The Agony of Sarah Baartman: A Legacy of Pain and the Burden of Memory
PART I: The Girl From The Gamtoos Valley
In the shadow of the Eastern Cape’s rolling hills, a girl named Sarah Baartman was born in 1789. The Gamtoos River whispers stories of the Khoisan people where she was born. Her name, lost to colonial tongues, was Saartjie—a diminutive that would later mock her humanity. To her community, she was a daughter, a sister, a woman whose laughter once echoed in the valleys. But to Europe, she would become a spectacle: the “Hottentot Venus,” a scientific curiosity, a sexual grotesque.
Sarah’s early life was shaped by the violence of colonial expansion. Dutch settlers had already seized Khoisan lands, forcing her people into servitude. By 1810, Sarah, orphaned and impoverished, was working for a Cape Town merchant. It was there that British ship surgeon William Dunlop and showman Hendrik Cezar found her. They promised riches and a life abroad. Desperate, she signed a contract—a document she couldn’t read—binding her to a life of exhibition.
PART II: London’s Human Zoo
In 1810, Sarah arrived in London. Overnight, her body became a commodity. Dunlop and Cezar paraded her in a skintight, flesh-coloured bodysuit, her curves exaggerated for gawking crowds. Posters screamed: “THE HOTTENTOT VENUS! A WONDER OF NATURE!” For two shillings, Londoners stare, poke, and jeer.
Sarah’s story is our story. Her body symbolised how colonialism raped Africa.
“They called her a missing link,” says Dr. Nomtha Ndlovu, a South African historian. “Scientists claimed her body ‘proved’ African inferiority. But it was all lies. Her steatopygia—a natural trait among Khoisan women—was pathologised to justify racism.”
Sarah danced. She sang. She endured. Eyewitness accounts describe her trembling as men prodded her buttocks with canes, laughing at her accent. Abolitionists tried to sue for her freedom, but the court ruled she was a “willing participant.” A lie. Sarah had no voice, no power. By 1814, exploited and penniless, she was sold to a French animal trainer.
PART III: Paris: The Cage and The Knife
In Paris, Sarah’s degradation deepened. Displayed in a cage at the Palais Royal, she was forced to mimic “savage” rituals. Crowds threw coins; scientists salivated. Among them: Georges Cuvier, the father of comparative anatomy. He measured her skull, sketched her nude, and declared her “closer to apes than humans.”
When Sarah died in 1815—just 26 years old—Cuvier didn’t stop. He dissected her body, preserving her brain, skeleton, and genitalia in jars. Her remains were displayed at the Musée de l’Homme, a cruel epitaph to colonial brutality. For 160 years, schoolchildren laughed at her plaster cast. Her spirit screamed in silence.
PART IV: The Fight to Bring Her Home
“Sarah’s story is our story,” says activist Chief Tania Katz. “Her body symbolised how colonialism raped Africa.”
In the 1970s, amid apartheid’s horrors, South Africa began demanding her return. France refused. Even Nelson Mandela’s pleas in 1994 were dismissed. Only in 2002, after global outcry, did France relent. Sarah’s remains were repatriated and buried in Hankey, Eastern Cape. “Let us restore her dignity,” Mandela urged. But they?
PART V: The Curse of The ‘Venus’: Black Bodies in a White World
Sarah’s tragedy didn’t end in 1815. It echoes in the hypersexualisation of Black women today. “We’re told our bodies are either grotesque or trendy,” says poet Lebo Mashile. “Never just human.”
In the 1980s, as Sarah’s remains still gathered dust in Paris, Black women began reclaiming their curves. But liberation became exploitation. Music videos reduced women to “video vixens”—ass and lips, no names. Social media turned self-love into likes; big boots became brands.
A Johannesburg woman, Thandiwe (name changed), recalls: “I posted a bikini pic, got thousands of likes. But then I learnt about Sarah. I felt sick. Was I honouring her or repeating history?”
Black women owe Sarah more than tears. We owe her defiance. To reject the cages—whether of racism or respectability. To be seen as full humans.
Lauryn Hill’s words sting: “You showing off your ass ’cause you thinkin’ it’s a trend.” The line between empowerment and objectification blurs. For every woman twerking in pride, another is shamed for “distracting” students with her curves. The same bodies once mocked are now monetised—yet the gaze remains white, male, entitled.
PART VI: The Queens We Owe Her
Sarah Baartman was more than her body. She loved, grieved, and resisted. In Paris, she reportedly refused to strip fully, demanding a loincloth. She learnt French, understanding the slurs hurled at her. She survived until she couldn’t.
“Black women owe Sarah more than tears,” says scholar Professor Zinhle Khumalo. “We owe her defiance. To reject the cages—whether of racism or respectability. To be seen as full humans.”
This isn’t a call to shame self-expression. It’s a plea for context. When a woman posts a photo, is it for herself or the algorithm? When she twerks, is it joy or performance? Sarah’s story reminds us: freedom isn’t just visibility. It’s power.
EPILOGUE: The Grave by The River
At Sarah’s grave in Hankey, the wind carries the scent of wild rosemary. A plaque reads, “Welcome Home, Sarah.” But can she rest?
Black women today carry her legacy. To be a “queen” isn’t about crowns or curves—it’s about rewriting the narrative. Sarah’s body was a battleground; ours need not be.
FAQs About Sarah Baartman
Why was Sarah Baartman’s body treated as a “freak show” in Europe?
Sarah’s body—natural features like her steatopygia (pronounced buttocks) and elongated labia—were weaponised by racist 19th-century “scientists” to dehumanise Africans. Europeans, obsessed with pseudo-scientific racism, claimed her curves “proved” Black people were inferior. She was stripped of dignity, paraded in cages, and treated as a subhuman spectacle. Her humanity meant nothing to crowds who paid to gawk, laugh, and poke her. Her pain was their entertainment.
How did Sarah Baartman die, and why wasn’t she buried with respect?
Sarah died at just 26 in 1815 from tuberculosis, syphilis, or pneumonia. These diseases were linked to her brutal living conditions. They were also the result of sexual exploitation and exhaustion. But even death didn’t free her. French scientist Georges Cuvier dissected her body. He displayed her brain, skeleton and genitalia in jars. He also made a plaster cast of her corpse. For over 160 years, her remains were mocked in Parisian museums. Europe refused to let her rest, reducing her to a racist “specimen” long after her final breath.
Why did it take until 2002 for her remains to return to South Africa?
France clung to her remains as a colonial trophy. Despite decades of pleas from Black activists, feminists, and even Nelson Mandela, France dismissed South Africa’s requests as “frivolous.” Only global pressure in the 1990s—amplified by post-apartheid South Africa’s moral authority—forced France to act. Sarah’s homecoming in 2002 was bittersweet—a victory overshadowed by the fact that her tormentors erased her story for centuries.
What does Sarah’s story say about how Black women’s bodies are still exploited today?
Sarah’s legacy is a haunting mirror. Black women are still hypersexualised—called “exotic” for the same features used to dehumanise her. Social media “curves for likes” culture echoes her exploitation: reducing Black women to body parts, not people. As one critic asked, “When we twerk for clicks, who profits? When we reclaim our bodies, are we free—or just feeding the same system that broke Sarah?” Her tragedy forces us to question what “empowerment” really means.
Why should we remember Sarah Baartman’s story if it’s so painful?
Because forgetting repeats history. Sarah’s abuse laid the groundwork for stereotypes that still harm Black women. These include the “Jezebel,” the “angry Black woman,” and the “video vixen.” Remembering her isn’t just about grief—it’s about rage. Her story demands we fight for Black women’s right to exist fully. They need to be free from fetishisation. They need to be free from violence and the weight of others’ expectations. As activist Nomsa Xaba said, “Sarah’s ghost whispers, ‘Never let them shrink you to a body. You are a soul. You are a storm.’”
#StayPretty, they say. But pretty fades. Dignity is forever.
