The black slave trade, or triangular trade, was one of the means by which capitalist countries carried out the period of primitive accumulation of capital. In the 18th century, with the development of the British Industrial Revolution in full swing, liberalism prevailed in Britain's domestic economic development, and its slave trade in Africa naturally entered the stage of free trade, and since then the slave trade has developed to a climax.
For countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, this is the history of continuous wealth and leading industrial development, which is undoubtedly an advanced and glorious page in the development of global history. However, for the black people who originally lived on the peaceful and peaceful African continent, it was undoubtedly the most tragic and cruel prelude to history.
The protagonist of the story, Sarah Bartman, a South African girl, is the most representative portrayal of the African girls who lived in this dark period and were devastated and tortured.
The triangular trade of sin
The slave trade began in the fifteenth century and is also known as the "triangular trade" or "black triangle trade", that is, the coolie trade. At first, Spain and Portugal dominated, and the British and American countries came later.
Triangular trade refers to the trade behavior in which slave traders set off from Europe, exchanged salt, cloth, rum, etc. for black slaves after arriving in Africa, and then sent black slaves to the Americas to obtain sugar, tobacco, rice and other plantation products, as well as gold, silver and industrial raw materials, and made high profits from them, of which the "slave trade" occupied the main position of the triangular trade.
Because the indigenous Indians of the Americas were massacred by the colonists at that time, and the British royal family eventually failed to establish the slave trade in the Indian Islands colonies, the British royal family set its sights on the American colonies and opened the cross-Atlantic coolie trade.
Black labor was ravaged by the fierce competition for colonialism, and many even died on the transatlantic journey—many black slaves contracted diseases due to poor sanitation and were thrown into the sea before they reached the American continent.
It is extremely sad that the British society at that time was strongly supported by Queen Elizabeth I because of the business opportunities found in it, and the slave trade was regarded as a normal behavior in Western society, and even for a time there was a situation of royal monopoly and civil competition, and later, even everyone could carry out the slave trade, so Britain accumulated a lot of wealth.
And the protagonist of our story, Sarah Bateman, lived in this dark political background and ushered in the tragic fate of her life.
A life full of ups and downs
Sarah Bateman was born in 1789 at the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, at a time when her homeland was under Dutch colonial invasion and black slaves were in dire straits. Sarah was born into a slave family that worked on the farm, the slave of a Dutch farmer named Peter Seizal.
In 1810, Peter's brothers Hendrik Cézar and William Dunlop came to the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.
Upon meeting Sarah, she discovers that her buttocks are much larger than those of white and other African women, and immediately devises an evil and vicious way to make money.
They took advantage of Sarah's poor and difficult life and the yearning of a simple and naïve girl for a better life, tricking her into getting freedom and wealth if she went to England, and escaping the life of slavery, so the two successfully brought Sarah to England.
But these two evil spirits did not keep their promise when they first arrived in the land of London, but put Sarah in an iron cage and brought her to the "superior" white people for a visit, and poor Sarah was already facing a desperate situation that ordinary people could not accept before she could bear the loss of broken dreams.
Cezar and Dunlop made a lot of money by selling Sarah's human rights and dignity and exploiting the curiosity of the public, but Sarah's situation was deteriorating, as everyone lost their freshness to Sarah's physical characteristics, and finally the greedy two could not continue to make a lot of money, and the two partnered to sell Sarah to a French zoo owner.
Sarah even ate and lived with the animals in the zoo, because of the extremely poor accommodation and hygiene conditions in the zoo, and because of the humiliation and torture and long journey since the long tour, Sarah's physical condition became worse and worse, and finally died suddenly in Paris...
Sarah's life was upheaval, her fate was bumpy, before the age of 21, as a slave of a Dutch farmer, she was born to face a life of hard work and poverty every day, and after the age of 21, she was not treated as a complete person, put in a beast cage for people to watch, and was sent to tour everywhere...
At that time, there was already a relatively rich theory of evolution, among which some people believed that the origin of human evolution came from Africa, and Africans were not fully evolved human beings.
It aroused the attention of some people to the way of life of primitive tribes in Africa, so the trainer asked Sarah to wear rags and clothes during the tour, allowed others to reach out and touch Sarah, and asked her to do various shameful acts - which is undoubtedly a great humiliation for a young girl!
If an ordinary person encounters this experience once, he still feels extremely ashamed, which shows how painful Sarah was in her heart at that time.
After death, there is still no peace
Sadly, Sarah was not fully liberated after her death – her soul was released, but her body still existed in ways she was ashamed of. Within hours of her death, Georges Cuvier of the French Society for Scientific Research had dissected her body in search of a connection between humans and female apes.
George dissected Sarah's reproductive organs and studied whether Sarah's buttocks were bone tissue or adipose tissue, and finally concluded that her buttocks were adipose tissue, and her so-called deep basis as a "Hottentto" human skeleton was closer to animals than humans.
In addition to this, Sarah's brain and organs were soaked in formalin, her bones were displayed in the Musée des Man in Paris, she was made into plaster casts for scientific research on the "primitive population", and thanks to the museum's public statements, anyone interested in Sarah could view it.
This young woman was constantly displayed as an object during her lifetime, and her remains could not escape the fate of being "studied" after her death, and the driving force behind all this could not be separated from the "efforts" of the so-called white race that excused "scientific research" but violated human ethics.
Sarah's remains were displayed in a French museum, and it was not until popular protests in 1974 that the French government was forced to remove Sarah's remains under various public pressures.
It was not until the 90s of the 20th century, because of the persistence of South African President Mandela and the continuous help of the international community in this incident, that Sarah Bateman finally returned to her hometown on August 9, 2002, after 191 years of absence. At this point, Sarah finally received human dignity, and the national dignity she represented was finally upheld.
The return of Sarah's remains is a symbolic confirmation of the status of her descendants among humanity. Her funeral would be the ultimate recognition of her, a woman and an African, rather than a mere scientific specimen.
"Even in 200 years, Saltier will be a great soul who lives forever," as Ferrus said, "and I think she is a very beautiful woman." She returned home and gave back the respect she deserved throughout her life, which is a revival movement for us. ”
The "noble" whites gave Sarah the insulting nickname "Venus Hotentto". "" is a European term for Africans, and "Venus" expresses the white people's disdain and irony for Sarah.
Sarah was born in the Khoisan tribe in Africa.
Sarah is known to speak three European languages and is able to speak them more fluently than her native language.
Not only that, Sarah will also play the guitar skillfully, it can be seen that Sarah's life in her hometown is difficult but still has something that can support her to go on, she wants to pursue a life of food and clothing with a good vision, but she can't imagine that after coming to the UK, only pain and death await her, and her life is finally exhausted in indifference and numbness.
Looking back on Sarah's tragic fate, it is inevitable to lament that Sarah's longing for Western "freedom" and Western "democracy" has not been achieved.
On British soil, the Englishmen who believe in "freedom" have not been able to give Sarah freedom;
Even if some say that this is just the throes of a spiritual quest that the world must experience, Sarah and the black women have suffered injustice
On August 8, 2005, Sarah Bartman, wearing a traditional South African fur cape, a vanilla-smoked turban on her head, and a bracelet made of leaves on her hands and feet, was buried in a pine coffin covered with aloe vera wreaths and buried in the Gemontu Valley, a rocky valley in Eastoncape.
Even if Sarah returns to her homeland and is regarded as a national hero by future generations, the fact that she has a tragic life, no children, and a lonely death cannot be erased, and no one knows whether she has found rest in her homeland.
Epilogue:
Born in unfortunate times, Sarah eventually became a victim of the slave trade, was treated as a monster without dignity, and her bones were used for research after death. Finally, this living life disappeared in the world of indifference and numbness, devoured by the jackals who used her, and was wiped out by this dark age...
The so-called God Jehovah did not protect her poor soul, but chose to stand idly by! Sarah's life was miserable, just as she came to this land alone, and finally died alone in the cold wind of Paris...
WANG Yutong. The development of democracy in the United States from the perspective of blacks[J].Western Journal,2020,(24):29-34.)
GE Yuanfen. The British royal family had a monopoly on the slave trade[N].Global Times,2020-07-14.013.
WANG Hao. Journal of Xichang University(Social Science Edition),2013,25(04):12-16.)
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