On the other side of the globe, a man named Samuel Verner was preparing exhibits for the 1904 World's Fair. The fair's organizers wanted to do an exhibit showing the progress of mankind “from the dark prime to the highest enlightenment, from savagery to civic organisation"
He was given a hefty budget to collect living "specimens" of people from Africa to represent the "savage depths" from which mankind had sprung. He set sail for Africa after securing the permission of King Leopold, who expressed interest in attending the fair himself.
Verner later told contradictory stories of how he found Ota, but he purchased him from the slave traders, bragging that he had "secured a pygmy" for the fair's collection.
Africans were kidnapped from Africa and brought to be exhibited in the human zoos. Many of them died quickly.
The experience of the young African men at the 'fair' aka Human Zoo, was not a pleasant one. Billed as cannibals, they shook spears at the crowd and grimaced with their filed teeth, modeling their "war dances" In between shows, they were poked and prodded by curious visitors.
Verner traveled around, distributing the 'African wildlife specimens' he'd collected while searching for a home for Ota. He finally sent Ota to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In 1906, Verner found a new home for Ota: The Bronx Zoo.
Ota was put as an "exhibit" A plaque was erected, describing him in the same way an animal would be described and put into a cage in the monkey house with a trained orangutan named Dohong. The Minneapolis Journal declared Ota to be the "missing link" between chimps and humans.
The cage was littered with bones to suggest that Ota was a cannibal. He was also "encouraged" to perform for the audience, waving his spear and grimacing to show off his pointed teeth or playing with his cage-mate, the orangutan.
On the evening of March 19, 1916, Ota Benga stole a revolver gun and shot himself through the heart.
The Human Zoo died out after WW II. Oddly it was Hitler who first banned them. The last was in Belgium in 1958.
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@AfricanArchives So true but so many people dewell in it . Instead of moving forward.
@AfricanArchives Horrific, and it needs to be told. Thank you for your work.
@AfricanArchives 📌📌📌 support is also productive, kindly support 🙏🙏🙏
@AfricanArchives Thank you for this. As two of my sisters were born in the Belgian Congo, I have a personal interest in the truth of this matter.
@AfricanArchives We are indeed a flawed species.