Because of her big buttocks, she was flogged and humiliated during her lifetime, and was exhibited as a specimen for 200 years after her death

Because of her big buttocks, she was flogged and humiliated during her lifetime, and was exhibited as a specimen for 200 years after her death

On August 8, 2002, thousands of South Africans gathered in a remote canyon in the Eastern Cape village of Hankey to attend the funeral of a woman named Sarah Bateman.

The African woman known as the "Venus of South Africa" has been dead for 186 years.

Sara Bateman Web Map

During her lifetime, she was deceived by Western colonists to Europe because of her exaggerated figure, where she was locked in an iron cage and exhibited naked like an animal; after her death, her body and organs were made into specimens and exhibited in French museums. Watch hundreds of years.

Until 1994, South African President Nelson Mandela made a request to the French authorities: "Please return the 'Venus of Africa' to us."

The remains of this ancient South African woman were able to return and be buried in her homeland where she had been away for nearly two hundred years.

Sara Bateman Tricked To Europe

In 1789, Sarah Bateman was born in a hunting tribe in the Cape of Good Hope, Africa.

Network map

At that time, her hometown was under the rule of the Dutch colonists, and thousands of Africans changed their original way of life and began to become slaves of the white invaders.

Sarah Bateman's family, also slaves in the family of a farmer named Peter Cezar. During the day, she went to the mountains with her mother to pick tea, and at night she lived in a simple shack with her family.

For more than ten years, she has been living a hard and monotonous life, and she has no right to say "no" to her fate.

As Sarah Bateman grows up, her body is getting more and more "unexpected".

Sarah Bateman

The adolescent Sarah Bateman has particularly plump buttocks, which seem to be several times larger than the hips of the surrounding adult women.

In Africa, it is not a bad thing for women to have "big breasts and wide buttocks". Sarah Bateman's figure is also considered very attractive.

In addition, she is already versatile—not only can play the guitar, but also taught herself 3 European languages, and she can speak English as fluently as her mother tongue, Khoisan—everyone likes her even more and praises her as a "goddess descended from the world" .

In 1810, Cezar's brother Hendrick and William Dunlop, a British surgeon, came to the farm.

farm

When they met Sarah Bateman for the first time, they began to praise her and said that they would take her to Europe to "see the world".

Everyone thought that they were attracted by Sarah Bateman's "charming figure", but they didn't know that what they planned in their hearts was actually an "excellent" fortune-making business!

At that time, the concept of beauty and ugliness of Europeans was completely different from that of Africans.

In Europe, women wear as much as possible, so European men at that time were full of "curiosity" about the bodies of African women.

Network map

In addition, they also have a sense of superiority, always trying to prove that they are a higher race, while Africans are closer to "apes".

Sarah Bateman was born with huge butts, and it seems to be just what they think.

But alas, Sarah Bateman doesn't know all this.

She was told that as long as she would go to London with them, they would bring her untold treasures and free her from slavery forever.

Sarah Bateman has never been to Europe, and she has long been full of fantasies about "European life".

When she was a child, she saw that the children of the owner's family could dress well and live comfortably without doing anything, and she thought, if one day, she could also live such a life with enough food and clothing, how great it would be.

In her imagination, Europe must be a place full of gold. If he could set foot on European soil one day, he might be able to earn a lot of money based on his ability.

map

At that time, she can make her family live a good life... Maybe she can really become a "big star" among others!

Driven by this "beautiful dream", Sarah Bateman suppressed the fear in her heart. She agreed to the offer of the two Europeans to take her to London.

The outcome of the matter is obvious - Sarah Bateman was cheated.

But the reality was even ten thousand times crueler than she could have imagined!

horrible experience

When Sarah Bateman came to London full of expectations, the two people who had cared for her in every possible way before immediately changed their faces.

Sara Bateman Web Map

They roughly stripped Sarah Bateman of her clothes, put her in a circus cage, and placed her on a platform high above the ground in Piccadilly Circus.

They printed Sarah Bateman's nude photos on leaflets and distributed them all over London, attracting crowds of visitors.

In order to make more money, they also beat Sarah Bateman with a leather whip, making her have to make various "seductive" poses as required to please the audience.

Network map

In this way, the name of "Venus the Hottentot" was fully established in Europe, and here, Sarah Bateman really became the "superstar" of that era;

But ironically, what she got was the exact opposite of what she worked hard for.

In Europe, which claims to be "civilized", she is not treated as a person, but as an animal similar to a "mother orangutan".

Her life was even more miserable than when she was a slave.

Network map

In every exhibition, her buttocks are exposed to the public without any scruples. She was forced to endure the "observation" and "harassment" of those men at close range endlessly.

At first, Sarah Bateman would resist everyone's vulgar actions and dirty words fiercely, but later, she found that the more she resisted, the more "excited" people around her became, and they gradually became numb.

After nearly four years on tour in the UK, Sarah Bateman is starting to lose her "attraction", but she hasn't escaped her misfortune.

Sarah Bateman's life was even more difficult when the pockets of those greedy people were deflated again.

sarah batman performance venue

In 1814, Hendrik Cesar took her to France in an attempt to develop a new audience in a new country.

Then, she was sold to an animal trainer in France. The animal trainer began to force Sarah Bateman to "perform" all over France day and night...

After all this tossing, the pockets of all the handlers were bulging, but Sarah Bateman was finally "exhausted".

In 1815, at the age of 26, this girl who once had a dream ended her miserable and helpless life with humiliation and remorse.

movies based on sarah bateman

But even death didn't quite set poor Sarah Bateman completely free.

This time, it turned out to be "science" that was regarded as a product of civilization, reaching out to her with dirty hands.

Dead bodies were made into specimens

After Sarah Bateman's death, an anatomist named Georges Cuvier of the French Society for Scientific Research opened her body.

They brutally cut off some of her body organs, including her brain and genitals, stored them in large glass bottles, and put them together with the skeleton specimens in a museum in Paris for people to visit.

Paleoanthropologist Gouvier also compared Bateman's hip tissue with that of a female orangutan in an attempt to prove the kinship between blacks and chimpanzees.

It wasn't until 1974 that the French Parliament passed the bioethics law. Under the constraints of public pressure and relevant regulations on the preservation of human remains, the museum stopped the public exhibition of Sarah Bateman's remains.

Sarah Bateman's body returns

In 1995, the South African government negotiated with the French government to return Sarah Bateman's remains.

At first, the French government flatly refused, saying that Sarah Bateman was their legal national collection.

He also made an excuse that if this precedent was set, all countries would come to ask for their own things, so what should the French National Museum do?

Later, after seven years of struggle and hard work by the South African government, scientists, and folks, they finally let go and agreed to return the "South African Vilas".

In May 2002, Sarah Bateman returned.

On August 8 of the same year, the South African people held a solemn and solemn "funeral" for her in a rocky valley in Hankey Village, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.

At the funeral, Sarah Bateman, wearing a traditional South African cloak, a vanilla-stained turban over her head, and hand decorations made of leaves, slept peacefully in a pine coffin covered with an aloe wreath.

Thousands of South Africans said their final goodbyes to the remains of Sarah Bateman with mixed feelings of grief and joy.

Sarah Bateman funeral

President Mbeki also specially came to see her off - he affectionately placed a washed stone in front of Sarah Bateman's grave, and solemnly said:

"Rest in peace, Sarah Bateman!"

After two centuries of ups and downs, this "South African Venus" finally ended her difficult and tortuous fate and returned to the embrace of the motherland and homeland!

museum

Many people may wonder:

Aren't there many human remains in the world that are exhibited in museums? For example, Egyptian mummies, South American tribal races, etc. Why are South Africans so unacceptable that Sarah Bateman's body remains in a museum?

Professor Jatiye Bredencap from the Institute of History at the University of the Western Cape explained:

"Because Sarah Bateman is a living person with a name and identity, it represents a unique person. Her remains should belong to herself, not to science."

Yes, only when every individual is cherished can the life and dignity of each of us be truly guaranteed.

The people of South Africa are doing it for Sarah Bateman and for each of us!

And the return of Sarah Bateman also conveyed a very clear and powerful voice to the world:

Slavery, colonialism, and racism are all the chief culprits of historical tragedies, and such mistakes must never be repeated.

The tragic experience of Sarah Bateman is a true microcosm of human history and a very heavy page in the progress of human civilization;

Only when we pay enough attention to safeguarding the dignity of women and individual rights can we truly turn this page!