After the beginning of the Age of Discovery, black Africans experienced the darkest years of misery, being bought and sold as talking livestock, engaged in the hardest labor, and enduring extremely cruel torture.
However, by chance, there were also some black slaves who were fortunate enough to escape their tragic fate, gain their freedom, and even enter high society and become aristocrats, among the more famous of which was Pushkin's great-grandfather, Ibrakin Hannibal, who, because of the favor of Peter the Great, was not only promoted to an officer, but also entered the Russian Academy of Sciences, became an academician, and was the first black-skinned nobleman in Russian history. Then there was Sarah Fox Bonnetta, a black princess who was favored by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, who was a beneficiary of the Abolitionist Movement in Britain.
Sarah Fox Bonnetta
The success of the first industrial revolution in the West was largely due to the accumulation of capital brought about by the slave trade, And Marx said: "Direct slavery is the basis of bourgeois industry ... Slavery gave value to the colonies, which created the world trade, which was an indispensable condition for large-scale machine industry. "And throughout the slave trade years, Britain traded four times more black slaves than other colonial countries combined, so Britain was the colonial empire that took the most benefits from the slave trade."
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, the British Empire had gone from being the largest slave trader to the staunchest opponent of the slave trade, a shift that was the result of a combination of ideas and economics in Britain.
Morally, the Church in England has been attacking the slave trade, arguing that the sale of one's kind as property is contrary to God's will and an act of sin, saying to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism: "It is not war or contract that enables any person to appropriate another person as property, as if he were his own cattle and sheep, and when a man begins to have a life, freedom becomes his right, and the laws of man cannot deprive a man of the kind of rights that come from the laws of nature." In his opinion: "An Angolan and an Englishman have the same natural rights. ”
At that time, the Enlightenment was in its infancy, and the idea of natural human rights, freedom and equality by nature also deeply influenced the British elite. Many members of the British Parliament opposed the slave trade, and British Prime Minister Pete, who came to power in 1804, also supported the abolition of slavery.
Economically, Britain originally relied on triangular trade to make a profit, that is, to exchange local industrial products for Black Slaves in Africa, and then to transport black slaves to the colonies to produce industrial raw materials for Britain. However, with the advancement of technology and the development of large machine industries, the products produced by slave plantations in regions such as the West Indies have lost their cheap advantage. Slaves, though forced to work without compensation, were paying more and more costs to suppress their increasingly strong resistance, and Adam Smith pointed out: "I believe that the experience of all ages and all the people proves one thing: slave labor, though it appears on the surface to be the cost of subsistence, is the most costly of any labor when calculated thoroughly." ”
Therefore, at that time, British industry no longer relied on these slave plantations, the proportion of the slave trade in the British economy was already very low, and the British capitalists needed more slaves as free people to consume British industrial goods, in this case, the British government no longer had to spend moral costs in order to maintain the slave trade, so on March 25, 1807, the British Parliament passed the abolition of the slave trade act, making the slave trade illegal, and the British also sent warships to patrol the African coast to intercept slave ships.
It was against this background that British Naval Captain Frederick Forbes was ordered to travel to West Africa in June 1850 on the battleship HMS Bonetta to introduce the Abolition of Slavery Act, first to the Kingdom of Dahomey to meet With King Geisso, who was The Largest Slave Supplier in Africa.
In the early days of the slave trade, white colonists personally entered black tribes in Africa to capture black slaves and then trafficked them to the colonies. But they were not familiar with the place there, and the targets were obvious, the blacks were wary of them, and the whites were increasingly revolted when they plundered the population, often resulting in heavy casualties. So they changed their ways, taking advantage of or provoking conflicts between black tribes, so that they could capture each other's prisoners, and then trade in black slaves from blacks.
Some black tribes, through the population trade with the whites, obtained muskets, cloth, iron, and other supplies, became stronger, and gained an advantage over other tribes. These tribes, who had tasted the sweetness, used their abilities in trade with whites to hunt blacks and sell them to white colonists for profit. In order to capture the other side's population, the black tribes waged a brutal war, and in order to sell these captured blacks, the black tribes competed with each other to cut prices, so that the whites could not only get cheap black slaves, but also far less risky than they themselves to hunt.
Driven by this evil trade, several kingdoms specializing in the slave trade emerged in Africa, and several of the most powerful kingdoms in West Africa, such as Ashanti, Dahomey, and Mali, made the slave trade the backbone of the country's economy.
The Kingdom of Dahomey is now Benin, a country that relied on trafficking in human beings in exchange for weapons from Westerners, thus building a powerful army that went deep into the interior of Africa to hunt slaves and transport them to ports to sell to white buyers. However, its own population is protected by the King and is not trafficked. By the 18th century, the Kingdom of Dahomey had been engaged in the slave trade for more than three hundred years, almost monopolizing the slave trade between the black kingdom and the West, and its coastal city of Vida was the largest slave trade center in the world at that time, so the country was called "slave coast" by Western colonists.
By plundering and selling slaves, the kingdom of Dahomey was strengthened, and they conquered and expanded their territory, not only robbing the population, but also using the living for sacrifice, slaughtering a large number of captives in the twice-yearly sacrifices. At the end of the 17th century, Dahomey exported 20,000 black slaves a year, and by the beginning of the 19th century, only 10,000 to 12,000 slaves could be exported every year, which directly harmed the interests of white buyers and caused their protests, and the Slave Merchants in Brazil had written to King Dahome in 1810, asking for a reduction in the number of living sacrifices to ensure that they could obtain sufficient slaves.
The slave trade supported the finances of the kingdom of Dahomey and was also the source of income for the luxurious life of the royal family, and the British demanded that the abolition of the slave trade be tantamount to taking away the king's wallet, how could he agree? So when King Gaizo learned of Captain Frederick Forbes's intentions, he was very resistant, but he did not dare not show respect for the powerful Britain, so he made some compromises, agreeing to reduce the annual human sacrifice to one, and to reduce the annual number of slave exports to 8,000. Captain Forbes, as an emissary of the British, naturally received the highest standard of hospitality, and Gaizo invited him to attend the ceremony. Although Captain Forbes was very disgusted by this barbaric ritual, as the queen's envoy, he could only follow the customs and accept The Gézo's hospitality.
Captain Forbes saw dozens of "sacrifices" about to be slaughtered on the viewing platform, and although he was a soldier accustomed to blood and fire, he still could not look at this terrible scene directly, and he only hoped that the sacrifice would end as soon as possible.
While the captain was struggling with pain, he suddenly saw a little girl in the "sacrifice", and his heart was suddenly tightened, and when the little girl's beautiful eyes met his sight, Captain Forbes could no longer remain calm, and he could not allow the girl to be killed in front of his eyes. He put aside diplomatic etiquette and told Geiseau bluntly: "Her Majesty the Queen will never tolerate the killing of an innocent child, and your actions will never gain her respect!" Please proceed with caution. ”
Captain Forbes's public warnings undermined The majesty of Gaizo, much to his displeasure, and if he acceded to Forbes's request, he would lose face in front of his subjects, but he did not dare to offend England. While he was hesitating, Captain Forbes wasted no time in slowing his tone and said, "But this girl can be a gift, a gift from the Negro King to the King of England, and she symbolizes your kindness and the friendship between the two countries." Seeing that there were steps to descend, Gaizo immediately said that, for the sake of friendship with the queen, he agreed to pardon the girl and hand her over to Captain Forbes.
So the little girl followed Captain Forbes aboard the Bonette. She was only five years old at the time, the daughter of the chief of the Egebado tribe, and both of her parents were killed by dahomey's army.
Captain Forbes and his wife were so fond of the little girl that they named her "Sarah" and took the ship name of the Bonetteta as her last name.
On the voyage of the Bonetteta, Captain Forbes and his wife taught Sarah to speak English and taught all kinds of knowledge and etiquette in the civilized world. Sarah was very intelligent, and once she learned, she was also extremely musically gifted, especially good at singing and dancing, and along the way, her performance added a lot of joy to the sailors on board. Sarah also developed a deep bond with Captain Forbes and his wife who saved her, treating them as reborn parents. However, the captain was a naval officer who had been on missions around the world with warships for many years and could not adopt her.
On 9 November 1850, when the Bonnetta finally returned to England, Captain Forbes took Sarah to Windsor Castle to meet Queen Victoria, who told her about sarah's origins and hoped she would be adopted and well educated.
At first glance, the queen was intrigued by the cleverness of the little girl, and she wrote in her diary for the day: "When Captain Forbes came home today, he brought a poor girl from Dahomey, whose parents had been killed, and Forbes saved her life by asking for her as a gift, and brought it to me."
This 7 year old girl is very smart, she speaks English and is dressed exactly like our girl, and you will only realize that she is black until you take off her hat to reveal her black curly hair and huge earrings. ”
The Queen decided to adopt Sarah, declaring the child her goddaughter and calling her by the nickname "Sally". Sarah and the Queen's children went to the aristocratic schools to receive the best education. But Sarah was not accustomed to life in the English court, and in the midst of a group of white children, she felt lonely, shy and reserved, in fact, her heart was to live with Captain Forbes's family.
At the suggestion of the Queen's husband, Prince Albert, Sarah was sent to a middle-class family in Kent for foster care, and the Queen paid for all the costs of Sarah's life.
In 1851 Sarah fell ill with a respiratory illness and was coughing incessantly. Believing that Sarah from Africa could not adapt to britain's cold and wet climate, the Queen sent Sarah back to Africa to continue her education in Sierra Leone, hoping to come back when she was stronger, promising to let her live in Captain Forbes's house.
Sarah was glad to return to Africa because it would allow her to meet her benefactor, Captain Forbes, but unfortunately, Captain Died of Illness on St. Helena on June 4, 1852, and Sarah's wish was never fulfilled.
During Sarah's time in Africa, the Queen cared for her in every way and kept writing to her about her health and studies. By 1855, Sarah was 12 years old, and the Queen thought she could withstand the cold of England, so she called her back to her side.
When she saw Sarah, who had grown up again, the queen couldn't help but be overjoyed, and she wrote in her diary: "I saw the well-educated little Sally, she grew a lot, tall and slim, really cute".
To satisfy Sarah's nostalgia for Captain Forbes, the Queen placed her in Captain Fox's cousin's house and allowed her to come and go to Windsor castle at any time.
Sarah and the Queen's second daughter, Alice, are the best girlfriends, and the two are almost inseparable. In January 1862, Sarah was invited to the grand wedding of Princess Alice to Grand Duke Ludwig of Prussia.
After Princess Alice got married, Queen Victoria became enthusiastic about Rosala's marriage, and soon after, Sarah received a marriage proposal from James Davis. James Davis, a merchant in the shipping business between Britain and Africa who served in the British Navy, was a black man like Sarah and a beneficiary of The Abolitionist Policy in Britain, whose parents were black slaves and who were freed by the British government.
James Davis was 31 years old at the time, and Sarah had met him when she was in Sierra Leone but had never thought of marrying him. But when the queen learned of this, she thought they were a good match, so she tried her best to facilitate the marriage. Sarah could not whisk the queen's wishes and agreed.
In August 1862, the wedding of Sarah and James Davis was held at the Basilica of St. Nicholas. Queen Victoria arranged the wedding according to the specifications of the royal princess's marriage, she specially invited the Archbishop of Sierra Leone to England to officiate the wedding for the couple, and also found Sixteen bridesmaids for Sarah, including four black girls, at this moment, Sarah's life reached its peak.
Sarah and James Davis
After marriage, Sarah went to Africa with her husband, and a year later, when her daughter was born, she asked the Queen for permission to name the child Victoria, and the Queen happily agreed, and personally served as the child's godmother.
Sarah died of tuberculosis on 15 August 1880, at the age of 37. Her death grieved the Queen, and she poured her love for Sarah into little Victoria, a child who grew up under the Queen's care, married a local doctor, and lived the life of Simford.
Sarah was undoubtedly lucky to meet the sympathetic Captain Forbes while her life was hanging in the balance. A black girl who was rescued from the altar became the darling of the Queen of England, and it cannot be said that this was the favor of the god of fate, and how many of the thousands of black slaves of that era could have the same good fortune as her?
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