Hottentot Venus

by Barbara Chase-Riboud

Question: Are you desirous of changing your present situation?

  —No, I am not.

  Question: Have any threats or personal violence been used by Mr. Dunlop or any individual against you?

  —No violence has been used against me. At least, not by them . . .

  Question: You are happy then? he repeated. You have no complaints to make to the Court?

  —I have no complaints. I have two servants to wait on me. They help me dress, I lied. However, my clothes are not those of my climate. I would like heavier, warmer clothes, but I have complained about this to Master Caesar and he has promised me warmer clothes.

  Question: How long were you employed by Hendrick Caesar before you came to England?

  —Almost four years, at the Cape.

  Question: Can you, if you choose, discontinue exhibiting yourself at any time?

  —I . . . have a sacred contract with Mr. Dunlop, to whom I have promised myself and certain things . . . as well as certain years of my life.

  Question: Yes, but if you choose, can you refuse to continue with the exhibitionof your person, without fear of reprisals?

  —I don’t understand the question.

  Question: (repeated)

  —I have a contract.

  Question: Do you understand the terms of your contract?

  —Yes, I do.

  Question: Have you read the terms of your contract?

  —I can’t read or write.

  Question: Then how can you say you understand the terms of your contract?

  —It was read to me out loud in Dutch, which I understand, by the notary public, Master Guitard.

  Question: When was the agreement drawn up?

  —I don’t know.

  Question: When was it read to you?

  —I don’t remember, ah, it was read to me . . . yesterday.

  Question: Only yesterday, November twenty-seventh, 1810?

  —If you say so . . .

  Question: But the agreement is dated October twenty-ninth, 1810. How do you explain that?

  —I don’t know. I can’t read. The contract was read to me. I believe Master Dunlop’s word that the contract will be honored . . . that this contract is sacred.

  Question: Did any other person except Mr. Dunlop’s notary read or read to you this . . . contract?

  —I don’t believe so, but I don’t remember . . . I have no recollection.

  Question: You understand we are here to help you. To ascertain the truth. Is there anything you wish to add to your affidavit?

  I wanted to say that for three hours you have bothered me with your questions and inquiries as if I were a criminal or a slave. I am a free woman! I am not a criminal. I am not a slave. I am not a prostitute or an immoral person. My only crime is that I cannot read or write and that I am a Hottentot. I am only seeking asylum from my enemies, from people who kill Hottentots. Instead, I bowed my head and said nothing. Still that question came.

  Question: You are in danger of your life if you return to the Cape, is that what you are saying?

  —I am saying that I will die like all Khoekhoe if I return. I’m saying that I have a contract! A contract! A contract!

  The prosecutor for the King representing Zachary Macauley and the Reverend Wedderburn paused. He hadn’t been able to get any kind of accusation out of me. Sir Stephen was jubilant. Sarah Baartman had not cracked. She had held her ground. Her keepers had nothing to fear.

  The solicitor general and the judge both made a last effort to persuade me.

  Question: Are you under any restraint at all, moral, physical or mental?

  (Silence)

  Question: Wouldn’t you like to return to the bosom of your tribe? To stop being exhibited as a freak?

  (Silence)

  Question: What have you been promised for your silence?

  (Silence)

  —I would like to be rid of you all! I said out loud.

  I was shouting now, but so were the men from the African Institution. And the judge was hammering for silence. Everyone was determined to set me free, even if it killed me. I refused to answer any more questions. My affidavit, as they called it, had been read. I had told them all I knew. I was not an outlaw nor contraband. I was not a prostitute. What more did they want? I trusted none of these white men. The Reverend Freehouseland would have known whom to believe. The rainmaker would have known whom to believe. But I didn’t know whom to believe. Was I to end up in the hands of charity, of a beneficient society for slaves, paupers, morons and the like, to be shut up again in a shelter, a refuge, to see the world once more through a keyhole or a coffin? The only alliance I had now, I thought, was to the other things-that-should-never-have-been-born.

  —Miss Baartman, said the judge, you may step down please . . . and watch your step.

  It was now Sir Stephen’s turn.

  —I introduce to the Court the affidavit of Mr. Alexander Dunlop and Mr. Hendrick Caesar.

  —Does your affidavit state that the Venus speaks Dutch? asked Lord Ellenborogh.

  —Yes, my lord, her keeper spoke in Dutch to her. The persons who interviewed her spoke in Dutch. She answered without interpreters, her keeper or any other person under whose control she has ever been, not being present.

  —Mr. Macauley has stated that she is exposed in an indecent manner and that she appears to act against her inclination.

  —She is dressed, my lord, in a thin dress, assimilated to her person, that does exhibit all the shape and frame of her body as if naked.

  The questioning continued with another magistrate, Justice Le Blanc.

  Lord Justice Le Blanc: What is your rule, Mr. Doty?

  Solicitor general: My lord, I apply for a rule to show cause why a writ of habeas corpus should not be granted to bring up the body of this female.

  Lord Ellenborough: Does anyone understand her language?

  Solicitor general: Not the Hottentot language; but it is stated in my affidavit that her keeper and the representatives of the Court state that she understands and speaks Low Dutch, imperfectly.

  Lord Justice Le Blanc: Well, if she is brought forth, she must go where she pleases. The Court can’t take her out of one person’s control to place her in another.

  Lord Ellenborough: Indeed, it is she who must make an election: that she wishes to go back to her own country—the rule to show was granted. Her affidavit in the absence of her keeper is part of the record, no person accustomed to exercise any sort of control over her was present, there being only present, on behalf of the keeper, a person who also understands the language. You yourself have heard her testimony. I’ll now hear from the defense, Mr. Geelesee.

  Sir Stephen Geelesee: Your lordship, the district attorney has not shown cause for granting a habeas corpus to bring up the body of the female African Sarah Baartman, who is exhibiting in London under the title of the Hottentot Venus. She has already been examined, apart from her keeper, by the master and coroner of the court in my presence. It seems to me, your lordship, that the motion for granting a habeas corpus has two aspects, first, that she was exhibited in an indecent manner, and secondly that she was under restraint. With respect to the first, I consider that the present application is not the way to remedy it, if it is true. But in fact, the Venus was not only clothed in a silk dress, but had a cotton one under it. Moreover, I must inform the Court that the only circumstance in the affidavit that indicates for the motion—namely, that she is under restraint—has been removed. It was said that the keeper used a menacing attitude with his hand, which Sarah Baartman seemed to obey in fear . . .

  Sir Stephen paused for effect.

  —That person has been removed and another substituted. And yesterday, the master of the Crown Office himself attended and examined Sarah Baartman with two Dutch interpreters, one on behalf of her keeper and one for himself. The result of that examination is evident in the text of the entire affidavit.

  Lord Ellenborough: Before we can remove her from her present situation, we must be sati
sfied that she is an object capable of making an election: that she feels pain from constraint in which she is at present held and that she is desirous of being put under the care of persons who will restore her to her own country.

  Sir Stephen Geelesee: Nothing, your lordship, in this affidavit or her testimony indicates that Sarah Baartman has any desire to be removed from England or from her present situation. On the contrary, I submit the supplementary affidavit by Mr. Arend Jacob Guitard, a notary public, stating that he has translated the agreement between Mr. Dunlop and Miss Baartman from English into Dutch and has read it twice plainly and distinctly to Saartjie, alias Sarah, Baartman and that it appeared to him that she understood the contents thereof and was therewith satisfied—if the African Institution wishes to protect the financial interests of the Venus, my clients would be pleased if they would appoint a trustee to take care of her share of the profits of the exhibition. But since it is evident from her own sworn testimony that she is under no restraint, the case against Mr. Dunlop and Mr. Caesar should be dismissed.

  Lord Ellenborough: Does the district attorney still sustain his motion for a habeas corpus?

  Solicitor general: The district attorney does not. The attorney general concedes that the motion cannot be sustained, but I wish to add that regardless of the outcome of this procedure, anyone hearing of this action must certainly feel that it is very much to the credit of this country that even a Hottentot can find friends to protect her interests. I trust that henceforth the Venus will be properly taken care of and those gentlemen who have so honorably taken the trouble of looking into her situation will continue to see that her interests are protected.

  Lord Ellenborough: This case is dismissed. But not before I issue a strong warning that if any immodest or indecent exposure of this female foreigner should take place, those who have the care of her must know that the law will direct its arm with uplifted resentment against the offending parties . . .

  Lord Ellenborough rose. The court was adjourned. The men of the African Institution remained immobile. The Reverend Wedderburn held his head in his hands.

  Sir Stephen rushed me from the courtroom, jammed between my two interpreters. Neither Master Hendrick nor Master Alexander had appeared in court.

  Lord Ellenborough believed I was being handsomely paid and protected; Sir Geelesee had trumped them by offering to turn over my finances to the institution or give me up altogether. The notary public Arend Jacob Guitard, who had read me my rights in Dutch, had all fallen into Master Dunlop’s trap. I heard the Reverend Wedderburn say to the abolitionists:

  —God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty . . .

  But on the streets, they were clapping, singing and chanting my song.

  Oh have you been in London towne,

  Its rareities to see:

  There is, ’mongst ladies of renowne,

  A most renowned she.

  In Piccadilly Street so faire

  A mansion she has got,

  In golden letters written there,

  “THE VENUS HOTTENTOT.”

  But you may ask, and well, I ween,

  For why she tarries there;

  And what, in her is to be seen,

  Than other folks more rare.

  A rump she has (though strange it be),

  Large as a cauldron pot,

  And this is why men go to see

  This lovely Hottentot.

  Now this was shown for many a day,

  And ere for many a night;

  Till sober folks began to say,

  That all could not be right,

  Some said, this was with her goodwill:

  Some said, that it was not,

  And asked why they did use so ill

  This ladie HOTTENTOT.

  At last a doughty knight stood forth,

  Sir Vikar was his name;

  A knight of singular good worth,

  Of fair and courtly fame.

  With him the laws of chivalrie

  Were not so much forgot;

  But he would try most gallantly

  To serve the HOTTENTOT.

  He would not fight, but plead the cause

  Of this most injured she;

  And so, appealed to all the laws,

  To set the ladie free.

  A mighty “habeas corpus”

  He hoped to have got,

  Including rump and all, and thus

  Release the HOTTENTOT.

  When speaking free from all alarm,

  The whole she does deride:

  And says she thinks there is no great harm

  In showing her b——ksides.

  Thus ended this sad tale of woe,

  Which raised well, I wot,

  The fame, and the revenues too,

  Of SAARTJIE HOTTENTOT.

  And now good people all may go

  To see this wondrous sight;

  Both highborn men, and also low,

  And eke the good Sir Knight.

  Not only this her state to mind,

  Most anxious what she got;

  But looking to her latter end,

  Delights the HOTTENTOT.

  I was so famous, the English started to name things after me. Not only were there the newspaper articles and editorials and letters. There were the penny posters, the handbills, the cartoons and caricatures. There was Hottentot Venus soap, Hottentot Venus bleach, Hottentot Venus chocolates, a Hottentot Venus pastry made of whipped cream, chocolate, honey and almonds. There was Hottentot Venus coffee and Hottentot Venus tea. Hottentot Venus rouge and Hottentot Venus corsets. Hottentot Venus cigars were sold on Bond Street as well as Hottentot Venus gunpowder. Hottentot was the name for anything crude, ugly, inferior, savage or simple-minded as well. And on Sloane Street, at Christmas, a glove manufacturer opened a new shop and called it the Hottentot Venus . . .

  12

  Isolated bones, thrown pell-mell, almost always broken and turned into fragments, here is all our relationships give us and the only resource of naturalists.

  —BARON GEORGES LÉOPOLD CUVIER,

  Discourse on the Revolutionary

  Upheavals on the Surface of the Globe

  April 1811.

  Sloane Street, Thursday, April 18, 1811

  My dear Cassandra,

  I have so many little matters to tell you of that I cannot wait any longer before I begin to put them down. I spent Tuesday in Bentinct Street. The Cookes called here and took me back, and it was quite a Cooke day, for Miss Rolles paid a visit while I was there, and Sam Arnold dropped in to tea.

  The badness of the weather disconcerted an excellent plan of mine— that of calling on Miss Beckford again; but from the middle of the day, it rained incessantly. Mary and I went to the Liverpool Museum and I had some amusement though my preference for men and women always inclinesme to attend more to the company than the sight. But I willingly gaped at a thirty-foot-long boa constrictor, which made the story of the Laokoon very believable, and a sixteen-foot-high giraffe, the museum’s latest acquisition, which I found very pretty, its head like a horse and a mild innocent look at the top of an immensely long yet graceful crane neck. The stuffed bear in the same case looked quite small by comparison.

  After gazing at Mister Bullock’s creatures, we crossed Piccadilly Square to 225 to gawk, it is the only word that expresses it, at a creature of anotherkind; a freak that John Kemble, at dinner the other night, at the D’Entraiques, told me about; the Hottentot Venus, a woman from the Chamboos in Austral Africa, who is on display just as the giraffe in MisterBullock’s Liverpool Museum. She has gone through a sensational trial, brought by the African Institution against her managers, who were finallycleared of all charges.

  Mister Kemble had been most affected by this spectacle and I must say, I was happy to be only in the company of one of my own sex. For I was shamed by the pudeur and forbearance this poor woman displa
yed in the face of the brutish, pornographic voyeurism of my countrymen (and women). They plucked and prodded this small creature and called her names and verily acted like a bunch of baboons. The comedy of manners being exhibited by the masters of the world towards its colonized slave population was more like a morality play of oppression and rejection on one hand, versus a kind of defiance of all white English morality and opinion on the other. It was not an amusement. It was an erasure of time and distance between our civilization and its antithesis, this African Venus, the irony of whose name was not lost on me or the audience, and even played its part in this charade. For the Venus was a parody of white English beauty and womanhood, as far from our pretensions of gentility as one could possibly imagine. Yet, there, in a cage . . . in the most dire, primordial circumstances, the Venus had a dignity and a humanness that was totally lacking in her spectators and put them to shame. I shed a tear. Mary did too—at her vulnerability, a feminine vulnerability we all are burdened with in the face of a masculine society. I was revolted. I tried as did several other ladies in the audience to make eye contact with the Venus, to communicate the sympathy I truly felt. But there was no communicationexcept insults and threats, neither between the public and the Hottentot nor between the Hottentot and the white females in the audience. To be sure she is ugly, she has an enormous, astounding posterior, but her face is actually not unpleasant and she is very young. She is now a household word in England, a synonym for brute ugliness and a celebrity in Londonian Society and the popular press, who use her as a plaything and a satiric political tool against the Grenville party. Not a day goes by that there is not another wicked, obscene cartoon or caricature in the daily press, even the Times . . .

  The politics of her, the obscenity of her, as well as her servitude are a scandal and a blot on English Society. But even the worst of scandals becomeromantic and even respectable in two thousand years; witness Cleopatra, Caesar, Mark Anthony and other gentlemen. The most virtuousread of Cleopatra with sympathy, even in boarding schools, and were she, by some miracle, blotted out of the book of history, the loss would be enormous. The same applies to Helen, Phryne and other bad lots. In fact, now that one thinks of it, most of the attractive personages in history, male or female, especially the latter, were bad lots. And the true Venus? Haven’t the most scandalous acts in history been done in her name? In the name of passionate, unbridled and uncompromising love? Shouldn’t we love anything called Venus, I asked myself, gazing at that strange, humiliated,black creature . . . if you are a woman? There is nothing that makes our sex more aware of our own oppression than witnessing the horrendous, blatant oppression of the black and brown races. Or a black or brown member of our own sex. I shudder to think I actually paid to see this!