We received a number of answers related to Florence Baker’s exclusion from British society. Much of what exist in Wikipedia regarding Lady Baker is based on the oft repeated romanticized Victorian English version. (1) Florence Baker was in her own right a formidable explorer and huntress. She became an excellent shot and on many occasions stood up to rampaging tribesmen, buffalos, lions and other dangers. Although the paintings of Lady Baker show her as a typical Victorian matron she was anything but. She is shown with tame brown hair when she was actually a striking blonde. She wore pants and more shockingly only rode horses astride like a man, not side saddle like the women of her age. Likewise she handled guns and knives like a man as well, and was not shocked or dismayed by the male nudity she saw on her expeditions. The sum total was simply not proper conduct for a Victorian Lady. And more to the point, she simply could have cared less.
British society, simply, could never quite accept her, even though her husband had been knighted by the Queen because she had originally been a pleasure slave in the Ottoman Empire. The romanticized version of Sir Baker and Florence meeting, was they “locked eyes, and fell in love at first sight and escaped and ran away to avoid her being bought and deflowered by an evil depraved (brown skinned) oriental Pasha”. These euphemisms were common in puritanical Victorian England. The truth is as an attractive European female traded into slavery by family members or her village of Nagyenyed Transylvania; she had been a practicing courtesan for several years by the time Sir Baker found her. She was roughly 14 , (he was 38) and he purchased her at a slave auction in Vidin in present day Bulgaria around January 1859. (2) No doubt he intended her originally as a companion for long hunting trips, as she was attractive, very blonde European, fairly well educated for the times and fluent in German, Arabic, Hungarian, Turkish, and Romanian.(3) Though this mentality in modern terms is harsh and hard to understand, please remember in America slavery was also still legal, the Ottomans and America shared the dubious distinction of being two of the only civilized countries that still legally allowed slavery.
Sir Baker, being British and due to his heritage and laws was strongly against slavery. He would have been traveling through various British colonies where slavery was outlawed and it simply would not have been possible or legal to keep her as a slave, therefore he freed her. Consequently, he would have kept Florence more as a servant at first. No doubt due to her intelligence, courage, and skills in addition to their intimacy a relationship grew between them.
The British could never accept her having been a pleasure slave and non virgin. This was compounded by her being absolutely unashamed of her origins and that she had lived openly for years with Sir Baker unmarried. Queen Victoria set the moral tone of her times, and she had exceptionally strong negative views regarding such relationships.
- Very much a typical example of revisionist history that flies in the face of the known facts regarding the times and Islamic Ottoman Empire.
- We know this because the Baker’s entered various Ottoman territories at later dates and she was never treated as a runaway slave. Escaped slaves were taken very seriously under Ottoman law.
- Serendipitously while writing this article I found a news story today about the practice of brides being sold in Bulgaria http://digg.com/video/bulgarian-bride-market
