Hottentot Venus (15 page)

Then Master Hendrick added the bamboo cage. It was eight feet by twelve feet and five feet high so that I could hardly stand up in it.

—It’s only show business, he said.

I accepted my fate.

From my cage, the crowds gazing up at me seemed to bay and bray like my father’s herds of longhorn cattle. They milled around, pushing and shoving, barking with laughter and ridicule. The top hats of the men and the pointed plumed turbans of the women bobbed and weaved like points of ivory elephant tusks. Why had I not expected all this laughter and ridicule? I needed no understanding of English to feel the hatred of the crowd, their derision and contempt. My heart pounded, my chest contracted with rage and hot flashes of humiliation flushed my face and stomach. Yet I bore it all, for hadn’t I myself chosen it? How could I have imagined that white people could be any different in their own country than they were in mine? But I had promised Master Alexander to wait. Now that the money was flowing into our coffers, my dowry was assured. The pain, the humiliation was a small price to pay. After all, no Khoekhoe would ever see me or know I had disgraced the ancestors in this revolting way, with this revolting mob.

Often I would fall into a trance and hear neither the crowd nor my master’s voice. Sometimes I used my
dagga
pipe to produce the same effect. The French had another word for the
dagga
I smoked: they called it cannabis . . . On those wild days when I dreamed, I dreamed of Africa, not as I know it to be now, but as it had been in the ancient time of the Khoekhoe, almost as if I had lived another life back then, almost as if I belonged back there then, not here now. I didn’t mind the cage then. It became my home. I had gambled and lost and this was the price I paid: the eternal hyena laugh of the world.

Master Hendrick was overwhelmed by London’s acceptance of his “Hottentot Venus.” He had been searching his whole life to make a killing, he told me, and now he was famous as the impresario of “Venus.” The other showmen fraternized with him; he received invitations either with or without me to prestigious salons and galleries.

Famous people began to seek me out. The Duke of York paid a visit. He was addicted to freak shows and attended dozens during the year. The whole of London society and English aristocracy followed in his wake . . . including several royal princes and princesses. One evening, the famous actor John Kemble visited me backstage after witnessing the inhuman baiting I had endured with sullen indifference. I was hardened now to all provocation. My eyes were blank. My lips fixed. My hands clutched. Master Kemble paused at the door of my tiny dressing room, his eyes fixed upon me, advancing slowly towards me without speaking. As he gazed at me, his underlip dropped for a moment, his famously handsome face suddenly underwent a sea change and softened almost to tears, rendering his masculine beauty even more apparent.

—Poor, poor creature, he uttered at length in his baritone actor’s voice. Very, very extraordinary indeed. He then took my hand in his, keeping his eyes on me. Almost without thinking, I spoke a few lines of Khoekhoe softly.

—Sats ke !gâi Khoeba îsa Khoeba!

—What does she say, sir? asked Kemble, turning to my master at the sound of this incantation. Does she call me papa?

—No, answered Master Caesar. She says you are a fine and beautiful man.

—Upon my word, replied Master Kemble in surprise, taking a pinch of snuff from his silver snuffbox, suspending it between his finger and thumb. Upon my word, the lady does me infinite honor.

I whispered something to Master Caesar, who nodded and left the room to return with a small pouch covered with beads.

—Venus would like to present you with some of her African
dagga . . .
as a gift and souvenir.

—Upon my word, Madame, thank you . . . I shall cherish this moment.

—Sir, if you would care to touch her . . .

—No, no, poor creature, no! I daresay she is ill used enough, this poor female, without that. She’s not an inanimate thing to touch and paw. No, this is one of the most melancholy sights I have ever beheld, yes, melancholy.

Master Kemble stalked out of the enclosure; as he turned to his companion, another actor, named Henry Taylor, I heard him say:

—Good God, how very shocking. What brutes and thieves are the public . . . the same that pay to see me . . . recite Shakespeare . . .

9

There are a multitude of intermediary movements of which we have no notion. How many combinations, dissections, have taken place in that interval? How many affinities have been brought to bear? And who would be the physiologist who would dare to venture any conjectures about the innumerable operations that take place in that impenetrable laboratory? Being that human chemistry, despite the happy efforts of our contemporaries is still in its infancy when we compare it to that of nature.

—BARON GEORGES LÉOPOLD CUVIER,
Thirty Lessons in Comparative Anatomy

October 1810. I looked up at the sign hanging over the entrance of 225 Piccadilly. In large elaborate gold letters, it read “Hottentot Venus.” I made my way into the darkened interior, striding almost a head above the milling, agitated crowd, my walking stick opening up a passageway through the spectators at the competing stands. Barkers and animal trainers pleaded for my two or three shillings, proposing every deformity, accident of birth, human degradation, eccentric skill and degenerative disease on earth for the delectation of the English public. I passed by the stands of Caroline, the Sicilian princess, Anna, the albino, and a dwarf named Captain Lambert. Onstage, a giant struck a pose and John Randian, the torso man, lit himself a cigar. Irritated and not a little apprehensive, with my walking stick I struck off a filthy gypsy child who was trying to pick my pocket. The deeper I penetrated into the dense, shadowy labyrinth of stalls and stages, stands and tents, the more wretched the specimens on display became and the more disturbed I became. I was sinking into a cesspool of dwarfs, midgets and bearded fat ladies, spineless contortionists, a foul-smelling rhinoceros and twin babies joined at the head. It was not only the ocean of forms and faces, it was also the babble of the hawkers, the showmen, the trainers that swelled around me like the muck of an inferno.

A bare-breasted snake charmer wiggled her tongue at me. All around me, the well-dressed middle-class crowds hummed and stirred, seeking thrills, vicarious experiences and exotica. To my amazement, there were many well-dressed women in the mob, which seemed in a festive, congenial mood. I finally reached my destination, a pavilion built like an African hut, over which hung the painted banner proclaiming:

The Hottentot Venus in London! The first time the world has ever
seen this extraordinary and perfect specimen of this race of mankind!

Under this proclamation, in much smaller letters was the notice:

Parties of twelve and upward may be accommodated with a private
exhibition of the Venus Hottentot between seven and eight o’clock
in the evening by giving notice to the showman the previous day.
(A woman will attend if required.)

The showman was a certain Hendrick Caesar, who pulled back the curtain as a hush spread through the audience. I saw that there was something in the shadows of the barred bamboo cage huddled over a kind of brick oven heated by a Bunsen burner with which it tried to warm itself. It wore only a thin flesh-colored silk sheath which clung to its body, sculpting every line of it. It was a figure of such loneliness and despair, crouched there, that my eyes filled with tears when I realized it was actually a woman. An African woman, sitting on her haunches like a beast.

The showman spoke to her as if to a dog, commanding her harshly:

—Stand up! Sit down! Come forward!

According to the command, the creature moved lethargically back and forth, up and down, pacing like a wildcat. She even did a little jig and picked up a small guitar, on which she plucked a tune and sang something in a strange, bewildering language at which the audience began to laugh. I saw that the woman was almost in tears. Several times, she lashed out at her tormentors, her face flushed with embarrassment. She shook her head in disbelief as the spectators booed and cheered. She shouted at the presenter. He raised his hand against her. Then, he turned, all smiles, to the crowd,

—Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and verify that there is no makeup, no fakery, only freakery . . . ha ha ha!

The audience surged forward as if they were going to devour the woman alive. She cringed although she must have gone through the same thing scores of times.

Yet even I was frightened. My heart accelerated and my breathing became shallow. The crowd was like hounds at bay, snickering and howling insults, chewing tobacco, spitting and coughing. Even without looking around, I knew I would see that particular lurid stare of pure folly with which people contemplated black skin. It was a kind of dumbness, beyond hatred, which at least had to be rationalized. No, this was pure homicide. I had seen such glares in prison guards’ eyes, in policemen’s stares, in judges’ surveillances. In faces looking at
me . . .
I was inured to being looked at as if I were a criminal. But never, I thought indignantly, had I met with such an inhuman, degrading spectacle as this, or such a perverted presentation of a human being as I saw in this lone pathetic figure before me.

I was a theologian, the son of an aristocratic Scottish planter and a slave woman. I had dedicated my life to the radical cause of abolition and had founded the African Association, which was famous for defending the rights of slaves and freeing and repatriating as many as it could. The association fought and campaigned against racism in England and the horrors of slavery in the West Indies.

I was too outraged to remain. I turned on my heel and pushed my way out of the enclosure amid the hoots and jeers and laughter, which rang in my ears and burned my brown-skinned face with indignation.

—A slave woman is being exhibited and exploited as a freak, caged like a wild animal in a circus right here in London!

—How do you know she’s a slave? asked Zachary Macauley, the president of the African Institution, looking up from his desk in their opulent offices, not far from Piccadilly.

—Well, she’s black and she’s African. How could she
not
be? No free black woman in her right mind would endure such degradation of her own free will! This . . . this show is an affront to female modesty for the amusement of a bunch of voyeurs . . .

—Is this the so-called Hottentot Venus?

—Yes.

—First of all, she can’t be a Hottentot. She would never have been allowed to leave the Cape Colony. My friend Lord Calledon, who is governor there, would never have knowingly allowed the expatriation of a Hottentot.

—Well, if she isn’t a Hottentot, she’s certainly an African!

—She could be an Englishwoman faking exotic origins. It’s been done before.

—Well, the least we should do is check. It’s terrible. Her keeper is a Boer, a man named Hendrick Caesar. He’s written a letter to the
Morning Chronicle
defending his right to exploit his “servant,” but I’m sure she’s his slave. I’m sure of it! We must free her.

Macauley looked up at me, leaning or rather pounding on his elaborate Georgian desk. I was making this one-ton block of English oak shake. Just like I had made conservative Britain shake, I thought.

The Wedderburn name was one of my burdens. I was Robert Wedderburn, one of several illegitimate children fathered by James Wedderburn of Inveresk, a rich Jamaican plantation owner. I was the grandson of Sir John Wedderburn of Blackness, whose family had fled to the West Indies after the defeat at Culloden of the Scottish army of independence in 1746. My grandfather, Sir John, had been captured, tried for treason, then hung, drawn and quartered by the English. I always believed I had a lot of old Sir John’s blood flowing in my veins, because as his grandson, I had provoked and endured the repressive wrath of the British government ever since I had arrived in England. I was a licensed, self-taught Unitarian preacher who believed there should be an affinity between black West Indians and the British working class, between London’s artisan class and the ultraradical party. This, in turn, had spurred my crusade to rid Britain of chattel slavery and colonial slave trading. Together with the tacit help of the member of Parliament William Wilberforce, I had founded the African Association, which along with the Missionary Society and the African Institution had worked to bring about the abolition of slavery on English soil, which had occurred three years ago.

—But isn’t it a circus? asked Macauley. Isn’t she part of some freak show?

—Freak show? Because she’s an African? A freak?

I could have snatched him from his comfortable seat and throttled him. But Zachary Macauley was simply stating a fact. He too had passed by number 225 and read the circus posters outside.

—Peter and I will investigate the actual situation of the Hottentot Venus tomorrow, he said. On one condition, Robert, that you stay out of it. You have enough trouble with the law. You’re facing two trials, a libel suit and two contempt summonses. If you say one more word in public, they will surely put your hide in a penal colony and throw away the key!

—I’ll keep quiet if you and Peter bring a suit against her keeper for kidnapping, contraband and unlawful duress.

—Whoa, Robert. First, let’s get the facts in the case. We should take Thomas’s and Peter’s advice on this. After all, it will be up to them as civil barristers to put together a suit.

Like me, Zachary Macauley had been at the forefront of the battle that had abolished the slave trade in England in 1807. He had been a co-founder of the African Association and the Missionary Society. He had served as governor in Sierra Leone, where he had helped establish a colony for liberated slaves taken at sea by the Royal Navy slave patrol. He had even made the infamous Middle Passage voyage on a slave ship bound for the West Indies so that the slave experience would not just be an intellectual exercise for him. Macauley was also the editor of the
ChristianObserver,
whose offices were nearby. He had seen the advertisements and wondered how or why his friend Lord Calledon, the governor of the Cape Colony, would have allowed the expatriation of a Hottentot even if she were a Venus.

As we walked arm in arm into the library of the African Institution, I stopped, as I always did, to admire the handsome room which was built like an oval amphitheater. The floors were covered with Persian carpets, the law and history books bound in fine leather. Maps of the world and globes were scattered amongst the long tables and armchairs. Light poured through large arched windows framed in blue silk draperies. The luxurious decoration of the African Association reflected its aristocratic origins. The town house that housed it was situated on Regent’s Crescent, one of the most fashionable addresses in London, for the landlord was none other than the Duke of Westminster. There were three or four visitors in the library, and at the end of the room sat the barrister Peter Van Wageninge, secretary of the association.

Peter Van Wageninge was a Dutchman of means who was a passionate abolitionist. Tall, slim and soft-spoken with short wavy blond hair and cornflower-blue eyes, he was also considered one of the most eligible bachelors in London. Somewhat of a dandy, he was famous for his all-black frock coats, narrow trousers and snowy white linen that he sent back to Amsterdam to be washed and ironed. He claimed that he hadn’t found an English laundress worthy of the name. Unlike Macauley, he had never been to Africa. He had never even been at sea except for the Channel. His travels in Europe had all been overland. There were rumors that he had caught the eye of one of the Grenville girls and moved in the highest political and social circles. He was popular and charming and had put his fortune, as the London
Times
had put it, where his mouth was.

Van Wageninge looked up, unsurprised, as we approached him.

—Peter, Robert here has something important to dis . . .

—The Hottentot Venus, said Van Wageninge dryly.

—How d’you know?

—I’ve been assembling a file on her. Why? Because I knew Robert was going to come to her rescue . . . Look at this pile of newspaper clippings, advertisements, posters. Letters have also been coming into the association about her . . .

He pushed a large folder towards us.

—The first editorial letter arrived at the
Morning Chronicle
on October twelfth—that’s on the top with the keeper’s reply. His name is Hendrick Caesar and he’s a South African Boer. The other man involved is a certain physician, named Alexander William Dunlop, a Scot. The Venus has been making headlines for weeks and provoking an avalanche of letters to the editor. The first protest came in a letter from John Kemble, the actor . . . He was alarmed that she might die during the winter from cold and illness and fall into the hands of the anatomists,
knowing,
as he said,
the adventurous hardihood of science.
Zachary and I sat down to read the file in the overstuffed armchairs next to Van Wageninge’s desk.

A PROTEST
Morning Chronicle,
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1810

Sir, you will perhaps anticipate the cause I am now pleading, and to
which I wish to call public attention. I allude to that wretched object advertisedand publicly shewn for money—the “Hottentot Venus.” This, Sir,
is a wretched creature—an inhabitant of the interior of Africa, who has
been brought here as a subject for the curiosity of this country, for 2s. a
head. This poor female is made to walk, to dance, to shew herself, not for
her own advantage, but for the profit of her master, who, when she appearedtired, held up a stick to her, like the wild beast keepers, to intimidateher into obedience. I am sure you will easily discriminate between
those beings who are sufficiently degraded to shew themselves for their
own immediate profit, and where they act from their own free will: and
this poor slave, who is obliged to shew herself, to dance, to be the object of
the lowest ribaldry, by which her keeper is the only gainer. I am no advocateof these sights; on the contrary, I think it base in the extreme, that any
human beings should be thus exposed. It is contrary to every principle of
morality and good order, but this exhibition connects the same offence to
public decency, with that most horrid of all situations, Slavery.