Who was Sarah Baartman?

When 20-year-old Sarah (also spelt Sara) Baartman got on a boat that was to take her from Cape Town to London in 1810, she could not have known that she would never see her home again. Nor, as she stood on the deck and saw her homeland disappear behind her, could she have known that she would become the icon of racial inferiority and black female sexuality for the next 100 years.

Sarah “Saartjie” Baartman was born to a Khoisan family in the vicinity of the Gamtoos River in what is now the Eastern Cape of South Africa. It is thought she was born in South Africa’s Eastern Cape in 1789, her mother died when she was two and her father, a cattle driver, died when she was an adolescent. A Dutch colonist murdered her partner, with whom she had had a baby, who died.

Sarah was a slave of Dutch farmers near Cape Town when Hendrick Cezar, the brother of her slave owner and British ship’s doctor William Dunlop, suggested that she travel to England for an exhibition, promising her that she would become wealthy. Lord Caledon, governor of the Cape, gave permission for the trip but later regretted it after he fully learned its purpose. She left for London in October 1810.

Sara Baartman had what was called “steatopygia”, resulting in unusually large buttocks and genitals due to a build-up of fat.  This made her a ‘freak’ in the eyes of Europeans, who were arrogantly obsessed with their own superiority, and with proving that others, particularly blacks, were inferior and oversexed.

Baartman’s physical characteristics were not unusual for Khoisan women, although her features were larger than normal. European fascination with her was evidence of this prejudice, and she was treated like a freak exhibit in London. Sarah’s treatment is the epitome of colonial exploitation and racism.

It was during her time with Dunlop and Hendrik Cezar that the campaign against slavery in Britain was at its height, and as a consequence, Baartman’s treatment was questioned. Although her “employers” were brought to trial, they were not prosecuted or otherwise penalized. As evidence, they produced a document signed by Sara Baartman and her own testimony stating that she was not treated unfairly. Nevertheless, her contract was amended, so she became eligible for ‘better conditions’, a greater profit share, and warm clothing.

After four years in London, in September 1814, she was taken to France, where she was sold to Reaux, an animal exhibitor. He reaped financial benefits by exhibiting Sarah in Paris and taking advantage of the public’s fascination with her body. She was displayed in a cage alongside a baby rhinoceros. Her “trainer” would order her to sit or stand in the same way as circus animals.

Baartman was sometimes displayed almost naked, wearing only a loincloth and beads and feathers. She was only allowed that due to her insistence that she cover what was culturally sacred. She was nicknamed “Hottentot Venus”. Wealthy customers could pay for private demonstrations in their homes, allowing guests to touch her.

Sarah Baartman returns home

Sarah Baartman died on 29 December 1815 at the age of 26. It is unknown whether she died from alcoholism, smallpox or pneumonia. Cuvier obtained her remains from local police and dissected her body. He made a plaster cast of her body, pickled her brain and genitals and placed them into jars which were placed on display at the Musée del’ Homme (Museum of Man) until 1974. 

Sarah Baartman was finally laid to rest properly 187 years after she left Cape Town for London. Her remains were buried on Women’s Day, 9 August 2002, in the area of her birth, the Gamtoos River Valley in the Eastern Cape.