These were not the only indigenous [African] people placed on exhibit at world’s fairs and elsewhere around the turn of the century. Perhaps the most appalling case was that of Ota Benga, a Pygmy from the Congo, who was displayed in the monkey house of New York’s Bronx Zoo in September 1906. An orangutan shared his space. Visitors ogled his teeth – filed, newspaper articles hinted, for devouring human flesh. To further this impression, zookeeprs left a few bones scattered on the floor around him. A poem published in the New York Times declared that Ota Benga had been brought
From his native land of darkness,
To the country of the free
In the interest of science
And of broad humanity
The promoter who staged this exhibit was a former Presbyterian missionary who abandoned his preaching for several business ventures. A delegation of black ministers finally rescued Ota Benga from the zoo. He remained in the United States and committed suicide ten years later.
Source:
Hochschild, Adam. "A Secret Society of Murderers" King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 176. Print.
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