There are several epitomes of colonial exploitation and racism in science and technology studies and experiments. One of those pathetic examples is Sarah Baartman who the European named the Hottentot Venus.
Sarah Baartman was born in Eastern Cape, South Africa in 1789. In October 1810 she was brought to Europe by Dr. William Dunlop promising that she would take part in shows. After coming to Europe Baartman had to suffer a lot while being paraded around the ‘freak shows’ in Paris and London. She was well known for her unusual large buttock as the European never saw anything like that. It is also said that people envied her because of her natural large buttock, as at that time women wanted to have large buttock. People could, in fact, pay extra money to touch her and having private demonstrations.
In 1814, she moved to Paris, met an animal exhibitor and started shows on the stage named Reaux. Baartman was studied and painted by scientists and artists but she refused to appear naked before them. In the next year, 1815, Sarah Baartman died at the age of 26. Things went more disturbing after that. Even after her death, the scientists and technologist did not leave her alone. They cut her body parts to do research. The story sadly does not end here. The naturalist Georges Cuvier preserved her skeleton, brain, and genitals to display them at Paris’s Museum of Man. Sarah Baartman’s brain, skeleton, and sexual organs remained on public display until 1974. It is shocking that her repartition did not happen until 2002, 192 years after she had left for Europe and about 8 years after Nelson Mandela requested for it in 1994.
References:
Leave me a Comment