1. The Sarah Baartman story has been called the epitome of racist colonial exploitation, and of the commodification and dehumanization of black people.
47 Facts About Sarah Baartman
1. 2.
Sarah Baartman was an infant when her mother died and her father was later killed by Bushmen while driving cattle.
3.
Sarah Baartman spent her childhood and teenage years on Dutch European farms.
4.
Sarah Baartman went through puberty rites, and kept a small tortoise shell necklace, most likely her mother's, until her death in France.
5.
Sarah Baartman lived in Cape Town for at least two years working in households as a washerwoman and a nursemaid, first for Peter Cesars, then in the house of a Dutch man in Cape Town.
6.
Sarah Baartman finally moved to be a wet-nurse in the household of Peter Cesars' brother, Hendrik Cesars, outside Cape Town in present day Woodstock.
7.
Sarah Baartman had a relationship with a poor Dutch soldier, Hendrik van Jong, who lived in Hout Bay near Cape Town, but the relationship ended when his regiment left the Cape.
8.
Dunlop persisted, and Sarah Baartman said she would not go unless Hendrik Cesars came too.
9.
Sarah Baartman agreed in 1810 to go to Britain to make money by putting Baartman on stage.
10.
Dunlop had to have Sarah Baartman exhibited and Cesars was the showman.
11.
Dunlop thought he could make money because of Londoners' lack of familiarity with Africans and because of Sarah Baartman's pejoratively perceived large buttocks.
12.
Sarah Baartman became known as the "Hottentot Venus".
13.
Sarah Baartman lived in the occupation of a Cook at the Cape of Good Hope.
14.
Sarah Baartman's Country is situated not less than 600 Miles from the Cape, the Inhabitants of which are rich in Cattle and sell them by barter for a mere trifle.
15.
Sarah Baartman never allowed herself to be exhibited nude, and an account of her appearance in London in 1810 makes it clear that she was wearing a garment, albeit a tight-fitting one.
16.
Sarah Baartman became a subject of scientific interest, albeit of racist bias frequently, as well as of erotic projection.
17.
The first, from William Bullock of Liverpool Museum, was intended to show that Sarah Baartman had been brought to Britain by people who referred to her as if she were property.
18.
Sarah Baartman was then questioned before an attorney in Dutch, in which she was fluent, via interpreters.
19.
Some historians have subsequently expressed doubts on the veracity and independence of the statement that Sarah Baartman then made, although there remains no direct evidence that she was lying.
20.
Sarah Baartman did not wish to return to her family and understood perfectly that she was guaranteed half of the profits.
21.
Sarah Baartman later toured other parts of England and was exhibited at a fair in Limerick, Ireland in 1812.
22.
Sarah Baartman was exhibited at a fair at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.
23.
On 1 December 1811 Sarah Baartman was baptised at Manchester Cathedral and there is evidence that she got married on the same day.
24.
Sarah Baartman travelled to England of her own free will but, appears to have changed when she travelled to France.
25.
Sarah Baartman was the subject of several scientific paintings at the Jardin du Roi, where she was examined in March 1815.
26.
Sarah Baartman was brought out as an exhibit at wealthy people's parties and private salons.
27.
In Paris, Sarah Baartman's promoters did not need to concern themselves with slavery charges.
28.
Sarah Baartman died on 29 December 1815 around age 26, of an undetermined inflammatory ailment, possibly smallpox, while other sources suggest she contracted syphilis, or pneumonia.
29.
Cuvier, who had met Sarah Baartman, notes in his monograph that its subject was an intelligent woman with an excellent memory, particularly for faces.
30.
Sarah Baartman adds she was adept at playing the Jew's harp, could dance according to the traditions of her country, and had a lively personality.
31.
Sarah Baartman thought her small ears were similar to those of an orangutan and compared her vivacity, when alive, to the quickness of a monkey.
32.
Sarah Baartman was part of a movement of scientists who sought to identify and study differences between human races, with the aim of theorising a racial hierarchy.
33.
Sarah Baartman's skull was stolen in 1827 but returned a few months later.
34.
Sarah Baartman's body cast and skeleton stood side by side and faced away from the viewer which emphasised her steatopygia while reinforcing that aspect as the primary interest of her body.
35.
The Sarah Baartman exhibit proved popular until it elicited complaints for being a degrading representation of women.
36.
Mansell Upham, a researcher and jurist specializing in colonial South African history, helped spur the movement to bring Sarah Baartman's remains back to South Africa.
37.
Sarah Baartman's remains were repatriated to her homeland, the Gamtoos Valley, on 6 May 2002, and they were buried on 9 August 2002 on Vergaderingskop, a hill in the town of Hankey over 200 years after her birth.
38.
Sarah Baartman was not the only Khoekhoe to be taken from her homeland.
39.
Sarah Baartman's story is sometimes used to illustrate social and political strains, and through this, some facts have been lost.
40.
Sarah Baartman was brought to the West for her "exaggerated" female form, and the European public developed an obsession with her reproductive organs.
41.
Julien-Joseph Virey used Sarah Baartman's published image to validate typologies.
42.
Many scholars have presented information on how Sarah Baartman's life was heavily controlled and manipulated by colonialist and patriarchal language.
43.
Sarah Baartman was given the Dutch name "Saartjie" by Dutch colonists who occupied the land she lived on during her childhood.
44.
Scholarly arguments discuss how Sarah Baartman's body became a symbolic depiction of "all African women" as "fierce, savage, naked, and untamable" and became a crucial role in colonising parts of Africa and shaping narratives.
45.
The similarities with the way in which Sarah Baartman was represented as the "Hottentot Venus" during the 19th century have prompted much criticism and commentary.
46.
The work linked to Sarah Baartman is meant to reference the ethnographic exhibits of the 19th century that enslaved Sarah Baartman and displayed her naked body.
47.
Sarah Baartman became an icon in South Africa as representative of many aspects of the nation's history.