The complicated history of Queen Victoria's colonial godchildren, who became symbols of assimilation and civilization in the British Empire

• Queen Victoria had several wards and godchildren from British colonies, including Africa and India.
• The godchildren were treated like family, but also subject to strict control, according to historians.

In 1850, a naval captain named Frederick E. Forbes landed on the shores of England with a present for Queen Victoria: a 7-year-old girl from Africa.

The girl had been a gift from King Ghezo, the ruler of Dahomey, who had defeated her tribe two years prior. Forbes had sailed to the African kingdom as part of an antislavery mission for the British Empire in an attempt to convince Ghezo to end slavery. In 1838, the British parliament under Queen Victoria had abolished slavery throughout the Empire — a reversal of its history of enslaving and trading people, particularly during the transatlantic slave trade.

Though King Ghezo refused to end slavery in his kingdom, he gave the girl to Forbes as a symbol of goodwill. Forbes, who delighted in the girl's brightness, renamed and baptized her Sarah Forbes Bonetta after himself and his ship, the HMS Bonetta.

In England, Queen Victoria welcomed Bonetta, who stayed with Forbes' family and regularly visited the queen. Queen Victoria affectionately called her Sally and wrote fondly of her in her diary: "After luncheon Sally Bonita, the little African girl came with Mrs. Phipps, and showed me some of her work. This is the fourth time I have seen the poor child, who is really an intelligent little thing."

But Bonetta was more than just a companion for the queen. Both Queen Victoria and Forbes saw a way to use Bonetta to promote Christianity in Africa and its other colonies.

"God grant she may be taught to consider that her duty leads her to rescue those who have not had the advantages of education from the mysterious ways of their ancestors," Forbes wrote.

Bonetta was just one of Queen Victoria's several colonial godchildren, who became the faces of the royal family as it attempted to project a new image of benefaction and inclusion across its growing empire.

Symbols of 'civilization'

The British Empire saw its peak in the mid-19th century, dramatically expanding its reach by establishing new colonies in places like India, Africa, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. By the end of the 19th century, the British Empire comprised approximately a quarter of the world's land surface and more than a quarter of its total population, according to estimates by scholars.

Amid this rapid expansion, godchildren and wards from British colonies were not only gifts of goodwill, but also symbols of Western civilization and acculturation, according to historians.

The historian David Olusoga described Bonetta as someone who became "biographic shorthand for the perceived accomplishments of Britain's civilizing mission."

When Bonetta married James Davies, a West African businessman who was the descendant of freed slaves, in August 1862, national and colonial press lauded their wedding: One newspaper suggested the wedding of two successful, Anglicized Africans was proof of the royal family's philanthropy. Another report suggested the "marriage of a lady and gentleman of color" was a "ceremony of particular interest to those who have watched the progress of civilization caused by the influence of Christianity on the negro," Olusoga said on BBC.

With royal permission, Bonetta and Davies named their daughter Victoria after the queen, who became her godmother. The queen presented the baby with gold cutlery engraved with the message: "To Victoria Davies, from her godmother, Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, 1863."

After Bonetta died of tuberculosis in 1880, at 37 years old, her daughter Victoria attended Cheltenham Ladies College, her education paid by her godmother, the queen.

Control over the royal family's image

The queen's colonial godchildren were often subjected to strict control to maintain the royal family's image.

In 1852, Princess Gouramma landed in England with her father, Chikka Virarajendra, the last ruler of Coorg. Virarajendra had been exiled from his kingdom in southwest India by the British in 1834, and sought protection for his daughter in the country that had deposed him.

Gouramma is said to have become the first Indian royal to convert to Christianity, taking the name Victoria in her baptism, which also made the queen her godmother.

Though Gouramma was given fine clothing and jewelry, and often seen with the royal family, her life was tightly controlled by the queen. She was forbidden from seeing her family, supposedly to prevent her from slipping into "native" and "heathen" ways, according to historian Priya Atwal.

"Victoria doesn't allow Gouramma to see her father again, and Gouramma eventually loses the ability to speak Hindi, her mother tongue. It's really cruel," Atwal told Time. "The lens through which Gouramma is seen is through this colonial mindset. It's all about making sure that what she does and how she behaves fits with a way that will protect the royal family."

Gouramma attempted to run away several times. Queen Victoria unsuccessfully tried to matchmake Gouramma with another of her wards, Duleep Singh. Singh, too, had converted to Christianity and settled in the United Kingdom after the British deposed him from the Sikh Empire in 1843.

In the 1860s, Queen Victoria brought in two more godchildren: Prince Alamayu, son of the emperor of Abyssinia, and Albert Victor Pōmare, the son of Maori people who traveled to England as part of a tour organized by a preacher.

The queen treated her godchildren as kin, providing for their education and behavior training. But they were also a way for Britain to advance Christianity, and also for the British royal family to project a new image of themselves across the Empire, according to Atwal. Photographs and the press presented them as an inclusive, tolerant family — but when the godchildren fell out of favor, they would also incur the wrath of the newly-emerging popular press in a prescient echo of Meghan Markle's treatment by British tabloids, Atwal said.

"The problem remains that the culture of royalty and the way the institution operates to protect its own image is actually very problematic. It tries to assimilate these people, because ultimately, it doesn't care about those people to the same degree as it does about the crown," Atwal told Time. "And if the interests of the crown are being messed with, then it doesn't really matter what collateral damage happens to the lives of those people that are being assimilated. They are expendable."