Sarah Baartman was the first and most well-known Hottentot Venus. Her Khoeko name is unknown, and her English name had many variations that include Sara, Saartje, Saartjie, and Bartman. She was likely born in 1789 near Camdeboo in what is now Eastern Cape of South Africa. At the time of her birth, it was a Dutch colony, but became a British colony by the time she reached adulthood. Her mother died when Baartman was an infant. Her father was killed before she reached adulthood.

In her childhood and teenage years, Baartman worked on a farm. In the 1790s, Peter Cesars, a free black trader, encouraged her to move to Cape Town. Willingly or unwillingly, Baartman does end up leaving her family for Cape Town, where she works as a washerwoman and nursemaid for two years. During this time, she may have had two children who died as infants.

Peter Cesars’s brother, Hendrik, and surgeon Alexander Dunlop plotted to convince Baartmans to go with them to London to be exhibited as a curiosity. Dunlop promised that she would make a large amount of money in a short amount of time before insisting that she could return home. Baartman asked for Cesars to accompany her and, initially, he refused.