Saartjie Baartman was an enslaved Black woman from South Africa who was exhibited as a freak show attraction in Europe under the name Hottentot Venus, who then was murdered for profit to appear in a museum for nearly 200 years and be further humiliated to prove that Europeans were superior to African people.
Hottentot referred to the Khoi people. It is now considered an offensive term. Venus referred to the fabled Roman goddess of love. The given name was as perverted as it sounds. Saartjie Baartman was a sex slave who was caged like an animal as white people taunted and jeered at her, while they gaze in fascination of her huge booty.
It is important to note that we have no reason to believe that she went to Europe willingly and of her own free will. No people of African descent can back these claims up. Saartjie Baartman was purchased as a slave in South Africa and the paperwork that said otherwise was meaningless. Once in European territory, any black person could have been subjected to slavery for any reason and at any time, especially if they were valuable.
Saartjie Baartman is considered the first lady vixen by some. If that’s true then one would have to agree that the first lady vixen was a slave.
Saartjie Baartman had the curves men dream about in magazines and hip hop videos. Though the white man purported that this very feature made her less evolved and less human, she was prostituted and raped against her will. She appeared in front of white people being released from a cage, as white people laughed and jeered and asked to feel her behind as well as her hair. Today, women of all races and ethnicities pay huge amounts of money to get injected with unsafe chemicals to acquire curves that she was born with.
Saartjie Baartman, didn’t have freedom, nor did she have free will, and she was subjected to being abused, sodomized, raped and treated as less than a human being by her white masters. She had no choice in the matter.
The very same white men who abused her, cajoled and controlled her, would whisper in her ear that they loved her and would tell her that she was the most beautiful creature alive, similar to the things pimps say to their women. Some men would pay to have intercourse with white women, but gawk in fascination at Saartjie Baartman’s assets while they were having sex with prostitutes.
When she refused to allow men to study her body and features, she made her master very upset and angry. He told her she would regret her decision. That’s when he used her as his prostitute. She was not stupid, she spoke 4 languages which were her native language, French, Dutch and Spanish. She was also made a Christian against her free will.
No wonder Saartjie Baartman became a heavy drinker. After being involuntarily made a prostitute for sick Europeans to take advantage of, she died. We are not sure of the reason, though STD’s are highly speculated. But that’s not true. One thing we know is that this was shortly after the period of time that the French national museum offered money to study her. Her slave owner was offered a handsome fee if he could deliver. Once she did not cooperate, she was later found dead. Then it was assumed that she died all of a sudden from STD’s. What a wonderful coincidence that she died during the period of time that she was most valuable dead. Immediately she was turned into a human exhibit and stayed on display for nearly two hundred years. Her remains were finally returned to South Africa in 2002. She was buried in her hometown and the Sarah Baartman Centre for Women and Children was established in her memory.
