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When the British explorer Samuel Baker attended a slave auction in Eastern Europe in 1859, he was not looking for treasure or fame.
Yet among the captives stood a young woman who would change the course of his life and her own.
Her name was Florence. Born in Transylvania and sold into slavery as a teenager, she escaped that fate beside the man who freed her.
Together they would cross deserts, navigate uncharted rivers, and venture deep into the heart of Africa.
Few women of her time traveled so far or lived so fearlessly.
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A chance meeting that changed everything
Florence Barbara Maria von Sass was born in 1841 in what is now Romania.
Little is known about her early years, except that she was orphaned and captured during the chaos of war.
She was taken by Ottoman traders to a slave market in Vidin, Bulgaria, where she caught the attention of Samuel Baker, a British officer and explorer.
Against all convention, he helped her escape, and the two began a lifelong partnership.
They were not yet married, but they traveled side by side, an unthinkable arrangement for a Victorian gentleman.
Into Africa
In 1861, the Bakers joined an expedition to trace the upper reaches of the Nile.
Their route took them through what is now Sudan and Uganda, across swamps, savannas, and territories barely mapped by Europeans.
Florence proved herself an extraordinary traveler. She learned local languages, nursed the sick, and held her own through disease, conflict, and months of isolation.
Together, the couple reached Lake Albert, confirming its connection to the Nile.
Their discoveries earned Samuel fame in Britain, but those who met the pair often remarked that Florence was every bit his equal in courage.
A woman ahead of her time
Despite her role in their explorations, Florence Baker was largely erased from the history books.
Because she and Samuel had traveled together unmarried, Victorian society branded her “fallen” and barred her from public life.
Yet her story is one of defiance.
She survived enslavement, illness, and war, and went on to help chart some of the last unrecorded corners of Africa.
When she died in 1916, her name had nearly vanished from the public record.
Only in recent decades has she been recognized for what she truly was: a survivor, an explorer, and a woman who refused to live by the limits of her time.
Until next time,
Emails From Afar Team
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What is our sister publication, Letters From Afar?
While this newsletter brings you the magic, the strange, and the downright odd by email, Letters From Afar takes it a step further—with real letters sent through the mail.
Our snail mail subscription whisks you away to the world’s most exciting destinations, one handwritten letter at a time.
Written from the perspective of an explorer from the past, each letter invites you to journey to distant lands through the most old-world form of communication: a letter delivered to your door.
