At the beginning of the 19th century, a well-known and popular "animal superstar" appeared in European society. Her name is Bartman. As long as she performs, the audience will definitely be full, and tickets to her performance are hard to come by.
Batman must pose in various positions according to the owner's requirements and complete challenges of different levels of difficulty. Whip marks are everywhere on his dark skin.
She was regarded as a female orangutan from Africa and spent one day and night after another in the performance.
For a long time, Bartman himself forgot that she is still an individual.
01
1789, the iron hooves of Europeans swept across the African land, and the entire Africa was shrouded under the colonial policy of Europe, and thousands of Africans became slaves.
They were sold to Europe and America as "living goods", while some stayed in their hometowns in Africa to continue working for the slave owners. Both of Bateman's parents were the latter, working on the slave owner's farm during the day and living in a shabby shed at night.
In order to ensure sufficient productivity on the farm, slave owners in Europe will take the initiative to pair up black people and encourage them to give birth to children. The children born by the black slaves naturally became new slaves. They repeated the lives of their parents and continued to carry out mechanized labor.
Batmann was a slave since he was born, and he didn't know how many brothers and sisters she had. When she was very young, she followed her mother to the mountains to pick tea. As a slave, she had no right to say no.
Occasionally, some brightly dressed Europeans appear on the farm. They are domineering with black slaves, and many black women have become their playthings. These Europeans don't need to work, but they have everything, and Bartman is very envious.
Batmann learned from European conversation that Europe is full of gold, and the living people there are rich people, so there are no need to worry about not having enough food or being warm in clothes. That was the country in Batmann's dream, and she didn't know where Europe was.
Dreams are too far away, and now the most important thing is to eat a full meal. After a brief envy, Bartman devoted himself to working day and night.
The girl grew up day by day, gradually becoming different from the people around her. Her butt was bigger than the girls around her. However, Africans are open-minded by nature. Not only do people think that Bartmann has a weird figure, but they also think that she is a goddess descending to earth.
0 Bateman, wrapped in praise, has countless suitors, but she doesn't want to be like her parents for the rest of her life. She wants to see the outside world.
One day, the farmer's elder brother Peter showed up with his own private doctor, and they broke the peaceful life of Batman. Peter threw out his olive branch, and he invited Bateman to see the bustling Europe and insisted that he would praise her as the superstar of the times.
Although his parents firmly opposed it, Bartman still believed these two strangers who had never been known and followed them onto the ferry to Europe. At this time, Bartman didn't know that his nightmare had begun quietly.
After getting off the ship, Bartman was stripped of his clothes and locked in a large iron cage to load and transported away. Afterwards, the same leaflet appeared in the streets and alleys of London:
African "Venus" invites you to enjoy the full moon night together.
The portrait of Bateman appeared on the leaflet. She was wearing African ethnic costumes and her huge buttocks were eye-catching.
Europeans on the street talked with leaflets, fully expressing their curiosity about Bartmann, and the ticket to the full moon night was even swept away.
Batmann's debut night was full, and some people even climbed up the wall, just wanting to see the buttocks of this African "Venus".
red cloth was unveiled, and Bartman ushered in the long-lost sunshine, but the ridicule, insult, and the strange white eyes made her feel at a loss.
"Look, this is the African Venus!"
"Look like gorilla !"
"It was originally a gorilla."
Bateman is not unfamiliar with English because she was born for the slave owner.Hearing these insults, she shed tears of regret and regretted not staying in her hometown.
Today, Bartman has lost the right to choose. As long as she is not dead, life must continue.
02
The name of "African Venus" was completely launched in Europe. Bartmann really became the superstar of the times. However, the development of things is completely different from her original idea.
At that time, Bartman's existence was a trend. In addition to London locals, more and more foreigners also made a special trip to see Bartman's buttocks.
Peter made a fortune, but people's desires will never be satisfied. If you make enough money in one place, then you can continue to make money in another place.
After several weeks of exhibitions, Bartman was out of date in London, so Peter planned the "Africa Venus" world tour, not just local in London, he began to take Bartman to exhibitions around the world.
From the initial struggle to gradually becoming numb, Bartman would continue to repeat at the beginning that he was an individual, not an African female orangutan.
She is like a madman Xianglin Sao , she will only repeat it over and over again. If she says too much, no one will pay attention to it, her heart will die. Over time, she became silent and began to bow to fate obediently, like a walking corpse living.
After all, these Europeans bought tickets to see humiliation and pain from Bartmann. Only in this way can they deepen their national superiority and satisfy their comparative psychology, thus proving that white is the best nation in the world.
Once Batman loses his reaction, their enjoyment from Batman will quickly decrease, thus losing the desire to watch. It’s like a person just bought a new toy and couldn’t let go of it and even had to hold it for dinner. However, over time, the toy was damaged and all the functions it should have were used, then the toy lost its value.
Therefore, there are fewer and fewer people in Bateman, and Peter's income is reduced, so he naturally spreads all his anger on Bateman. Whipping, scalding, and even more terrifying punishments, Peter tries to arouse Bateman’s most primitive physiological reactions through pain, but Bateman rarely responds.
Just when Peter was about to give up Bateman, a zoo director suddenly offered a high price to buy Bateman. he wanted to prove to the world that Africans are not humans, they are descendants of gorillas.
at that time evolution theory was popular in Europe, but white people insisted that they did not evolve from gorillas. Some scientists then proposed arguments that they believed that white people are humans and Africans are not humans, so the principle of requiring Africans to work is the same as requiring horses, donkeys and mules.
This argument caters to the psychology of many slave owners at that time. They did not think that they were at fault for exploiting black labor, because they were not human at all.
The zoo director is also a admirer of this argument. He decided to buy Bartman to prove all this. When Peter heard that someone was willing to buy Butterman, he agreed without thinking and completed the resale of Butterman as soon as possible. After receiving the money, Peter left Spain.
was resold like goods again, and then Bartman truly realized that nothing in her belonged to her, including her hot soul.
03
The head of the zoo brought Bateman back to the zoo and raised her with other orangutans. After that, he printed many advertisements to invite tourists to visit.
Just as he left the dragon pool and entered the tiger's den, Bartman completely lost the strength to resist. She was forced to eat and live with the gorillas and perform with them.
As soon as the title of "animal superstar" was launched, it immediately attracted countless tourists to visit, but Bartman's health was getting worse and he could not continue to support her acrobatic performance.
1815, Bartman passed away in the orangutan house in the zoo. The director was furious when he learned about it.Because he bought Bartman at a high price, he has not yet earned his capital.
The principal kicked Bartman's naked body several times, but the girl fell to the ground and did not move. Her 26-year-old life came to an end.
People cannot be resurrected by death. Bartman has no value to use. The principal can only release the news that Bartman is dead and cancels the animal performance that day.
When hearing the news of Batman's death, many newspapers and media posted articles to express that it was not easy for gorillas to live for so long. They did not admit that Batman was an individual from beginning to end.
French researcher George Cueye After hearing about the death of Batman, he rushed to the zoo to buy Batman's body. He was a strong opponent of Darwin's theory of evolution, believing that Darwin was a traitor to the nation. To prove that the white man did not evolve from a gorilla, he made a specimen of Bartman's body and placed it in a museum for people to watch.
The girl's body was divided into multiple parts, and she once again became the golden signboard for Europeans to make money. George also became famous throughout Europe with his Bateman specimens and became a cutting-edge scholar of that era.
However, George, who is proficient in anatomy, has long discovered that Bartman's buttocks are made of normal fat, and there is no difference between her and white people. But George did not announce this discovery to the world, but continued to make money with Batman's body.
Because of the existence of Bartman, it happened to argue that whites are born noble, and blacks are born lowly, so there is no fault in whites to enslave blacks.
Europeans ruled black people for hundreds of years, plunging into that soil like a cancer, bringing endless pain to Africans.
Batmann is not an isolated case, she is a microcosm of the fate of countless black people at that time. "Struggle before death and humiliated after death" was the fate of most black people in that era. It was not that they bowed to fate, but that fate never left room for them to choose.
The girl's body was exhibited in the French Museum for more than 200 years, and finally returned to her hometown in 2002. What humiliated was not her life, but the history of a nation.
racial discrimination still occurs today. Back then, white people broke the black people's "bone" inch by inch and implemented slavery education to the end. Now, it is not easy for black people to break the shackles of the past and stand up again. Text/Hu Xiaoli
