Black History Untold Stories

Little known but inspirational stories from Black history

Category: Black History

Illustration of Henry Box Brown being released from his box

Henry “Box” Brown: The Slave Who Mailed Himself to Freedom

January 30, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Resurrection of Henry Box Brown
Resurrection of Henry Box Brown
Source: William Still via Wikimedia (public domain)

The Legend and Legacy of Henry “Box” Brown

Almost two centuries after it occurred, Henry Brown’s escape from slavery before the Civil War is still celebrated as an inspiring example of what ingenuity, audacity, and faith can accomplish even in desperate circumstances. This is the story of how a hopeless slave took his life into his own hands and became an celebrated symbol of freedom, even to this day.

Henry Brown’s Triumphant Start of a New Life

Early on the morning of March 24, 1849, a box was delivered to 107 North Fifth Street in Philadelphia. These were the offices of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Several members of that organization had gathered that Saturday morning, anxiously awaiting the arrival of this package that had been shipped the day before from Richmond, Virginia.

When the box had been brought in and the doors of the room locked so that there would be no untimely interruptions, one of the waiting men did something strange. Leaning over the box, he tapped on it and quietly asked, “Is all right within?” Even more strangely, a voice replied from inside the box, “All right.”

Within a few minutes, the box was opened, and its contents were revealed. He was an African-American man in his early 30s by the name of Henry Brown. And he had just succeeded in escaping from slavery by shipping himself as freight to this city in the free state of Pennsylvania.

In honor of his very creative but extremely dangerous feat, he would forever after be known as Henry “Box” Brown.

Once out of his box, Henry Brown had a mesmerizing story to tell.

Henry Brown’s Life As a Virginia Slave

Henry Brown was born in 1815 or 1816 in Louisa County, Virginia. His first owner was former Richmond mayor, John Barret. As a slaveholder, Barret was atypical. He treated his slaves much better than was the norm, so much so that Brown described him in his autobiography as “uncommonly kind,” adding wryly that “even a slaveholder may be kind.”

When Barret lay dying, he sent for Brown and his mother. They came, as Brown says, “with beating hearts and highly elated feelings.” Because of the kind treatment his family had always received from their enslaver—and especially in light of the fact that Barret’s son Charles, impressed with the evils of slavery, had at one time emancipated about 40 of his slaves—Henry fully expected Barret to announce that he was setting the Brown family free. Instead, Barret simply told Henry that he would now be owned by his son William, and urged him to be obedient to his new enslaver.

Barret probably felt he had done all he could for Henry, short of freeing him. He extracted a promise from William that he would treat Henry kindly, and never have him whipped. William was faithful to that promise. Henry was sure that there were many times when only William’s insistent instructions to the overseer that he be treated well saved him from the lash.

What Barret did not consider, as it seemed slaveholders almost never did, was that in dividing the enslaved people as an inheritance among his sons, he was ripping apart a family. Members of the Brown family were given to each of the four Barret sons.

Even though Henry’s mother and sister joined him as part of William’s inheritance, they were ultimately separated by Henry being sent to work in a tobacco factory in Richmond. He was then about 15 years of age.

Henry "Box" Brown
Henry “Box” Brown
Source: Wikimedia (public domain)

Love and Marriage in Slavery

In 1836, as he entered his twenties, Henry fell in love with a young woman named Nancy. She was enslaved by Mr. Leigh, a bank clerk. Since slave marriages required the enslavers’ permission, Henry went to his own master and to Mr. Leigh to ask not only that he and Nancy be allowed to marry, but also for assurances that they would not be sold away from one another.

Mr. Leigh was particularly strong in his commitment. Henry recalled that “He promised faithfully that he would not sell her, and pretended to entertain an extreme horror of separating families.” Secure in that promise, Henry and his bride were able to set up housekeeping together.

But true to what Henry had come to expect from slaveholders, it was not more than a year after their marriage that Mr. Leigh broke his promise and sold Nancy.

This sale, and another that eventually followed, were to enslavers who lived in Richmond, and Henry and Nancy were able to maintain their family despite these upheavals. They had three children together and were expecting their fourth when the long feared blow finally struck them.

Another Family Torn Apart

On that day in 1848, Henry left home, as usual, to go to work. His autobiography recounts the horrific news that was soon brought to him:

“I had not been many hours at my work, when I was informed that my wife and children were taken from their home, sent to the auction mart and sold, and then lay in prison ready to start away the next day for North Carolina with the man who had purchased them. I cannot express, in language, what were my feelings on this occasion.”

Slave family on the auction block, Richmond, VA, 1861
Slave family on the auction block, Richmond, VA, 1861
Source: The Illustrated London News, Feb. 16, 1861

Henry’s family became part of a group of 350 enslaved people purchased by a slave-trading Methodist minister. Although he tried in every way he could to find a means of getting his family back, nothing worked. When he pleaded with his master for help, the man would say nothing more than, “you can get another wife.”

Henry was finally reduced to watching from the street as his wife and children, along with the other slaves, were herded into wagons for their journey to an auction block in North Carolina, and out of his life forever.

He never saw them again.

The Decision to Escape Slavery

With the loss of his family, Henry became determined to escape the hopeless oppression of slavery.

He was a man of faith—a member of the First African Baptist Church where he sang in the choir. He was also a man of prayer.

As he recalled, it was while he was fervently praying concerning his plight “when the idea suddenly flashed across my mind of shutting myself up in a box, and getting myself conveyed as dry goods to a free state.”

Henry was convinced that it was God Himself who inserted that thought into his mind. He immediately went to work to put his plan into action.

He secured the help of a free black man and fellow choir member by the name of James Caesar Anthony Smith. He also solicited the aid of Samuel Smith (no relation to James), a White storekeeper with whom he had done business.

Although Samuel Smith had been a slave owner, Henry was convinced of his integrity and believed he could trust him to help. Henry offered him half of his savings of $166 (he actually gave him $86), and Smith agreed to participate in the escape effort. It was Samuel Smith who contacted an acquaintance, Philadelphia abolitionist James Miller McKim, and arranged for him to receive the box when it was shipped.

Henry hired a carpenter to construct the box, which was 3 ft long, 2 ft wide, 2.5 ft deep, and lined with a coarse woolen cloth. It had just three small air holes where his face would be to allow him to breathe. A sign was attached that read “This Side Up With Care,” since for a human being to be kept in a head-down orientation for any length of time is extremely dangerous. Once inside the box, Henry would be entirely unable to shift his position.

Early in the morning of Friday, March 23, 1849, Henry climbed into the box. He carried nothing with him but a small bladder of water and a few crackers. The two Smiths nailed the box shut and lashed it with straps, then conveyed it to the facility of the Adams Express Company, about a mile away.

A Harrowing Journey in a Box

True to the traditions maintained by freight handlers to this day, the “This Side Up With Care” sign was totally ignored.

Henry recalled, “I had no sooner arrived at the office than I was turned heels up, while some person nailed something on the end of the box. I was then put upon a wagon and driven off to the depot with my head down, and I had no sooner arrived at the depot, than the man who drove the wagon tumbled me roughly into the baggage car, where, however, I happened to fall on my right side.”

There were several times during the trip when Henry was left in an upside-down position. One particular time almost killed him:

“I felt my eyes swelling as if they would burst from their sockets; and the veins on my temples were dreadfully distended with pressure of blood upon my head. In this position I attempted to lift my hand to my face but I had no power to move it; I felt a cold sweat coming over me which seemed to be a warning that death was about to terminate my earthly miseries.”

Just in time, two men looking for a place to sit turned the box right side up to make it a comfortable seat, and Henry was saved.

A Song of Praise

After enduring 27 hours in his cramped and stifling hot enclosure, when his box was finally opened and he tried to stand, Henry lost consciousness.

But Henry was dauntless. He soon recovered, and when he did, his first act as a free man was to sing a song of praise to God for his deliverance.

As he put it,

“I had risen as it were from the dead; I felt much more than I could readily express; but as the kindness of Almighty God had been so conspicuously shown in my deliverance, I burst forth into the following hymn of thanksgiving…”

He then went on to sing his own version of Psalm 40: “I waited patiently, I waited patiently for the Lord, for the Lord; And he inclined unto me, and heard my calling.”

From then on, in the hundreds of times Henry would tell his story, this psalm was always part of his presentation.

A Secret That Could Not Be Kept

Henry Brown’s parcel-post escape from slavery was, of course, an exciting and compelling story. At first, the Anti-Slavery society tried to keep it from getting out so that others could use the same method. But keeping that kind of secret was impossible.

In its edition of April 12, 1849, less than a month after Henry arrived in Philadelphia, the Courier newspaper of Burlington, Vermont published a somewhat garbled version of the story. Other papers soon picked it up.

With the story of his escape no longer a secret, abolitionists knew that Henry Box Brown could be a potent ally in their cause. He soon began speaking at abolitionist meetings and became a very effective advocate for the elimination of American slavery.

It turned out that the creativity Henry displayed in devising his means of escape was no fluke. In 1849 he hired artists and craftsmen to produce a panorama that as it was unrolled revealed 49 scenes from his life as a slave. It was called Henry “Box” Brown’s Mirror of Slavery, and it was a powerful illustration in his anti-slavery talks.

He also published, with Charles Stearns, his autobiography called Narrative of Henry Box Brown, Who Escaped from Slavery, Enclosed in a Box 3 Feet Long and 2 Wide. Written from a Statement of Facts Made by Himself. With Remarks Upon the Remedy for Slavery.

Escaping the Fugitive Slave Act in England

With all his success and fame, Henry “Box” Brown was still legally a slave. When the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in August, 1850, it was no longer safe for him to remain in a country where any slave catcher had a legal right to grab him and carry him back into slavery.

So, in October of that year, he sailed for England. He remained there, traveling throughout the United Kingdom presenting his panorama, until 1875, when he returned to the United States. He had remarried in England and brought his new wife and daughter with him.

At that point, ten years after the close of the Civil War, the anti-slavery crusade was moot. So, Henry and his family made their living performing together an act called, “the African Prince’s Drawing-Room Entertainment” in which Henry appeared as “Prof. H. Box Brown.”

Their last known performance was reported by a newspaper in Brantford, Ontario on February 26, 1889. Nothing is known of what happened to Henry and his family after that time. The date and place of his death are unknown.

Henry in his box as depicted in a one-act play
Henry in his box as depicted in a one-act play. Source: Small-Cast One-Act Guide Online

In 1849, Henry published his story in his book, Narrative of Henry Box Brown, Who Escaped from Slavery, Enclosed in a Box 3 Feet Long and 2 Wide. Written from a Statement of Facts Made by Himself. With Remarks Upon the Remedy for Slavery.

The Lasting Legacy of Henry “Box” Brown

Other attempts to use Henry’s method of escaping slavery were made. In fact, the two Smiths who had helped him, James and Samuel, were both caught aiding other fugitives and put on trial. James was acquitted and moved North. Samuel, however, was convicted and served about seven years in prison for his commitment to freedom for slaves.

The ordeal that Henry “Box” Brown endured in order to be delivered out of slavery was not unique. Many others braved terrors as severe in their own quest for freedom.

Although the publicity surrounding Henry’s means of escape precluded it from being used, as premier abolitionist Frederick Douglass had hoped, by “a thousand Box Browns per annum,” the story of Henry “Box” Brown provided something beyond just one successful method for escaping slavery. It provided inspiration and hope to thousands, both black and white, that with the help of God, good can indeed triumph over evil.

And that hope still lives today.

Further Reading:

© 2013 Ronald E. Franklin

Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt’s Historic Flight With a Tuskegee Airman

January 26, 2026 / / 0 Comments
Eleanor Roosevelt. Source: Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)

Eleanor Roosevelt was a woman of conviction and courage. In 1941, she demonstrated both by climbing into the back seat of a J-3 Piper Cub and going up for a flight with an African American pilot at the controls. This was during a time when most Americans were convinced that Blacks had neither the physical nor mental capacity to safely fly airplanes.

A Visit to Tuskegee

As the wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt became well known for her concern for the civil rights of African Americans. She did all she could to demonstrate to a skeptical nation that its Black population was just as intelligent and capable as other Americans and deserved all the rights and privileges of citizenship. In 1941, she found an opportunity to reinforce that conviction in a dramatic fashion.

In March of that year, the First Lady visited the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to meet fellow trustees of the Julius Rosenwald Fund. The Institute was founded in 1881 by Booker T. Washington and, with famed agricultural scientist Dr. George Washington Carver in residence, had a stellar reputation for its programs to improve educational opportunities and the quality of life for Blacks and other disadvantaged people.

Because she was concerned for the welfare of the nation’s Black population, the First Lady had a great interest in the various projects Tuskegee Institute was carrying out. One of these that stirred her interest was the aeronautical school in operation there. In 1939, Congress established the Civilian Pilot Training Program at colleges and universities around the country. Hard-fought efforts by African-American activists resulted in six historically Black colleges, Tuskegee among them, being included in the program.

Tuskegee Becomes the Training Site for Black Military Pilots

Because of its outstanding record with the civilian flight program, in January of 1941, the War Department selected Tuskegee to be the pilot training base for the newly formed 99th Pursuit Squadron.

This would start the “experiment” in Black military aviation, producing the acclaimed Tuskegee Airmen. But to implement the plan, Tuskegee needed to find funding to bring its airfield up to the required standard. It was to consider that need that Mrs. Roosevelt and the other Julius Rosenwald Fund trustees assembled at the school.

The First Lady Goes for a Flight With a Black Pilot

On March 29, 1941, Mrs. Roosevelt visited Tuskegee’s airfield, where she met Charles Alfred “Chief” Anderson, the head of the civilian pilot training program and its chief flight instructor. Anderson was the first and, at that time, only African American pilot to have received his commercial transport license.

This future leader of the Tuskegee Airmen had begun making his mark on aviation as early as 1933, when he and another pioneer aviator, Dr. Albert E. Forsythe, became the first African Americans to complete a transcontinental flight from Atlantic City to Los Angeles and back. But now, he was about to make what, from a historical perspective, was perhaps the most impactful flight of his career.

Mrs. Roosevelt and C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson in the plane
Mrs. Roosevelt and C. Alfred “Chief” Anderson in the plane
Source: U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

According to J. Todd Moye in his book Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, Mrs. Roosevelt observed to Anderson that everybody had told her Black people couldn’t fly airplanes. She then asked if he would take her up for an aerial tour.

The First Lady’s Secret Service escort, of course, went apoplectic. But Eleanor Roosevelt was nothing if not stubborn when she had a worthy end in mind. So, up they went, for the better part of an hour. It was certainly the first time in history that a First Lady of the United States flew with a Black man at the controls.

Anderson remembers that they had a delightful flight, which Mrs. Roosevelt enjoyed very much. When they landed, she told him, “Well, you can fly, alright.”

In March of 2014, C. Alfred “Chief” Anderson was honored by being featured on a U. S. postage stamp. The 70-cent First-Class stamp is the 15th in the Postal Service’s Distinguished American Series. In its announcement, the Postal Service celebrated Chief Anderson as “The Father of Black Aviation” and “the Charles Lindbergh of Black Aviation.”

Mrs. Roosevelt’s Uses Her Flight to Educate the American Public

It’s clear that from the beginning of this adventure, Mrs. Roosevelt knew exactly what she was doing. According to the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project at George Washington University, she insisted that her flight with pilot Anderson be photographed, and the film developed immediately so she could take it back to Washington with her.

The photograph appeared in papers across the country, and Mrs. Roosevelt described the flight in a paragraph in her weekly newspaper column, My Day, saying, “These boys are good pilots.” As Moye notes, for millions of her readers, this would be the first time they became aware of Blacks flying airplanes and doing it well.

Mrs. Roosevelt Uses Her Flight to Influence FDR

But beyond the visibility the photograph brought to the public, Mrs. Roosevelt also had another audience in mind. That audience consisted of only one person. It was, of course, her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States. The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project says she later used that photograph to persuade FDR to allow the Tuskegee Airmen to be deployed in the war’s North Africa and European Theaters.

She also used her influence as a Julius Rosenwald Fund trustee to have that organization appropriate a loan to help Tuskegee bring its airfield up to required military standards.

Tuskegee Airmen, 1942-43
Tuskegee Airmen, 1942-43.
Source: U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

A Lasting Legacy

For at least two decades, African Americans who wanted to serve as military aviators had been stymied by a brick wall of prejudice and intolerance. Eleanor Roosevelt was committed to doing everything she could to change that. She exerted considerable influence with funders, the public, and her husband, the President of the United States, to bring about the needed change.

Mrs. Roosevelt’s flight with “Chief” Anderson was a big first step in establishing the reputation of the Tuskegee Airmen in the public mind and allowing them to achieve the outstanding combat record they earned during World War II. That, in turn, was an important factor in President Harry Truman’s 1948 executive order abolishing racial discrimination throughout the American military.

In a very real way, the effects of Eleanor Roosevelt’s flight into history still resonate today.

© 2013 Ronald E. Franklin

Eleanor Roosevelt was a woman of conviction and courage. In 1941, she demonstrated both by climbing into the back seat of a J-3 Piper Cub and going up for a flight with an African American pilot at the controls. This was during a time when most Americans were convinced that Blacks had neither the physical nor mental capacity to safely fly airplanes.

A Visit to Tuskegee

As the wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt became well known for her concern for the civil rights of African Americans. She did all she could to demonstrate to a skeptical nation that its Black population was just as intelligent and capable as other Americans and deserved all the rights and privileges of citizenship. In 1941, she found an opportunity to reinforce that conviction in a dramatic fashion.

In March of that year, the First Lady visited the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to meet fellow trustees of the Julius Rosenwald Fund. The Institute was founded in 1881 by Booker T. Washington and, with famed agricultural scientist Dr. George Washington Carver in residence, had a stellar reputation for its programs to improve educational opportunities and the quality of life for Blacks and other disadvantaged people.

Because she was concerned for the welfare of the nation’s Black population, the First Lady had a great interest in the various projects Tuskegee Institute was carrying out. One of these that stirred her interest was the aeronautical school in operation there. In 1939, Congress established the Civilian Pilot Training Program at colleges and universities around the country. Hard-fought efforts by African-American activists resulted in six historically Black colleges, Tuskegee among them, being included in the program.

Tuskegee Becomes the Training Site for Black Military Pilots

Because of its outstanding record with the civilian flight program, in January of 1941, the War Department selected Tuskegee to be the pilot training base for the newly formed 99th Pursuit Squadron.

This would start the “experiment” in Black military aviation, producing the acclaimed Tuskegee Airmen. But to implement the plan, Tuskegee needed to find funding to bring its airfield up to the required standard. It was to consider that need that Mrs. Roosevelt and the other Julius Rosenwald Fund trustees assembled at the school.

The First Lady Goes for a Flight With a Black Pilot

On March 29, 1941, Mrs. Roosevelt visited Tuskegee’s airfield, where she met Charles Alfred “Chief” Anderson, the head of the civilian pilot training program and its chief flight instructor. Anderson was the first and, at that time, only African American pilot to have received his commercial transport license.

This future leader of the Tuskegee Airmen had begun making his mark on aviation as early as 1933, when he and another pioneer aviator, Dr. Albert E. Forsythe, became the first African Americans to complete a transcontinental flight from Atlantic City to Los Angeles and back. But now, he was about to make what, from a historical perspective, was perhaps the most impactful flight of his career.

Mrs. Roosevelt and C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson in the plane
Mrs. Roosevelt and C. Alfred “Chief” Anderson in the plane
Source: U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

According to J. Todd Moye in his book Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, Mrs. Roosevelt observed to Anderson that everybody had told her Black people couldn’t fly airplanes. She then asked if he would take her up for an aerial tour.

The First Lady’s Secret Service escort, of course, went apoplectic. But Eleanor Roosevelt was nothing if not stubborn when she had a worthy end in mind. So, up they went, for the better part of an hour. It was certainly the first time in history that a First Lady of the United States flew with a Black man at the controls.

Anderson remembers that they had a delightful flight, which Mrs. Roosevelt enjoyed very much. When they landed, she told him, “Well, you can fly, alright.”

In March of 2014, C. Alfred “Chief” Anderson was honored by being featured on a U. S. postage stamp. The 70-cent First-Class stamp is the 15th in the Postal Service’s Distinguished American Series. In its announcement, the Postal Service celebrated Chief Anderson as “The Father of Black Aviation” and “the Charles Lindbergh of Black Aviation.”

Mrs. Roosevelt’s Uses Her Flight to Educate the American Public

It’s clear that from the beginning of this adventure, Mrs. Roosevelt knew exactly what she was doing. According to the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project at George Washington University, she insisted that her flight with pilot Anderson be photographed, and the film developed immediately so she could take it back to Washington with her.

The photograph appeared in papers across the country, and Mrs. Roosevelt described the flight in a paragraph in her weekly newspaper column, My Day, saying, “These boys are good pilots.” As Moye notes, for millions of her readers, this would be the first time they became aware of Blacks flying airplanes and doing it well.

Mrs. Roosevelt Uses Her Flight to Influence FDR

But beyond the visibility the photograph brought to the public, Mrs. Roosevelt also had another audience in mind. That audience consisted of only one person. It was, of course, her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States. The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project says she later used that photograph to persuade FDR to allow the Tuskegee Airmen to be deployed in the war’s North Africa and European Theaters.

She also used her influence as a Julius Rosenwald Fund trustee to have that organization appropriate a loan to help Tuskegee bring its airfield up to required military standards.

Tuskegee Airmen, 1942-43
Tuskegee Airmen, 1942-43.
Source: U.S. Air Force via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

A Lasting Legacy

For at least two decades, African Americans who wanted to serve as military aviators had been stymied by a brick wall of prejudice and intolerance. Eleanor Roosevelt was committed to doing everything she could to change that. She exerted considerable influence with funders, the public, and her husband, the President of the United States, to bring about the needed change.

Mrs. Roosevelt’s flight with “Chief” Anderson was a big first step in establishing the reputation of the Tuskegee Airmen in the public mind and allowing them to achieve the outstanding combat record they earned during World War II. That, in turn, was an important factor in President Harry Truman’s 1948 executive order abolishing racial discrimination throughout the American military.

In a very real way, the effects of Eleanor Roosevelt’s flight into history still resonate today.

Further Reading:

© 2013 Ronald E. Franklin

Sarah Forbes Bonetta in 1862

Sarah Forbes Bonetta: Queen Victoria’s Black Princess

January 25, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Sarah Forbes Bonetta in 1862
Sarah Forbes Bonetta in 1862

When readers in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War scanned the front page of the Richmond Daily Dispatch on Monday, January 25, 1864, an article that must have been disquieting, if not astounding, met their eyes.

The article was a reprint from an Irish paper, and for the Dispatch’s readership, its headline must have been an attention-grabber:

Queen Victoria godmother for a “Colored” Baby.

The Dublin Freeman of the 20th ult. has the following paragraph about British royalty:

Our readers will probably remember the marriage at St. John’s Church, Chatham, a short time since, of the young African Princess, Miss Bonetta Forbes, the protégé of the Queen, who was brought to this country by Captain Forbes, in her Majesty’s ship Bonetta, from the coast of Africa, and educated by the Rev. J. Schon, chaplain of Melville Hospital, Chatham, at the expense of her Majesty, who always took the most lively interest in her welfare, and occasionally had her at court.–On the occasion of the marriage of the young princess to J. Davis, Esq., a colored West India merchant, who has since settled on the Gold Coast, the Queen took the most lively interest in the event, and made Miss Forbes several handsome wedding presents, all of which were fully described at the time. Intelligence has now been received of a further mark of favor conferred on Mrs. Davis, who has just given birth so a daughter, to whom her Majesty stood godmother by proxy. At the same time the Queen has presented to her godchild a beautiful gold cup, with a salver, knife, fork and spoon, of the same metal, as a baptismal present. The cup and salver bear the following inscription:– “To Victoria Davis, from her godmother, Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, 1863.”

To a Southern slave-holding populace fully indoctrinated with the belief that any kind of equality between White and Black was an impossibility, the idea of the Queen of England having chosen to be the active and even affectionate godmother to a Black African must have seemed bizarre.

Who was this African princess who received such great favor from the English monarch?

She was Sarah Forbes Bonetta (her name was sometimes written as “Sarah Bonetta Forbes”), and she was herself a victim of the slave trade. Named for the British sea captain and his ship that rescued her from captivity and death, she was a West African of royal blood.

A Captured Princess Who Almost Became a Human Sacrifice

Sarah was born to a clan of the Yoruba in what is now Nigeria and was orphaned in 1848 at the age of about five when her people were massacred by slave raiders from neighboring Dahomey. Because she was of high birth, instead of selling her to slave traders, the Dahomeans presented her to their king, Gezo. The king held her as a royal captive, to eventually be offered as a human sacrifice.

But two years after her capture, in June 1850, an event occurred that reshaped her life completely. A British ship, H.M.S. Bonetta, with her captain, Frederick E. Forbes of the Royal Navy, arrived in Dahomey to negotiate an end to the slave trade. When he learned of the intended fate of the young captive, Captain Forbes arranged with King Gezo to give her to Queen Victoria. As Forbes later put it, “She would be a present from the King of the Blacks to the Queen of the Whites.”

Captain Forbes was extremely impressed with this extraordinary child. He wrote of her in his journal:

I have only to add a few particulars about my extraordinary present ‘the African Child’ – one of the captives of this dreadful slave-hunt was this interesting girl.

It is usual to reserve the best born for the high behest of royalty and the immolation on the tombs of the deceased nobility. For one of these ends she has been detained at court for two years, proving, by her not having been sold to slave dealers, that she was of good family.

She is a perfect genius; she now speaks English well, and has a great talent for music. She has won the affections, but with few exceptions, of all who have known her. She is far in advance of any white child of her age, in aptness of learning, and strength of mind and affection.

Queen Victoria, too, was impressed by the child’s intelligence. She, along with Prince Albert, received Sarah at Windsor Castle and arranged for her to live and be educated in several upper-middle-class English households.

Initially, the English climate seemed to cause frequent health problems for Sarah (familiarly known as Sally), and the Queen sent her to be educated at a missionary school in Sierra Leone. But in 1855, Victoria sent a letter to the school requiring them “to send Sally Forbes Bonetta at once to England by Her Majesty’s command.”

Portrait by Merrick & Co. of Brighton around the time of Sarah's marriage in 1862
Portrait by Merrick & Co. of Brighton around the time of Sarah’s marriage in 1862
Source: Photo courtesy of Paul Frecker

A Favorite of the Queen

There seems to have been a good deal of affection between the English monarch and the African princess. Victoria became Sarah’s godmother and paid all her expenses. Sarah was a frequent visitor with the Royal Family at Windsor and became a particular companion of Princess Alice. The two are said to have often ridden together around the castle grounds in a pony cart.

Eventually, it was decided that it was time for Sarah to marry, and, following royal tradition, Buckingham Palace arranged a match for her. The chosen suitor was recent widower James Davies, a 31-year-old West African businessman and missionary who was then living in England.

Initially, the proposed match was not at all to Sarah’s liking. But life as a royal protégé being what it was, the marriage took place on August 14, 1862.

Sarah and Husband
Sarah and Husband

Once married, Sarah is said to have come to deeply love her husband, and she soon presented him with a daughter (as well as two later children). When Sarah wrote to Victoria for permission to name her daughter after the Queen, not only did Victoria give permission, she offered to be godmother to the child.

Victoria Davies, like her mother, became a favorite of the Queen and was one of the last visitors received by Victoria before the monarch’s death in 1901.

Sarah herself, never strong, developed a cough that wouldn’t go away. She was sent to the island of Madeira, hoping that the pure and dry air would help her recover. It did not. She died there of tuberculosis in 1880 at about 37 years of age.

How Princess Sarah Forbes Bonetta’s Story Signaled the Doom of the Confederacy

This is the background to the story readers of the Richmond Dispatch were confronted with on that Monday morning, early in the new year of 1864. It was commonly understood that this was to be the make-or-break year for the Southern Confederacy.

Some still firmly believed that if the South ever seemed to be on the brink of ultimate defeat, Britain would step in on the side of the Confederates to prevent a reunited American nation from becoming the colossus of the world. That expectation is documented in 1863 Confederate Newspaper Predicts the USA in 1963, which analyzes Confederate hopes for British intervention as reflected in their own press.

But those who read the Sarah Forbes Bonetta article, and were perceptive enough to understand its real meaning, would have realized that the hope of British intervention was gone forever.

It was simply not possible that a monarch who had willingly become a loving godmother and life-long sponsor to a Black African rescued from the clutches of slave traders would not do all in her considerable power to prevent her nation from becoming the means by which American slavery was preserved.

Further Reading

© 2013 Ronald E. Franklin

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