudly to every

1:01:07

foreign visitor and Sarah became adept

1:01:09

at the formal meet and greet at a young

1:01:11

age. She began to be referred

1:01:14

to as quote, the little princess

1:01:16

herself. Queen Victoria started

1:01:18

to refer to her as a princess and that

1:01:21

is why sometimes you'll see her referred

1:01:23

to as Omaba Ina. Omaba

1:01:26

means child of a monarch

1:01:28

or princess. Sarah went

1:01:30

on happily in this school and in that state

1:01:33

for four years and at the age

1:01:35

of 12, a sudden message came

1:01:37

from the palace. Send Sally Forbes

1:01:39

Bonetta with no delay at once

1:01:42

to England by her majesty's command.

1:01:45

Queen Victoria behind the

1:01:48

scenes had been working on this

1:01:55

for

1:01:59

quite a number of years.

1:01:59

of months, but to everyone in Africa,

1:02:02

this

1:02:03

seemed like an all of a sudden type of thing. Everyone

1:02:06

started scrambling, and within weeks, Sarah

1:02:08

was on a boat back to England. One

1:02:11

theory as to why is that King Gaezo's

1:02:14

existence, for one thing, proximity

1:02:16

and recent warlike activity

1:02:18

in the area had scared either

1:02:21

Queen Victoria or Sarah enough to

1:02:23

prompt an instant change.

1:02:26

Speaking of change,

1:02:27

Sarah could not in fact live with the Forbes

1:02:30

again. Widow Mrs. Forbes had

1:02:32

retreated to live with family in Scotland.

1:02:35

Queen Victoria wanted Sarah closer and

1:02:37

arranged for the Reverend and Mrs. Schone

1:02:39

to be in charge of her upbringing.

1:02:42

Reverend Schone had been a missionary in Africa.

1:02:44

He wrote books and articles about his explorations

1:02:47

there and was a devoted student

1:02:49

of African languages and culture. And

1:02:52

Victoria really tried to get her into

1:02:54

the best place possible.

1:02:56

Sarah arrived at Palm Cottage in Gilliam,

1:02:58

near St. James's Palace, and took up residence

1:03:01

with her new family. There were seven children,

1:03:03

and she eventually started to regard them

1:03:06

as her brothers and sisters. In

1:03:08

fact, Frederick Schone, one of the sons, was

1:03:10

almost exactly her age.

1:03:12

She began to call Mrs. Schone, mama,

1:03:15

which I love. Sarah received an excellent

1:03:18

education at home with the Schone children

1:03:20

and was a frequent visitor and close friend of

1:03:22

all the royal children. She stayed

1:03:25

at St. James's Palace as a welcome

1:03:27

visitor, and a special servant

1:03:30

was dispatched to her private room specifically

1:03:33

to tend her fireplace. Queen

1:03:35

Victoria was always very concerned about how

1:03:37

warm Sarah's underclothes

1:03:39

were, for one thing. So

1:03:41

if you have to be here in England in this climate, Emma at least

1:03:43

kind of makes sure that you're healthy. So

1:03:45

she had three doting mamas now, Queen

1:03:48

Victoria, obviously, Mrs. Schone,

1:03:50

and Mrs. Phipps, the private

1:03:52

secretary's wife, and the person

1:03:54

Queen Victoria put in charge of the big

1:03:57

picture when it came to Sarah. She

1:03:59

was growing up into a beautiful and

1:04:01

refined young lady with close

1:04:03

personal ties to the queen and to

1:04:05

other members of the aristocracy, often

1:04:08

visiting friends for weeks at a time,

1:04:10

including happily the Forbeses in

1:04:12

Scotland. How far she's come

1:04:14

in a few short years. At 15,

1:04:17

she was so close to the children of

1:04:19

the royal household that she was one of the few

1:04:22

Britons invited to attend the

1:04:24

wedding of Queen Victoria's oldest daughter,

1:04:26

who Sarah called Vicky to Frederick

1:04:29

of Prussia. She'd been taken to the bosom

1:04:31

of the family and society for sure. She

1:04:33

was famous, but what was

1:04:35

to become of her? Young women of

1:04:37

the nobility often got married right

1:04:40

out of the school room. Princess Vicky,

1:04:42

who had just been married, had been engaged

1:04:44

since she was 14. Sarah's

1:04:47

age mate, Alice, was on the marriage train

1:04:49

too. There's a whole committee evaluating

1:04:51

possible husbands for Princess Alice, but

1:04:54

what is the best future for Sarah?

1:04:56

Queen Victoria was in no doubt

1:04:59

about her views on women in

1:05:01

marriage. Sally's marital future

1:05:03

was weighing heavily on her

1:05:06

when Sarah, age 17, received

1:05:08

an offer of marriage by letter from

1:05:11

a man named James Pinson Labullo

1:05:13

Davies, a 31-year-old West African

1:05:16

who had also been educated by the Church

1:05:18

Missionary Society School System, a

1:05:20

successful businessman and missionary

1:05:23

worker who she had once met during

1:05:25

her time at the female institution there.

1:05:28

Remember everybody, this is just me talking,

1:05:30

she was only there from eight to 12

1:05:32

years of age. He wrote to

1:05:35

reintroduce himself. His wife

1:05:37

had just died, and would Sarah consider

1:05:39

marrying him? A man she

1:05:41

had met once, best case scenario

1:05:44

at 12, that she couldn't remember

1:05:46

meeting, wanted to marry her. Definitely

1:05:49

because of her relationship to the royal family.

1:05:52

There's no other possibility. I think we can agree

1:05:54

on that. I myself am doing this with

1:05:56

great side eye. It's sort

1:05:59

of gross.

1:05:59

I guess seize the day and shoot

1:06:02

your shot and everything. And at this time,

1:06:04

you know, a well-connected wife was a

1:06:06

ladder to fortune and fame, I guess. Well,

1:06:09

Sarah didn't take him seriously either. This

1:06:11

random has just sent me a letter. She

1:06:13

might have discussed it with her friend Princess Alice,

1:06:16

who herself at 17 had just been engaged

1:06:18

to a prince. Who knows how the news,

1:06:21

casually given, got back to Queen Victoria.

1:06:24

But Queen Victoria took it so seriously

1:06:26

that she started a behind-the-scenes

1:06:28

background check into Mr. Davies,

1:06:31

into his character, into his prospects,

1:06:34

into his reputation. He came up,

1:06:36

in all respects, acceptable. Months

1:06:38

had passed since his proposal and Sarah

1:06:41

was asked out of the blue as far as she

1:06:43

was concerned by Mr. Phipps. Remember,

1:06:46

he's Queen Victoria's private secretary if

1:06:48

she would marry Mr. Davies. What?

1:06:50

No!

1:06:52

Sarah was shocked and dismayed that people took

1:06:54

this man seriously. Everyone

1:06:56

tried to talk her around. He has an established

1:06:58

business. He's got respectable contacts,

1:07:00

a very good education, well thought of in

1:07:02

his community. No one said the

1:07:05

right color. Everyone meant the right

1:07:07

color. Everyone was of one mind that

1:07:09

she should only marry a person of color.

1:07:13

Queen Victoria's network hadn't turned up very many acceptable

1:07:16

possibilities. Queen Victoria put pressure

1:07:18

on her. It's the duty of a woman to

1:07:20

marry. Now, Queen Victoria did let

1:07:22

Princess Alice choose, but only

1:07:25

from a carefully curated set

1:07:27

of royal prospects. Sarah wasn't

1:07:29

even given a list.

1:07:31

She steadfastly refused to accept

1:07:33

Mr. Davies as her fiancé. I

1:07:35

mean, obviously, she did not want to marry

1:07:37

a stranger, but part of her reluctance also

1:07:39

stemmed from when she married Mr. Davies,

1:07:42

that meant she was to move back to Africa.

1:07:45

She felt discarded. So in a move straight

1:07:48

out of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park,

1:07:50

Queen Victoria decided that Sarah could not

1:07:53

be brought to understand her position as

1:07:55

a dependent and the virtues of being

1:07:58

well settled in life with a good man.

1:07:59

unless Queen Victoria

1:08:02

removed Sarah from her comfortable circumstances

1:08:04

at her foster house, so she could better

1:08:07

reflect on her future. Unbelievable.

1:08:09

Do

1:08:11

you know the part in Mansfield Park that

1:08:13

I mean? So Fanny doesn't want to marry Mr.

1:08:15

Crawford, so the rich relatives

1:08:17

who raised her just like sent her back

1:08:19

to her abysmally poor birth family to

1:08:21

teach her a lesson. Let's hope Jane Austen

1:08:24

was not

1:08:25

the inspiration for this, but I would not be surprised

1:08:28

if she was. So suddenly

1:08:30

Sarah was pulled out of the Shones house,

1:08:32

remember she called Mrs. Shones mama, and

1:08:35

just sent Willy Nilly to be a companion

1:08:37

to two elderly relations of the

1:08:39

Phipses in Brighton. Sarah

1:08:41

wrote a letter, my dearest mama, I kept

1:08:44

my composure very well, and I went into

1:08:47

my desolate little pigsty alone and

1:08:49

had a regular outburst which I tried hard

1:08:51

to overcome. So she's not in a good

1:08:53

headspace either.

1:08:55

The months dragged by, the pressure mounted.

1:08:58

Sarah felt honestly betrayed by her

1:09:00

protector, to whom she was absolutely

1:09:04

dependent. Here's some quotes

1:09:06

from another letter to her mother. My dearest

1:09:08

mama, I have been in a state of mental misery

1:09:11

and indecision ever since your letter arrived

1:09:13

yesterday. I shall now tell you truly

1:09:15

what my thoughts and feelings are with regard to Mr.

1:09:18

Davies. Had I cared for him, age

1:09:20

would never have come in the way of my decision.

1:09:22

It would be wicked, I think, were I to

1:09:24

accept him when there are others that I prefer.

1:09:27

I do not feel that our two dispositions would

1:09:29

mix well together. I don't feel the particle of

1:09:31

love for him and never have done so. I have

1:09:33

prayed and asked for guidance, but it doesn't

1:09:36

come. I am quite stupid and don't know what

1:09:38

to do because I know there are many of my friends

1:09:40

who would say accept him, and then you

1:09:42

will have a home and protector. Others would

1:09:44

say he is a good man, and though you don't

1:09:47

care about him now, you will soon learn to love

1:09:49

him. Others would say he's rich, and

1:09:51

you marrying him would at once make you independent.

1:09:54

And to this I say, am I to barter

1:09:56

my peace of mind for money? No.

1:09:58

I will never. I think

1:10:01

we're very, very clear on

1:10:03

what Sarah does not want.

1:10:06

Queen Victoria's mother died in the spring

1:10:08

of 1861, and Sarah was allowed to go into official

1:10:12

mourning with the royal family. So

1:10:15

they still regard her as family, despite

1:10:17

having treated her like this. Now we have talked very

1:10:20

recently about the way royal families

1:10:22

treat each other, so maybe this isn't surprising.

1:10:25

So which is it? Are we a neglected

1:10:27

dependent, or are we in the bosom of the family?

1:10:29

I don't know. The pressure began to get to Sarah.

1:10:32

Her resolve was cracking, as Queen

1:10:34

Victoria and friends had intended it would. If

1:10:36

the Queen pulled her protection after all,

1:10:39

where would Sarah be? What could she do?

1:10:41

Where could she even go? She now, thanks

1:10:43

to them, felt properly vulnerable.

1:10:46

Prince Albert died in December 1861. Of course, we've

1:10:48

covered the story about

1:10:51

what that did to Queen Victoria in our coverage

1:10:53

of her, but again, still, the royal household

1:10:56

was in mourning. This again

1:10:58

included Sarah. Finally,

1:11:01

Sarah agreed in March of 1862 to

1:11:04

marry Mr. Davies. However, she

1:11:06

was not allowed to come back to either

1:11:09

the Schon's house or to St. James's

1:11:11

Palace. I don't know if it was

1:11:13

an insurance policy, but she was to stay

1:11:15

in Brighton with the people she was

1:11:17

acting as companion to until the day she

1:11:19

got married. More

1:11:23

pressure, I guess. And preparations

1:11:25

swung into place. Princess Alice

1:11:27

was married one month before her friend

1:11:29

Sarah,

1:11:30

and many viewers have said that was

1:11:32

the saddest ceremony that anyone

1:11:34

had ever heard of. Sarah

1:11:36

did attend this wedding. That's the

1:11:38

second royal princess. She has been a valued

1:11:41

guest at the wedding, and everyone

1:11:43

was in mourning. And by special dispensation,

1:11:46

Princess Alice was allowed to change into

1:11:48

her wedding gown only during the ceremony

1:11:50

and was then to change firmly back

1:11:53

into her black full mourning. Her

1:11:55

mother cried the entire ceremony,

1:11:57

not the way that other mothers cry, not the way that

1:11:59

they cry. that I planned to cry, but

1:12:02

in abject despair through the whole

1:12:05

wedding, it was not a very blissful

1:12:08

ceremony.

1:12:09

And then came Sarah's turn. August

1:12:13

14th, 1862, at St. Nicholas's Church in Brighton.

1:12:16

There were white bridesmaids, there were black

1:12:18

bridesmaids, there were flocks of pretty,

1:12:21

tiny children in fancy costumes. The

1:12:23

bride was given away by a different Captain Forbes,

1:12:26

brother of the man who had saved her from death 15

1:12:28

years ago. Sarah

1:12:31

was now a married woman. It

1:12:33

should be noted that on her marriage certificate,

1:12:36

her name is written Ina Sarah

1:12:39

Forbes Bonetta. So she signed

1:12:41

her birth name on the only official

1:12:44

legal document that was ever a

1:12:47

part of her life in Britain.

1:12:48

Soon after the wedding, the Davises moved

1:12:51

to Freetown and Sierra Leone or Mr.

1:12:53

Davies once more took up his businesses

1:12:55

and his philanthropy. And Sarah began

1:12:58

to teach at the very same female

1:13:00

institution where she used to attend.

1:13:03

Like before, when she was a student,

1:13:05

Sarah was an odd one out. The

1:13:07

white missionary teachers, however

1:13:10

unconsciously, often thought

1:13:12

themselves above their

1:13:15

students, for sure, and also

1:13:17

above their fellow teachers of color, most

1:13:20

of whom had been educated for the specific

1:13:22

purpose of uplifting their fellow Africans,

1:13:25

like a multi-generational plan. But

1:13:28

here's Sarah, undeniably better

1:13:30

educated than every person in

1:13:32

this place, married to one of the wealthiest

1:13:35

businessmen around, with fine clothes,

1:13:37

the manners of the upper class and a close

1:13:39

personal relationship with their queen. She

1:13:42

had her own ideas about what would be helpful

1:13:44

for long range goals for the people they

1:13:46

were educating. And the

1:13:48

white missionary teachers were resentful

1:13:50

of her presumption to disagree with how they taught

1:13:53

or how they acted toward the students. But

1:13:56

obviously, you know,

1:13:58

they can't oppose her.

1:13:59

at least not openly, it

1:14:02

was kind of gumming up the works there.

1:14:04

Sarah expected and got

1:14:07

dignity and respect both

1:14:09

for and from her colleagues and

1:14:12

more importantly for and from

1:14:15

her students. She slowly

1:14:17

gained their respect over time and gradually

1:14:19

began to sincerely like, if

1:14:22

not love, her husband who to

1:14:24

his credit valued her presence and

1:14:26

her work in a gratifying way. If this

1:14:29

wasn't the thunderbolt, at least they had a

1:14:31

nice

1:14:32

comfortable handshake. Or

1:14:34

you know,

1:14:35

more than a handshake. For almost

1:14:37

a year after her marriage, Sarah Davies was expecting

1:14:40

a baby. She wrote and received permission

1:14:42

to name the child Victoria after

1:14:44

the queen, if it was a girl, who asked

1:14:47

also to act as the child's

1:14:49

godmother and take her again under

1:14:51

royal protection just like her mother. The

1:14:54

Davies' moved to Lagos

1:14:56

in modern day Nigeria and

1:14:59

here's an interesting fact. There

1:15:01

was a standing order given by Queen Victoria

1:15:04

to the British military presence there

1:15:06

that Sarah Bonetta Forbes Davies

1:15:08

was one of only two Africans

1:15:11

to be specially evacuated in

1:15:13

the case of war. And that did

1:15:15

not, and I repeat not, include

1:15:18

her husband. There was a religious

1:15:20

leader that was the other of the two to

1:15:23

be evacuated. Which reminds me of a

1:15:25

scene in the West Wing when one of the

1:15:27

characters gets the card to go to the bunker and

1:15:30

he's really upset because no one else has the

1:15:32

card. He's the only one that's going to be evacuated. Well,

1:15:35

that was Sarah. Sarah continued to be both

1:15:37

a welcome correspondent and visitor

1:15:39

to an ever more reclusive queen,

1:15:41

Victoria, who loved baby

1:15:44

Victoria so much and gave her pockets

1:15:46

full of candy to take home. Victoria as

1:15:48

grandma was way better than Victoria

1:15:50

as mother. I've said it before when I

1:15:53

talked about how she treated her daughter, Princess

1:15:56

Beatrice's children, letting them set

1:15:58

crocodiles loose in her office.

1:15:59

I mean. And

1:16:02

of course Sarah was in touch with her mama,

1:16:05

Mrs. Schoen, and all the Schoen's,

1:16:08

her brothers and her sisters.

1:16:09

Young Victoria Davies was educated

1:16:12

in England at Cheltenham Ladies College

1:16:15

and continued to see the Queen throughout her

1:16:17

life. Sarah had two more children,

1:16:19

Arthur and Stella, and Arthur too

1:16:22

received an excellent education in Europe

1:16:24

under the protection of the Queen. Mr.

1:16:27

Davies had many challenges in business.

1:16:29

He was sort of fighting for legitimacy

1:16:32

in a non colorblind

1:16:34

world, let's just say, and his

1:16:36

wife became his biggest supporter

1:16:39

and fan. She really, really

1:16:41

regarded his persistence

1:16:43

and diligence with such admiration

1:16:46

and made sure to tell people at home. So in

1:16:49

general, she led a contented, comfortable

1:16:52

and useful life. However, Sarah's

1:16:54

health was never robust, even in

1:16:57

Africa, Queen Victoria. So that wasn't

1:16:59

the solution this whole time. Sarah

1:17:01

had a persistent cough and shortness of breath

1:17:03

that got bad enough that she was too ill

1:17:05

to work with her school or charity endeavors

1:17:08

to ill to attend or give social

1:17:10

functions. She was truly miserable.

1:17:12

She was diagnosed with our old enemy

1:17:15

consumption, tuberculosis.

1:17:18

The recommended course of action was

1:17:20

to be that old faithful prescription

1:17:23

of days gone by the change

1:17:26

of air.

1:17:27

Sarah wrote, My poor husband who

1:17:29

has had enough trouble to kill two ordinary

1:17:31

men made up his mind at the instigation

1:17:33

of the doctor to send me away for

1:17:35

some month's change. Madeira

1:17:38

in Portugal had a consumption

1:17:40

hospital with doctors experienced in

1:17:42

the treatment of tuberculosis. The air

1:17:45

was salubrious, the temperature mild. It

1:17:47

was a beautiful setting, though mostly

1:17:49

Sarah just saw what was outside of her windows

1:17:51

at the Royal Edinburgh Hotel where

1:17:54

she convalesced along with five

1:17:56

year old Stella and Stella's nanny.

1:17:59

Although,

1:17:59

The doctors in Madeira had been confident

1:18:02

that a six months cure would see her

1:18:04

right, see her healthy and on

1:18:06

her way back to her husband, Sarah

1:18:08

got weaker and weaker. She

1:18:11

wrote, since being here so ill,

1:18:14

I've been obliged to keep quiet. I've

1:18:16

always liked writing, but writing

1:18:18

has become too much of a task. Letters

1:18:21

she received from home from her husband

1:18:24

detailing his enormous reverses

1:18:27

in business aggravated her stress.

1:18:29

And the doctors couldn't turn her around. Sarah

1:18:32

Bonetta Forbes Davies died of

1:18:34

consumption at the hotel in Madeira

1:18:37

on August 15th, 1880. She

1:18:40

was only 37. The owner

1:18:43

of the hotel, one Mr. Reed, took

1:18:45

Sarah's jewels to pay for her stay, her

1:18:47

medical care and her funeral. Sarah

1:18:49

had asked to be buried at sea like her

1:18:52

beloved savior, Captain Forbes,

1:18:54

but everyone ignored this. And instead she

1:18:56

is buried in plot number 206 of

1:19:00

the British cemetery in Madeira. Without

1:19:03

a headstone, at least at first, she

1:19:05

didn't have a marker until 2019 when

1:19:08

funds were raised for a simple white marker.

1:19:12

I say funds were raised. A young

1:19:14

woman ran a race as a fundraiser

1:19:18

to erect that memorial. I'll

1:19:20

put details of that in the show notes. On

1:19:23

the marker it says, Bonetta Davies,

1:19:26

Nae Forbes, Princess of

1:19:28

the Agbado Omaba people, West

1:19:31

Africa, God daughter of H.M.

1:19:34

Clean Victoria. Her husband

1:19:36

did erect a granite obelisk in

1:19:38

her honor nearer to home in West

1:19:40

Lagos, which still exists that

1:19:43

says, In Memory of Princess

1:19:45

Sarah Forbes Bonetta. I

1:19:47

will put all the links in the show

1:19:49

notes. I do want to highly

1:19:52

recommend a book called At Her

1:19:54

Majesty's Request, An African Princess

1:19:56

in Victorian England by Walter

1:19:58

Dean Myers. And also two

1:20:01

very talented artists that

1:20:03

I want to draw your attention to. One, Iona

1:20:06

V. Jackson, who had a project

1:20:08

in 2017 called Dear Sarah, where

1:20:10

she dressed up as representations

1:20:13

of different facets of Sarah Bonetta

1:20:15

and called herself the different names.

1:20:18

So there's Ina, Sally, Stella,

1:20:20

all of those different things. I mean, I'll post a

1:20:23

link to her work in the show notes. And

1:20:26

then in 2015, another photo project called

1:20:28

Too Many Black Amores by Heather

1:20:30

Agyepong, who is also an extraordinarily

1:20:34

talented audiobook narrator.

1:20:37

Her name is spelled A-G-Y-E-P-O-N-G.

1:20:42

If you went to search for her, her voice is absolutely

1:20:45

unbelievably delightful. And so is her

1:20:47

photo series. Although I will caution

1:20:49

you that some of Ms.

1:20:52

Agyepong's pictures I

1:20:54

have seen identified in places like Pinterest

1:20:56

and even in reputable articles as

1:20:59

genuine pictures of Sarah Forbes

1:21:01

Bonetta. So use caution

1:21:03

and be careful. Arm yourself

1:21:06

by looking at the photo essay first.

1:21:08

See? Two birds with one stone.

1:21:11

I just want to quote from the

1:21:14

project page of Too Many Black Amores. It

1:21:16

says, the images are based on my own

1:21:18

personal experiences as a young black woman

1:21:21

dealing with the macro and micro traumas

1:21:23

of racism encountered while traveling around

1:21:25

European countries. Too Many Black

1:21:27

Amores aims to challenge the quote, strong,

1:21:30

independent black female narrative that can

1:21:32

burden and often entrap black women.

1:21:34

With Sarah as my template, the project

1:21:37

attempts to illustrate the effects of such

1:21:39

perceptual limitations while exploring

1:21:41

my own internal conflicts of falling

1:21:43

short from such mainstream ideals.

1:21:46

So

1:21:47

we can never know how Sarah felt,

1:21:50

you know, about having been. I

1:21:52

mean, obviously she was relieved at the moment

1:21:54

of her release from King Gazo, if

1:21:57

not in complete shock. But as she grew

1:21:59

up,

1:21:59

Among people whose motivations we

1:22:02

might question, you know, we

1:22:04

just really don't know how she felt. And

1:22:06

really, I was thinking about that when I encountered

1:22:09

the Too Many Black Amores exhibit and

1:22:13

was very touched and felt like I had maybe

1:22:15

a little window into how lonely it

1:22:17

was to be her. Thanks

1:22:19

for listening.

1:22:20

Bye!

1:22:33

Take back

1:22:35

the daughters of history

1:22:41

Take back the soft

1:22:44

edges of sin The

1:22:51

fruit and the vine

1:22:53

The dangerous type You

1:22:58

can keep me honest Only you

1:23:01

can keep me honest Make

1:23:14

way for the daughters

1:23:16

of history Stand

1:23:22

back for

1:23:24

all of their majesty I'm

1:23:32

not the one Who's having the fun

1:23:38

You have kept me honest Only you

1:23:40

have kept me honest It's

1:24:01

the devil in the whiskey

1:24:30

It's the devil in the whiskey It's

1:24:42

the devil in the whiskey We're

1:24:46

in love with a face like

1:24:48

the moon Eyes

1:25:02

like the skies over Delaware

1:25:06

We fell

1:25:10

in love by two sides History,

1:25:15

I'm in

1:25:18

love with your daughters

1:25:30

It's the devil in the whiskey It's

1:25:34

the devil in the whiskey, not

1:25:37

me It's

1:25:41

the devil in the whiskey It's

1:25:45

the devil in the whiskey, not

1:25:49

me you