ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Sarah Baartman

Sarah Baartman was a lady who lived a long time ago in South Africa. She was born in a village called the Eastern Cape in the late 1700s. When she was a grown-up, she went to live in Cape Town, a place that she had never seen before. While she was there, some people saw her and they thought that she looked very different from them. They called her a hottentot Venus because she was from a group of people called the hottentots who were shorter and had bigger bottoms than the people in Cape Town.

Some people came up to Sarah and asked her if they could take her to another country because they wanted to show her off to people who had never seen somebody like her before. They promised her that she would make a lot of money and that when she came back, she would be rich. Sarah didn't have much money, so she went with them, thinking that it would be a good idea.

When she got to the other country, people did show her off to other people who had never seen anybody like her before. They made her wear clothes that made her look strange and took her to places where people would pay to see her. They treated her badly, and she didn't seem to like it there.

After a while, Sarah met somebody who promised to help her go back home. She agreed, and they started a long journey back to South Africa. Unfortunately, after they got there, Sarah didn't get to enjoy her freedom for long. Some people started treating her badly again - this time, because of how she had been treated when she was away. They called her names and said that she had done something wrong because she let other people show her off.

Sarah Baartman was a lady who was taken from her home, paraded around like a circus attraction, and treated like she was less than a person because of the way she looked. While her story is very sad, it is important to learn from it so that we don't make the same mistakes in the future.