Sarah Bartman, The Hottentot Venus

Saartjie Baartman (commonly known as Sara) was born in 1.789 in a region near the Gamtoos River in the Eastern Cape.

The sweet and peaceful character of Joi Joi-South African to receive amicably led the Boers (farmers) installed, in the seventeenth century, in the Cape Colony by the Dutch East India Company.

Quickly, the lands were appropriated by whites, and enslaved natives.

Sara's story is a story of humiliation that reflects the curiosity of scientists colonial and prejudice in the study of human anatomy.

During her teens, Sarah emigrated to Cape Flats, near Cape Town which ended up being a slave to a farmer and lived in a small cabin to 1,810.

That year was sold to the British doctor William Dunlop, who persuaded her to go with him by boat to England.

What Dunlop wanted, was present in the circus as a rarity, a scientific curiosity, and make money from it through exhibitions.

Some body parts of Sara were  exorbitant.

She belonged to the tribe of the Khoisan, which anatomically accumulate body fat in the buttocks prominently.

These features are natural to the Khoisan, and Europeans relied on it to justify their prejudice against Africans and their traits.

In the early nineteenth century, Europeans showed an ambiguous attitude toward the Africans, they were considered inferior but also represented a sexual attachment to society then.

Sara was given the artistic name  from "Venus Hotentot" ('Hottentot Venus').

The pejorative term "Hottentot" was used by the Dutch to refer disparagingly to the "people of the mountains".

As we all know, Venus is the Roman Goddess of Love, so this name was but a cruel irony as the goddess Venus was admired and idolized, while Sara became an object of desire and was subjected to continued abuse .

The chronicles say that in their presentations in London, was forced to "parading" naked on a platform two feet high, and to obey his guardian when he ordered him how to "act on stage."

For an extra payment, she allowed viewers to touch his buttocks lush, steatopygia product, which is the excessive accumulation of fat in that area, which is common in some African tribes.

This type of operation is very similar to the one that exists today in thousands of cities around the world, including to minors.

Something very accepted (not so quietly) in our civilization insensitive not differ in any man of the nineteenth century.

There were protests in London because of the way Sara was treated.

These presentations were conducted at a time that is discussing the abolition of slavery, and protests erupted in London questioning exploitation.

And the circus in which the received exhibited certain social pressures and was about to be closed, as Sara Baartman did not participate voluntarily in, but Dr. William Dunlop showed that she agreed that it presented a contract she had signed.

Until today it is doubtful that Sara really knew or signed that document.

Finally, a charity called for a ban of the show and Sarah was taken to court.

After this will cause to such despicable business in England, was transferred to Paris, where an animal tamer displayed it for fifteen months and continued her degrading exhibition.

In Paris attracted the attention of French scientists, including George Cuvier, who described her as an intelligent woman, of excellent memory and spoke fluent Dutch.

Already in the time that Parisians lost interest in the show, Sara, was forced into prostitution.

She could not resist the cold weather, the "culture" of Europe, or abuse of your body.

Alone, ill and alcoholic, died on December 29, 1.815 at the age of 25.

Five years after leaving his native Africa. 

Victim of vicious greed, prejudice and ruthless exploitation of a society devoid of altruism, sensitivity and respect for their peers.

Where gender domination prevails against equity.

And the morbid craving solidarity and compassion moves so limited in the human race.

Unfortunately neither after death received a show of respect.

Less than 24 hours of his death the Parisian scientific community gathered to perform an autopsy, after Cuvier conduct a plaster cast of her body.

The autopsy results were also published by Cuvier.

Its skeleton, her brain and genitals were on display at the Museum of Man in Paris.

His genitals, especially, have long been the subject of much curiosity, owning property pudoris called sinus, which is an elongation of the labia of the vagina, women's self-Joi Joi.

On the basis of these "scientific" studies of Venus Hotentot an American ethnologist, Josiah Clark Nott, concluded that the Hottentot specimens were lower and most bestial of humanity.

His remains were exposed to the public for over 160 years, much later, in 1.994, former South African President Nelson Mandela, made a formal request to Francois Mitterrand for his remains are returned home.

The French initially balked at the request since this could give rise to claims by other countries for the return of objects that fill their museums, why it had to legislate a special law in Parliament that lasted for many years.

After 160 years of exhibition, Sara's remains were removed to the museum in 1974.

Finally it was returned and buried on 9 August 2.002, Women's Day in your country, in a region near the Gamtoos River in the Eastern Cape, on the site of his birth.

Now in South Africa is considered a national symbol.

Diana Ferrus, South African poet-Joi Joi descent, he dedicated the following poem:

I've come to get you out of this misery, to take you away from the prying eyes of the man-made monster who lives in the darkness, claws of imperialism which you dissected body part by part, to associated your soul to Satan and he declared himself the absolute God.