The Story of Sara Baartman: Colonial Exploitation of Extraordinary Hips and Buttocks

In what is now known as South Africa's Eastern Cape, in the Gamtoos River Valley, Sara Baartman was born to the Koikoi tribe. She was raised at a time of Dutch colonization, cruelty, and dehumanization of native communities. On a colonial farm where Sarah's family worked as servants, they raised Sarah there. Sadly, Sara's father, a cattle driver, passed away when she was still a young kid. Her mother has earlier passed away when Sara was two years old.

Sara married a drummer who was from the Koikoi tribe when she was about 16 years old. They had one child together who passed away soon after delivery. Sadly, though, her spouse was killed during a koikoi battle with the Dutch colonist. The local population was eventually incorporated into the system of forced labor as a result of the disputes between the Koikoi and Dutch populations. Sara was soon bought into slavery by trader Peter Willem Caesar, who took her to Cape Town where she worked as his brother's housekeeper.

When Baartman was 20 years old, a British ship's doctor named William Dunlop wooed her with promises of fortune and excitement in Europe. Sara is accused of signing a fictitious contract with William Dunlop, a friend of Caesar and his brother Hendricks, after naively believing his statements. It appears that her contract said that she would visit England and Ireland with Hendricks Caesar and Dunlop to serve as a household worker and be displayed for amusement. After five years, she was to be granted permission to return to South Africa and receive a share of the proceeds from her shows. In 1810, she boarded the vessel and sailed to England.

Her signing of the contract was suspicious for two reasons; the first is that she was illiterate and came from a society that didn't record things in writing. Second, it is believed that the Caesar family utilized Sarah to make money due to their financial difficulties.

Dunlop wanted Sara to travel to London and turn into a curious object to be shown. She was brought to London, where she was put on display in a building on Piccadilly, a street that was home to many oddities, including the world's worst malformation and the knee plus Ultra of hideousness.

Sarah's half-naked body was shown in a cage that was about a meter and a half high for the entertainment of Englishmen and ladies. During her lifetime, she attracted visitors from various regions of Europe. The enormous buttocks and enlarged labia of Sarah Baartman were exaggeratedly portrayed to the European audience as exotic and titillating. She was made into an item, exposed to the public, and used as a living exhibit for the amusement and curiosity of onlookers. She attracted the fascination of colonial Europeans who believed they were racially superior because of her distinctive pigmentation.

The treatment of Baartman was questioned as a result of the active struggle against slavery in Britain. Although her employers were put on trial, they were spared any serious punishment because they were able to present a supposedly signed contract by Sara Baartman and evidence from her testimony that she was not being abused. After four years in London, her contract was altered and she was given the right to better terms, a larger profit share, and warm clothing.

Hendricks Caesar took Sara from England to France in September 1814 and then sold her to animal exhibitor Jean Riaux. This man put her on display throughout Paris and profited financially from people's curiosity about Sarah's body. He eventually started displaying her in a cage next to a young rhinoceros. Like how circus animals are directed, her trainer would tell her to sit or stand. Bartmann occasionally exhibited herself with little more than a tan loincloth, and she was only permitted to do so because she insisted on covering what was considered sacred to her culture. Riaux also permitted her to be sexually abused by customers who were ready to pay for her defilement.

Her constant display attracted the attention of George Cuvia, a naturalist who sought permission to allow Sarah to be studied as a science specimen to which Riaux agreed in March 1815.

French anatomists, zoologists, and physiologists studied Sarah. Various measurements and prodding were made to Baartman's body in the name of "science". Sarah was used to emphasizing the stereotype that Africans were oversexed and a lesser race after Cuvia came to the conclusion that she was a link between animals and humans.

Abolitionists were alerted to Baartman's treatment, and they denounced her servitude and demanded her freedom. However, their efforts were in vain, and Baartman was forced to live a life of contempt and squalor until she passed away at the early age of 26 in 1815. It was speculated that he may have died from pneumonia, syphilis, gonorrhea, or smallpox.

Cuvia dissected her body after obtaining her remains from the local police department. He created a plaster cast of her body and preserved her genitalia and brain in pickling solution before putting them in jars for display at the Musée de l'Homme in France until 1974.

If not for the persistence of activists and academics, especially paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, who wrote about Sara Baartman's experience in his book "The mismeasure of man" in 1981 and attacked racial science, her narrative might have gone into obscurity. Her bones were finally returned to her country in 2002 - 186 years after her passing - following years of advocacy by South African and international organizations. She was buried on the 9th of August at Hankey, South Africa.

The legacy of Baartman goes beyond her tragic life. Her experience has come to represent the bigotry and exploitation that Black women have faced throughout history. Her exploitation is relevant to current debates on the commodification of women's bodies and the convergence of racial and gender issues.

Through numerous artistic and cultural representations, documentaries, and exhibitions, Baartman is recognized and appreciated today. Her experience serves as a powerful reminder of the fight against racism, colonialism, and the dehumanization of underprivileged groups.

May her soul continue to rest in peace in her Homeland.