Baartman resisted Cuvier’s examination until her death

Evidence

In his lab, Cuvier asked Baartman to take off her long skirt and shawl, which she had worn to ward off the March wind. Baartman refused. Startled, Cuvier did all he could to document her with her clothes on over the next three days, measuring and drawing her body. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 368

Categorization

• SEED: The detail that Baartman refused and Cuvier was startled — the scientist expecting a docile specimen and getting resistance — is a small but potent revision of the passive-victim narrative. Could anchor an essay on the resistant body within histories of scientific racism.