Who was Saartjie Baartman? (27 Oct)

The violence is in the viewing 

Walk Day 27

 Dr Jo-Anne Duggan, Heritage Consultant

Saartjie Baartman was put on display to curious crowds in London and Paris for five years before her death in 1815 at the age of 26, but a plaster cast of her body and her skeleton and preserved organs remained on exhibition in a French museum for almost 160 years.

An unusually sensitive portrait of Saartjie Baartman 

Sara Baartment, also known as Saartjie, was born in 1789 in the Gamtoos River Valley in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. After the death of her parents, she found work as a domestic servant in Cape Town. At the age of 21 she was persuaded by her employer Hendrik Cesar and a British Army medical officer Alexander Dunlop to travel to London where she could make money by performing in shows. Her huge buttocks and strangely elongated labia they believed, would guarantee her success as an entertainer and a scientific curiosity.

From the viewpoint of the present the thought of putting humans on display is unsettling and repugnant, but in 19^th century Europe such spectacles were common and popular. These ‘Human zoos,’ put on show people regarded as freaks or scientific curiosities – three legged men, bearded women, etc, alongside people of other ethnicities who were similarly considered to be less than human.

Presented in London

Drawing of Saartjie digitally veiled as a mark of respect (see ref).

Arriving in London in 1810, Saartje was first presented at a venue in Picadilly Circus, where she was billed as the “Hottentot Venus.” Dressed up in a flesh-coloured figure hugging bodysuit, beads and feathers she sang and danced for the leering crowds.  As Rachel Holmes writes, “To London audiences, she was a fantasy made flesh, uniting the imaginary force of two powerful myths: Hottentot and Venus. The latter invoked a cultural tradition of lust and love; the former signified all that was strange, disturbing and - possibly - sexually deviant.” Within weeks pictures of Saartjie appeared in cartoons, posters and prints.

Not everyone was enthralled by the spectacle. Saartjie also attracted the attention of anti-slavery activists who considered the way in which she was being treated as inhumane. They demanded that she be released from the custody of Cesar and Dunlop claiming that she had been brought to London under duress and exhibited without her consent. Saartjie however declared that she had willingly signed a contract to perform, was being paid a salary and would rather stay in London than return home and the case collapsed.

Performances and death in Paris

In 1814 Saartjie moved with Cesars to Paris where she performed in pubic and at private events for wealthy men and their guests, who were permitted to touch her.  She refused to appear naked, arguing that this was beneath her dignity. In the spring of 1815, she posed for three days at the Muséum National d'Histoire naturelle for a group of inquisitive scientists and artists. The resulting drawings, paintings and illustrations were widely reproduced and circulated, playing into the European narrative that people from Africa and elsewhere were of a different racial order and so inferior, unintelligent, uncivilized, lacking souls and therefore subhuman.

Saartjie died later the same year, aged just 26, but the exploitation of, and fascination with, her physical form lived on. A plaster cast was made of her body and exhibited at Musee de l’Homme in Paris alongside her skeleton and various bottles containing her preserved brain and genitals. This display remained on public view until it was moved into storage in 1974 following complaints that it might be degrading to women who engaged with it. In the years that followed Saartjie’s remains, classified as museum objects alongside other specimens, remained accessible on request to researchers.

Repatriation of her remains

The move to repatriate Saartjie’s remains began in South Africa in the 1990s when the Griqua National Conference Leader, Paramount Chief A.A.S. LeFleur II entered into discussions with President Mandela and the French embassy in Pretoria. He argued that Saartjie had the right to a dignified burial in the land of her birth. The initiative gained traction as other activists, museum professionals and artists added their voices to the campaign. Among these was Diane Ferrus whose evocative poem, I’ve come to take you home, was published in 1998.

French museum officials were unrelenting, arguing that as objects of scientific study, Saartjie’s remains were the property of the institution and could only be alienated from collection by an act of parliament. The French Government was reluctant to take action, seemingly fearing that to do so would encourage further demands for the return of human remains, artefact and specimens plundered from formerly colonised nations. Negotiations between the South African and French governments continued until February 2002 when, after an intervention by President Thabo Mbeki, the French National Assembly passed a bill approving the repatriation.

The South African Department of Arts and Culture appointed a committee to oversee the "return, burial and memorialization of Sara Baartman." She was laid to rest in Hankey, close to her place of birth on Women’s Day, 9 August 2002, restoring in some measure the dignity denied her in life.

Today she is a symbol of resilience and many honour her memory - thus the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children adopted her name. This blog, “Steps for Saartjie”, is also named in her honour. 

References

The above full length drawing of Saartjie Baartman was digitally veiled as a mark of respect. It is attributed to: Frederick Christian Lewis and was published by Hendrick Cezar in 1810. Source: BBC News.

• Holmes, Rachel. “Flesh made fantasy,” The Guardian, 31 March 2007, accessed online, October 2025.
• Masiteng, Itumeleng Nonkuleleko. “A Bone to pick: curation vs repatriation: understanding the contestation of human remains in South Africa museums (at Ditsong Museum of Cultural History),” unpublished MA Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2019. Accessed online, October 2025.
• Mothoagae, I. D. “Reclaiming our black bodies: reflections on a portrait of Sarah (Saartjie) Baartman and the destruction of black bodies by the state,” Acta Theologica 36, 2016. Accessed online, October 2025.
• Parkinson, Justin. “The Significance of Sarah Baartman,”  BBC News, 17 January 2016. Accessed online, October 2025.
• Tobias, Phillip Valentine. “Saartjie Baartman: her life, her remains, and the negotiations for their repatriation from France to South Africa,” South African Journal of Science 98, 2002. Accessed online, October 2025.
• Twala, Phumzile Nombuso. “Case Study: The Repatriation of Sarah Baartman,” Open Restitution Africa,  undated. Accessed online, October 2025. 

Key links

• Please donate today – to help make the target for Saartjie Baartman Centre's income generation programme for survivors of gender-based violence (you can set the tip at R0)
• Read other Steps for Saartjie blogs

Next walk in Cape Town 

• Date: 28 October
• Time: 16.25 for 16.30pm
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Duration: 2hrs, 7.5km
• Route: From the mountain end of Chelmsford Rd, Vredehoek, to the Kings Blockhouse - Starting point Pin  📍