Prince Lee Boo

Who is Prince Lee Boo?

Lee Boo was a young Palauan prince, son of Ibedul Abba Thulle, the paramount high chief of Koror, in the western Pacific archipelago then known to Europeans as the Pelew Islands. In August 1783 the East India Company packet ship Antelope, commanded by Captain Henry Wilson, wrecked on a reef near Palau. Abba Thulle sheltered Wilson and his crew for roughly three months while they built a new vessel from salvaged timber, and in return the British sailors assisted the chief in a local conflict, strengthening ties between the two peoples. When Wilson's men prepared to leave, Abba Thulle entrusted his son Lee Boo to travel with them to England, so the young prince could learn about the wider world and one day bring that knowledge home to Palau. Lee Boo arrived in Portsmouth in July 1784 and was welcomed into Captain Wilson's London household, attending church services, dinners, and even one of England's first hot-air balloon flights. His poise and curiosity charmed London society, which dubbed him "the Black Prince." Only months after arriving, Lee Boo contracted smallpox and died in London on 27 December 1784, aged about twenty. He was buried at St Mary's Church, Rotherhithe, where his grave remains a listed monument, and his story was recorded in George Keate's 1788 book An Account of the Pelew Islands, one of the earliest European accounts of Palau.

Sources: George Keate, An Account of the Pelew Islands (1788) · Prince Lee Boo, Wikipedia (accessed 2026) · St Mary's Church Rotherhithe, parish burial and monument records