At Her Majesty's Requestt tells the amazing, sad, true story of an African princess, rescued at the point of her certain death in a gigantic & hor...moreAt Her Majesty's Requestt tells the amazing, sad, true story of an African princess, rescued at the point of her certain death in a gigantic & horrific display of brutality by the notorious "King of Dahomey" Gezo, when a Commander in Her Majesty's Royal Navy begs for her life. Gezo gives him the child, to give to Queen Victoria. Given the name Sarah Forbes Bonetta by Commander Forbes, her last name being the name of the ship he commanded, she went to England for a year and was the queen's special interest.
A four year old girl who sees her parents and siblings slaughtered, is held in solitary confinement for two years, and is then about to be part of a huge human sacrifice and is rescued only minutes before her sure death....one wonders, given our predilection for labeling outrageous behavior as being caused by past trauma, especially childhood traumas...how did she overcome these things, and be a kind, interested, educated, and basically happy person?
Walter Dean Myers carefully lays out as much of Sarah's story as he can without overwhelming his audience, but at the risk of being quite dry in his tone as he seldom elaborates in detail, for this extremely dramatic story.
In some ways, Sarah Forbes Bonetta's story reminds me of Squanto's, in that all her loved ones & her entire village was wiped out, yet she comes to England, learns English, becomes a Christian, and is highly educated for the times. (Squanto, kidnapped and sold into slavery in Spain, is freed, becomes a Catholic and comes to England and eventually back to the New World where he providentially is there to aid the pilgrims in that first terrible year in Plymouth.)
This is an incredible story. Myers writes in a dry, uninteresting way but the story itself is so unusual and memorable - and formerly unknown - that I feel indebted to him for telling it. The illustrations, photographs of Sarah, documents, etc. are dark and often hard to make much of, unfortunately.
I recommend this book to people interested in the anti-slavery movement, mid-19th-Century England, West Africa, Dahomey, King Gezo, Missionary Societies, Queen Victoria.(less)
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