The terrible history of Sarah Bartman and how she was a human exhibit in a freak show because she had a big butt

The terrible history of Sarah Bartman and how she was a human exhibit in a freak show because she had a big butt

Two centuries ago Sarah Baartman a South African national d¡ed after years spent in European "freak shows". Sarah Baartman d¡ed on 29 December 1815, but her exhibition continued.

Her brain, skeleton and se.xual organs remained on display in a Paris museum until 1974. Her remains weren't repatriated and buried until 2002.

Brought to Europe seemingly on false pretences by a British doctor, stage-named the "Hottentot Venus", she was paraded around "freak shows" in London and Paris, with crowds invited to look at her large b.uttocks.

Baartman's life was one of huge hardship. 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, d¡ed when she was an adolescent. She entered domestic service in Cape Town after a Dutch colonist murdered her partner, with whom she had had a baby who died.

In October 1810, although illiterate, Baartman allegedly signed a contract with English ship surgeon William Dunlop and mixed-race entrepreneur Hendrik Cesars, in whose household she worked, saying she would travel to England to take part in shows.

The reason was that Baartman, also known as Sara or Saartjie, had what was called "steatopygia", resulting in extremely protuberant buttocks due to a build-up of fat.

These made her a cause of fascination when she was exhibited at a venue in London's Piccadilly Circus after her arrival. "You have to remember that, at the time, it was highly fashionable and desirable for women to have large bottoms, so lots of people envied what she had naturally, without having to accentuate her figure," says Rachel Holmes, author of The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman.

On stage she wore skin-tight, flesh-coloured clothing, as well as beads and feathers, and smoked a pipe. Wealthy customers could pay for private demonstrations in their homes, with their guests allowed to touch her.

Her arrival in England coincided with speculation over whether Lord Grenville and his coalition of Whigs - known as the "broad bottoms" because of Grenville's own large behind - would try to seize government. This was a gift for cartoonists. One creation, entitled A Pair of Broad Bottoms, shows Grenville and Baartman standing back-to-back, with another figure measuring their respective posterior sizes.

Baartman's promoters nicknamed her the "Hottentot Venus", with "hottentot" - now seen as derogatory - then being used in Dutch to describe the Khoikhoi and San, who together make up the peoples known as the Khoisan.

The British Empire had abolished the s|ave trade in 1807, but not s|avery itself. Even so, campaigners were appalled at Baartman's treatment in London.

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