As the Great Wife of Paramount Chief Sango of the Tshomane, she served as a queen of the Mpondo people.
A famous figure in South African history, Bessie was a white girl that was adopted by a local clan following a shipwreck that cast her upon their shores.
[2] Her adoptive family - the AbeLungu - had themselves previously acculturated into the local tribes of the Wild Coast region of South Africa after similar misfortunes had befallen them.
[6] She was ruling as Sango's consort when the merchant vessel The Grosvenor ran aground on the shore of their territory in Lambasi Bay in 1782, about 40 years after her own ship did the same.
These descendants went on to create a far-flung dynasty that now includes everything from Mpondo, Xhosa and Thembu royalty to old Afrikaner and Coloured families.