Introduction to AT HER MAJESTY'S REQUEST- AN AFRICAN PRINCESS IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND
by Walter Dean Myers
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I've always found old bookstores exciting. Whenever I'm in a city that's new to me, I immediately look through the telephone directory for BOOKS, USED AND RARE. Book dealers send me their catalogs, and I read them as carefully as I would a letter from an old friend, never knowing what treasure I might find. Sometimes the catalogs contain printed material other than books, such as old photographs, newspapers, pamphlets, postcards, and letters. Such was the case of a catalog I received from a small book-and-ephemera shop in London.
One of the items for sale was a group of letters concerning a young girl who had lived in England in the mid-nineteenth century. The brief description of the material was intriguing. The girl, supposedly an African princess, had been rescued from a certain and horrible death in Africa. According to the catalog, she had been brought to England, and Queen Victoria had later been the godmother of her first child. The story sounded fascinating, but I had been on wild-goose chases before, and I approached the material with caution. I had a trip to London planned for the fall and put off thinking about the letters until then.
London in November. The weather was crisp but not overly cold and the streets bustled with early Christmas shoppers. I phoned the shop to ask if the letters were still available. They were, I was told. I could see them if I stopped by the following afternoon. When I arrived the next day, I was handed a folder with about fifty letters and some sheets of printed material. A few of the letters were scarcely readable. Others were fairly clear but cross-written; that is, the writer had written a message, then turned the paper sidewise and written over the first message. An accompanying article had a poor copy of a photograph of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, which was the English name of the young princess.
The price the dealer was asking for the letters was not terribly high, but I still wondered if there were really a story to be found in the papers before me. I decided to find out.
Back home I began the hard job of piecing together Sarah's life. Much to my surprise, I found I already owned an account of her rescue in a book called Dahomey and the Dahomans, written by the man who had saved Sarah from death, Frederick E. Forbes. In the book there is a delicate drawing of a young black girl. I realized that somewhere between the Victorian dress she wore and the African tribal scars etched into her face was the girl I wanted to write about.
I hired an English researcher who knew about the school Sarah had attended. A photography dealer at a flea market in New York told me about the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. A letter to the castle produced two photographs. One was of Sarah, taken in 1856. The other, undated, was of her daughter Victoria. I also received fascinating excerpts from Queen Victoria's diary.
Slowly, the story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta began to emerge. Here was the tale of an African princess under the protection of Queen Victoria, one of the most powerful people in the world. Here was a young woman struggling for independence in Victorian England. Most of all, here was a dynamic soul who lived and loved through one of the most exciting times in history.
I am deeply moved by Sarah's life and struggles. There is joy here, and sorrow. There is the triumph of the human spirit and more than a touch of tragedy. Here, to the best of my ability, is her story.
From At Her Majesty's Request- An African Princess in Victorian England. Copyright © by Walter Dean Myers
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