Sarah Baartman (; 1789 – 29 December 1815), also spelled Sara, sometimes in the Dutch diminutive form Saartje (), or Saartjie, and Bartman, Bartmann, was a Khoekhoe woman who was exhibited as a freak show attraction in 19th-century Europe under the name Hottentot Venus, a name that was later attributed to at least one other woman similarly exhibited. The women were exhibited for their steatopygic body type – uncommon in Northwestern Europe – that was perceived as a curiosity at that time, and became subject of scientific interest as well as of erotic projection.

"Venus" is sometimes used to designate representations of the female body in arts and cultural anthropology, referring to the Roman goddess of love and fertility. "Hottentot" was a Dutch-colonial era term for the indigenous Khoikhoi people of southwestern Africa, which then became commonly used in English, and was shortened to "hotnot" as an offensive term; the term "Hottentot" refers to the tribe, like the Zulu or Xhosa. The Sarah Baartman story has been called the epitome of racist colonial exploitation, and of the commodification and dehumanisation of Southern African people.

Name and identity No contemporary record of Baartman's original Khoekhoe name survives. Some writers have suggested that it may have been Ssehura, but this identification remains unconfirmed.

The name by which she is now best known, Sarah Baartman, was acquired during her lifetime in the Cape Colony (now part of South Africa). Historical records refer to her by several names, including Sara Baartman, Saartje Baartman, Saartjie Baartman, Bartman, and Bartmann. Saartje and Saartjie are Dutch diminutive forms of Sarah. In Cape Dutch, diminutives commonly indicated familiarity, endearment, or contempt.

During her public exhibitions in Britain from 1810 and later in France, she became widely known as the Hottentot Venus. The term Hottentot was a colonial-era name used for the Khoekhoe people of southern Africa and is now generally regarded as offensive. Venus referred to the Roman goddess Venus and was commonly used in titles associated with representations of female beauty. The name was created and promoted by her exhibitors rather than by Baartman herself.

Life

Early life in the Cape Colony Sara Baartman, a woman of KhoeSan descent, was born in 1789 near the Gamtoos River, in what is now the Eastern Cape region of South Africa.

Baartman spent her childhood and teenage years on Dutch European farms. She went through puberty rites and kept a small tortoiseshell necklace, most likely her mother's, until her death in France.

In the 1790s, while working on the farm of Peter Cezar in Cape Town, she was seen by Hendrik Cezar (Peter’s brother) and Alexander Dunlop, an English ship’s surgeon, who were impressed by features of her anatomy. She 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. She finally moved to be a wet-nurse in the household of Peter Cesars' brother, Hendrik Cesars, outside Cape Town in present-day Woodstock. Around 1810, Hendrik persuaded Baartman to travel to England with him and Dunlop to exhibit herself in public. She left Cape Town for England and began being exhibited in London as the "Hottentot Venus", in degrading conditions to satisfy European curiosity about KhoeSan women’s bodies and ongoing racial science-based speculation about ethnicities. Her captors would go on to profit from these exhibits.

There is evidence that she had two children, though both died as babies.

She 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.

First exhibitions In exchange for cash, Hendrik Cesars began to show her at the city hospital, where surgeon Alexander Dunlop worked. Dunlop, (sometimes wrongly cited as William Dunlop), a Scottish military surgeon in the Cape slave lodge, operated a side business in supplying animal specimens to showmen in Britain, and he suggested she travel to Europe to make money by exhibiting herself. Baartman refused. Dunlop persisted, and Baartman said she would not go unless Hendrik Cesars came too. In 1810 he agreed to go to Britain to make money by putting Baartman on stage. It is unknown whether Baartman went willingly or was forced.

Dunlop was the frontman and driver of the plan to exhibit Baartman. According to a British legal report of 26 November 1810, an affidavit supplied to the Court of King's Bench from a "Mr. Bullock of Liverpool Museum" stated: "some months since a Mr. Alexander Dunlop, who, he believed, was a surgeon in the army, came to him to sell the skin of a Camelopard, which he had brought from the Cape of Good Hope. . . . Some time after, Mr. Dunlop again called on Mr. Bullock, and told him, that he had then on her way from the Cape, a female Hottentot, of very singular appearance; that she would make the fortune of any person who shewed her in London, and that he (Dunlop) was under an engagement to send her back in two years. . . .""Law Report", The Times (London, England), 26 November 1810: 3. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 7 August 2012. Lord Caledon, governor of the Cape, gave permission for the trip, but later said he regretted it after he fully learned the purpose of the trip.The Times (London, England), 29 November 1810, p. 3: "Law Report". Court of King's Bench. The Attorney-General commented: "As to Lord Caledon's permission, it would have been wrong in his lordship to have given it. But it should be known, that ... no contract among them [the Khoisan] was valid unless it was made before a Magistrate. This contract between the Hottentot and Cezar[sic] was made as usual; but when Lord Caledon discovered for what purpose, he was much displeased, and would have stopped the parties if they had then been in his power."

On display in Europe

Hendrik Cesars and Alexander Dunlop brought Baartman to London in 1810. The group lived together in Duke Street, St. James, the most expensive part of London. In the household were Sarah Baartman, Hendrik Cesars, Alexander Dunlop, and two African boys, possibly brought illegally by Dunlop from the slave lodge in Cape Town.

Dunlop had to have Baartman exhibited, and Cesars was the showman. Dunlop exhibited Baartman at the Egyptian Room at the London residence of Thomas Hope at No. 10 Duchess Street, Cavendish Square, London. Dunlop thought he could make money because of Londoners' lack of familiarity with Africans and because of Baartman's large buttocks, which was viewed as variously grotesque, lascivious, and obscene. A handwritten note made on an exhibition flyer by someone who saw Baartman in London in January 1811 indicates curiosity about her origins and probably reproduced some of the language from the exhibition; thus the following origin story should be treated with skepticism: "Sartjee is 22 Years old is 4 feet 10 Inches high, and has (for a Hottentot) a good capacity. She lived in the occupation of a Cook at the Cape of Good Hope. Her 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. A Bottle of Brandy, or small roll of Tobacco will purchase several Sheep – Their principal trade is in Cattle Skins or Tallow. – Beyond this Nation is an other, of small stature, very subtle & fierce; the Dutch could not bring them under subjection, and shot them whenever they found them. 9 Jany, 1811. [H.C.?]" The tradition of freak shows was well established in Europe at this time, and historians have argued that this is at first how Baartman was displayed. Baartman never allowed herself to be exhibited nude,Strother, Z.S. (1999). "Display of the Body Hottentot", in Lindfors, B., (ed.), Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press: 1–55. and an account of her appearance in London in 1810 makes it clear that she was wearing a garment, albeit a tight-fitting one.The Times, 26 November 1810, p. 3: "...she is dressed in a colour as nearly resembling her skin as possible. The dress is contrived to exhibit the entire frame of her body, and the spectators are even invited to examine the peculiarities of her form." She became a subject of scientific interest, albeit of racist bias frequently, as well as of erotic projection. She was marketed as the "missing link between man and beast".

Public reception Her exhibition in London just a few years after the passing of the 1807 Slave Trade Act, which abolished the slave trade, created a scandal. A British abolitionist society, the African Association, conducted a newspaper campaign for her release. The British abolitionist Zachary Macaulay led the protest, with Hendrik Cesars protesting in response that Baartman was entitled to earn her living, stating: "has she not as good a right to exhibit herself as an Irish Giant or a Dwarf?" Cesars was comparing Baartman to the contemporary Irish giants Charles Byrne and Patrick Cotter O'Brien.Lederman, Muriel and Ingrid Bartsch (2001). The Gender and Science Reader. New York: Routledge, p. 351. Macaulay and The African Association took the matter to court and on 24 November 1810 at the Court of King's Bench the Attorney-General began the attempt "to give her liberty to say whether she was exhibited by her own consent." In support he produced two affidavits in court. The first, from William Bullock of Liverpool Museum, was intended to show that Baartman had been brought to Britain by people who referred to her as if she were property. The second, by the Secretary of the African Association, described the degrading conditions under which she was exhibited and also gave evidence of coercion. Baartman was then questioned before an attorney in Dutch, in which she was fluent, via interpreters

In 1810, the African Association in London took Cezar and Dunlop to court, citing Sara’s degradation and ill-treatment. Sara provided testimony in a three-hour interview conducted in Dutch. The Case of the Hottentot Venus was heard on 24 and 28 November 1810. She reportedly stated that she had agreed of her own free will to come to England for six years and that she was under no restraint. On her evidence, the case was dismissed. After the court case, Sara disappeared from the public gaze in London.

Touring Britain and Ireland The publicity given by the court case increased Baartman's popularity as an exhibit. She later toured other parts of England and was exhibited at a fair in Limerick, Ireland in 1812. She also was exhibited at a fair at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. On 1 December 1811 Baartman was baptised at Manchester Cathedral and there is evidence that she got married on the same day.The Times, Thursday, 12 December 1811, p. 3: "The African fair one who has so greatly attracted the notice of the town... is stated to have been baptized on Sunday week last, in the Collegiate church at Manchester, by the name of Sarah Bartmann."Sarah Bartmann at England Births and Christenings 1538–1975, FamilySearch.

Exhibition in France