Saartje ("Little Sarah") Baartman was presumably born in what is now Eastern Cape of South Africa in 1789. Her original name is unknown.
She was working as a servant in Cape Town when her employer, British Navy surgeon William Dunlop, convinced her that she could earn money in Europe. She left for London on 1810.
She travelled around England showing her, to Europeans, unusual bodily features that were thought to be "typical" to Hottentots. Her exhibitors let visitors could touch her buttocks for extra payment. During this time she was baptized and given a name Sarah Bartmann.
British abolitionists failed to free her since she had come to country at her own free will and had a legal contract and salary. However, the uproar forced her keepers to move her to Paris in 1814. There she appeared in an animal show and allegedly became an alcoholic.
Baartman died in January 1 1819. French scientist Georges Cuvier made an autopsy. Her skeleton, preserved genitals and brain were placed on display in Paris Musee de l'Homme until 1985.
There were sporadic calls for the return of her remains from 1940's but the case became prominent only after US biologist Stephen Jay Gould published an account The Hottentot Venus in 1980's. When Nelson Mandela became a president of South Africa, he formally requested that France return the remains. After much legal wrangling and debates in French National Assembly, France acceded to the request at March 6 2002.
Baartman's remains were returned to her land of birth on May 3 2002.