Poetics and Politics of Race Tags
As early as the 16th century, anthropologists and artists alike brought a colonial agenda to the images they produced of the Khoikhoi people, whom they labeled “Hottentots.” While the Khoikhoi people were initially constructed through visual representations as naked, animalistic savages in need of guardianship, European artists faced the “dilemma” of representing the “Hottentot” in a manner that effectively displayed a lack of civilization without simultaneously presenting innocence. This proved particularly difficult as artists displaced the Khoikhoi people in Western, Christian artistic frameworks, which, in forcibly assimilating them, inherently implied humanity. By the 1720s, the “Hottentot” image had shifted to that of laziness and stupidity, through the introduction of the pipe in visual depictions.
The late 1700s marked another major shift in representation, when François Le Vaillant visited the region and attempted to portray the Khoikhoi people as “noble savages.” However, his argument rested on the assertion that the “Hottentot” people’s natural goodness was the very result of their uncivilized nature. Furthermore, his idealizing depictions of the “noble savage” effectively erased many crucial elements of Khoikhoi culture, demonstrating that he could “only transform the ‘Hottentot’ into the noble savage by evacuating all signs of the Hottentot” (Strother 18). Le Vaillant was also the first to violently explore and document what was referred to as the “Hottentot apron”—the long labia that became symbolic of the “Hottentot” character largely through the body of Sara Baartman. This bodily difference was a relief to many Europeans, who felt they at last had physical grounds on which to distance themselves from the “Hottentot.”
However, the European public desired a singular, “digestible” image of the “Hottentot” off of which to secure their own “normalcy.” This they found violently in the body of Sara Baartman, whose body was displayed in a tour through Europe, and eventually as a plaster cast (which remained at the Musée de l’Homme until 1982, long after her death in 1815). Baartman was charged with the responsibility of “familiarizing the unfamiliar,” playing a character who could partake in freak shows as “the typical and everyday.” In the mid-1800s, “ethnographic shows,” meant to educate as well as entertain, gained traction, and Baartman’s purpose shifted. Described with words like “specimen” and “interesting object of natural history,” Baartman’s body was handed over to audiences with the “authority” to play the role of scientist of anthropologist, walking around her and often even touching her.
Despite popular conceptions of the black female body as hypersexualized, Baartman was presented as an example of the anti-erotic, and as such was distinguished from “black Africans,” who were primarily conceived of as sex objects in the European imagination. As Strother writes, Baartman’s reception supported the notion that “the Hottentot woman, unlike the black woman, is rendered sexed but not sexy” (Strother 22). Because her body was presented in order to invoke audience members’ repulsion, her display refused human connection between the viewer and the viewed.
Because she did not represent an individual woman but rather a harmful caricature, Baartman was always costumed, and sometimes even placed within a set on stage, presented as her “natural habitat.”As Strother writes: “Certainly, the spectators took a positive enjoyment from viewing difference that was so comfortable because a supreme confidence in the ideal underlay it all” (Strother 24). Resultantly, “it hardly matters ‘whether the freak is alive or dead’” (Strother 29). Baartman had effectively been made an object, and her humanity mattered not at all.
Representations of Africans at world fairs and other shows were not isolated incidents. They were skillfully crafted to perpetuate racism both domestically and abroad. They also served the purpose of legitimizing anthropologists and soothing the white middle-class, who thought they were being helpful. Critiquers of these practices, however, continued to perpetuate the paradigms of savagery and civility themselves.
American fairs were a place where Anthropologists could continue the work that they started by displaying the dissected genitalia of Sarah Bartman in 1815. The desire to exhibit Africans stemmed from two motives. To prove the Anthropologist’s value as academics, and to prove Darwin’s theory of evolutions, with the savagery and incivility of Africans as proof of the white man’s progress (Rydell 136) World events also shaped the priorities of the exhibitors. Famous French geographer and labor contractor Xavier Pené admitted to prioritizing “l’intérêt Colonial,” or the interest of the colonist, over profits. That allowed him to simultaneously offer proof to post-reconstruction-era Americans that African-Americans didn’t deserve rights or equality. This was accomplished through a mix of architecture and stereotypical representations of Africans. A common motif in these exhibitions is the use of land and space to create the feeling of progress and regression. Pené’s exhibit was intentionally placed at the end of a road that lead to a city, in order to evoke the connection of Africans being removed from civility (Rydell 140). Another exhibit, strategically located in Delaware Park, “a state of nature,” let the visitors be in a “natural,” really uncivilized, space while they were viewing the Africans. Then as they progressed through the exhibit and passed the Africans, they left a space that decorated in “savage” colors, and progressed to more modern buildings and architecture, where they would exit (Rydell 143).
Resistance and subversion to these exhibits occurred, but within the existing power structure. The women who performed in the shows took advantage of Americans’ ignorance of their native language, so during their required “religious” chanting, they said “We have come from a far country to a land where all men are white. If you will come to our country we will take pleasure in cutting your white throats.” Other women took advantage of converting to Christianity so they didn’t have to perform in the “fetish dances” (Rydell 145). These acts of subversion are powerful, but at the end of the day these women still had to participate in the exhibit, or be stuck in America. Frederick Douglass fell into the same trap while trying to condemn the African exhibits, “but he could not free himself from the dominant discourse of ‘civilization’ and ‘savagery’” (Rydell 142).
P.T. Barnum played a large part in how the exhibit structure was shaped. He capitalized on the audience’s curiosity of evolution, mixing science and showmanship, in order to bring in Africans as proof of evolution (Blume 190-1). His influence has been named ‘Barnumism,’ which includes themes of ‘authenticity’ and display (Blume 193-4). These two themes capture the purpose of the World Fairs and how visitors engaged with them. They wanted to see something réal and they wanted to see it for themselves. (“It” being used intentionally, here). Blume highlights the “naiveté” of the audience, speaking to the assumption that it is possible to view an “authentic” representation of Africans when they are removed from their environment, and that the Africans will be able to engage with each other “authentically” even with an audience présent. It is naive of the audience to think the Africans don’t know they are there (Blume 197).
Gordon offers an explanation for how middle class america could use this “naivté” to fuel their indifference of social injustices. Observers might criticize an exhibit, and question the treatment of the Africans in it, but they would not try to stop it (Gordon 271). The creators of the exhibits were also able to create a defence of the exhibits by placing themselves as philanthropists who were doing more good for the Africans than harm, because only through their efforts would they bring attention to the public about their needs. In this way, as the exhibitor created an image of the Africans as uncivilized and needing to be saved, their own character was simultaneously being shaped as the savior (Gordon 281-2).