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New biography reexamines Sarah Forbes Bonetta’s life in Queen Victoria’s court
Sarah Forbes Bonetta was seven when she met Queen Victoria and was presented at Windsor Castle. She had been given as a “diplomatic gift” from an African king. Her great-great-grandson, Bayo Randle, questions whether a person with agency can be given from one to another and wonders if he would exist today if she had not been taken to England. A new biography of Bonetta has been written by Canadian academic Henry Lovejoy, tracing her life from birth in what is now south-west Nigeria to her role in Queen Victoria’s court.
Lovejoy argues that Bonetta was essentially bound to the Crown through an…
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