RaM
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A Human Zoo Exhibit (Ota Benga)
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blessmycottonsocks
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Remember Bedlam used to be quite a tourist attraction:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161213-how-bedlam-became-a-palace-for-lunatics
and public executions always drew good crowds well into the Victorian days.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161213-how-bedlam-became-a-palace-for-lunatics
and public executions always drew good crowds well into the Victorian days.
Ogdred Weary
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Nonsense, no other species has invented Marmite or novelty sunglasses.
titch
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We deserve extinction just for that.
Ogdred Weary
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Replace it with "Vegemite" and I'd be in agreement.
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I feel the need to set some background / context ...
The Ota Benga story is considerably more complicated and paradoxical (for lack of clearly documented or unambiguous facts ... ) than the BBC account reflects.
A more detailed and less provocative account of Ota Benga's life can be found in his Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ota_Benga
Ota Benga's story is intertwined with the similarly odd story of the American who brought him to the 1904 St. Louis Exposition - Samuel Phillips Verner:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Phillips_Verner
Verner was from the American South, so his attitudes toward other races wasn't exactly enlightened. On the other hand, his recurrently patronizing and condescending comments about native Africans were neither unusual nor notably extreme for his time. Having said that ... Verner did manage to successfully operate as a purported missionary and later a trader in the Congo region.
Verner was one of the first foreigners to foster a relationship with the Pygmy groups in that region. As such he was considered an expert on them and their ways. This was the basis for the publication of his 1902 article on the subject in The Atlantic Monthly - an article which illustrates much of the context within which he met Ota Benga and brought him to America the first time:
https://archive.org/details/atlantic90bostuoft/page/184/mode/2up
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Here are some points which are omitted from, or wrongly stated, in the BBC article cited in the opening post above ...
* Ota Benga wasn't a "teen." He was born sometime in or around 1883, making him on the order of 20 or 21 years old at the time he first came to America. He was an adult.
* Ota Benga had been married and fathered children before first coming to America.
* His first wife and children had been killed by Belgian colonial forces while he was away from his home village. He was subsequently captured and sold into slavery.
* Verner had been contracted to find Pygmies willing to come to the USA for what was originally conceived and proposed as a grand anthropological exhibit at the 1904 event in St. Louis.
* Verner encountered Benga for the first time as a captive of slavers on his way to recruit exhibition participants from the Batwa society / group. Verner purchased Benga's freedom (or, from a more cynical perspective, Benga per se) from the slavers.
* Benga was not a Batwa, so he was the odd man out among the Pygmies Verner recruited.
* Verner brought the 5 recruits to St. Louis, where the intended anthropological exhibition seemed to have devolved into something more akin to a circus sideshow environment. There were representative members of indigenous peoples from all around the world present - e.g., a group of Native Americans including Geronimo.
* The 5 Africans had a less than grand experience in St. Louis. Even though they were not confined, they couldn't circulate around the grounds without a gaggle of visitors following them as curiosities and tacitly expecting them to be entertaining.
* Following the St. Louis exhibition Verner returned all 5 of his "specimens" to their homeland, which was part of the plan / proposal all along.
* Some accounts claim Benga remarried a Batwa woman after his return. However, she died. More generally, Benga couldn't integrate himself into the different Batwa group / society, and his own group had been decimated to the point he had no native society to which he could return. There was little or nothing for him back in the Congo, and he requested that Verner take him back to the USA when Verner next returned there.
* Verner consented to bring Benga back to America. Insofar as this was above and beyond the original recruitment "deal", Verner thereby adopted an unexpected responsibility / liability in the person of Benga.
* Returning with Benga in 1905(?), Verner found himself in financial straits and needed to travel to solicit new business / opportunities. He arranged for Benga to "crash" at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where Verner himself was attempting to secure a position. This didn't work out well, and at the suggestion of the museum director Verner moved Benga to another negotiated residence gig at the Bronx Zoo.
* At the zoo Benga was not confined at all, but displayed a preference for hanging out in the Monkey House. As had been the case at St. Louis and the museum, he couldn't move around without attracting curious folks. This daily presence eventually became something of an exhibit in itself (cf. the museum posting a sign describing Benga himself).
* The ensuing scandal decried by clergy led to Benga's subsequent transfer to a Long Island orphanage and eventually a move to Lynchburg VA, where he spent the rest of his life. These latter events were done under the supervision of some of the clergy who'd condemned the zoo situation, by which time Verner seems to have ceased to be a significant benefactor or connection.
Anyway ... Ota Benga ended up a "stranger in a strange land", and this was at least in part the result of decisions he'd made. He wasn't a captive, and his sad status as a lone individual "exhibit" occurred during a second presence in the USA that he requested. We can only speculate whether his request to come back to the USA was wise and / or whether Verner was wise in going along with it.
Naturally, none of this justifies the tacit and overt racism exhibited by the various parties connected with the Ota Benga saga.
* Ota Benga wasn't a "teen." He was born sometime in or around 1883, making him on the order of 20 or 21 years old at the time he first came to America. He was an adult.
* Ota Benga had been married and fathered children before first coming to America.
* His first wife and children had been killed by Belgian colonial forces while he was away from his home village. He was subsequently captured and sold into slavery.
* Verner had been contracted to find Pygmies willing to come to the USA for what was originally conceived and proposed as a grand anthropological exhibit at the 1904 event in St. Louis.
* Verner encountered Benga for the first time as a captive of slavers on his way to recruit exhibition participants from the Batwa society / group. Verner purchased Benga's freedom (or, from a more cynical perspective, Benga per se) from the slavers.
* Benga was not a Batwa, so he was the odd man out among the Pygmies Verner recruited.
* Verner brought the 5 recruits to St. Louis, where the intended anthropological exhibition seemed to have devolved into something more akin to a circus sideshow environment. There were representative members of indigenous peoples from all around the world present - e.g., a group of Native Americans including Geronimo.
* The 5 Africans had a less than grand experience in St. Louis. Even though they were not confined, they couldn't circulate around the grounds without a gaggle of visitors following them as curiosities and tacitly expecting them to be entertaining.
* Following the St. Louis exhibition Verner returned all 5 of his "specimens" to their homeland, which was part of the plan / proposal all along.
* Some accounts claim Benga remarried a Batwa woman after his return. However, she died. More generally, Benga couldn't integrate himself into the different Batwa group / society, and his own group had been decimated to the point he had no native society to which he could return. There was little or nothing for him back in the Congo, and he requested that Verner take him back to the USA when Verner next returned there.
* Verner consented to bring Benga back to America. Insofar as this was above and beyond the original recruitment "deal", Verner thereby adopted an unexpected responsibility / liability in the person of Benga.
* Returning with Benga in 1905(?), Verner found himself in financial straits and needed to travel to solicit new business / opportunities. He arranged for Benga to "crash" at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where Verner himself was attempting to secure a position. This didn't work out well, and at the suggestion of the museum director Verner moved Benga to another negotiated residence gig at the Bronx Zoo.
* At the zoo Benga was not confined at all, but displayed a preference for hanging out in the Monkey House. As had been the case at St. Louis and the museum, he couldn't move around without attracting curious folks. This daily presence eventually became something of an exhibit in itself (cf. the museum posting a sign describing Benga himself).
* The ensuing scandal decried by clergy led to Benga's subsequent transfer to a Long Island orphanage and eventually a move to Lynchburg VA, where he spent the rest of his life. These latter events were done under the supervision of some of the clergy who'd condemned the zoo situation, by which time Verner seems to have ceased to be a significant benefactor or connection.
Anyway ... Ota Benga ended up a "stranger in a strange land", and this was at least in part the result of decisions he'd made. He wasn't a captive, and his sad status as a lone individual "exhibit" occurred during a second presence in the USA that he requested. We can only speculate whether his request to come back to the USA was wise and / or whether Verner was wise in going along with it.
Naturally, none of this justifies the tacit and overt racism exhibited by the various parties connected with the Ota Benga saga.
Kondoru
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Enola Gaia; yup, seems a pretty typical example of BBC disinformation.
This guy certainly had SOME agency; his life was tragic, but I suspect that it would have been more tragic if he had never left his home. He certainly wanted to see other places.
An Alienated person in early 20th century NY...Well, there are worst places to end up in than the Zoo...Look how we treat the Alienated today, -as compared to zoo animals. (And humans, of course, are animals too).
Meanwhile, if we are going to talk about pygmies, why arent we talking about their enslavement by the Bantu, which goes on today?
This guy certainly had SOME agency; his life was tragic, but I suspect that it would have been more tragic if he had never left his home. He certainly wanted to see other places.
An Alienated person in early 20th century NY...Well, there are worst places to end up in than the Zoo...Look how we treat the Alienated today, -as compared to zoo animals. (And humans, of course, are animals too).
Meanwhile, if we are going to talk about pygmies, why arent we talking about their enslavement by the Bantu, which goes on today?
Comfortably Numb
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Comfortably Numb
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As a consequence of searching those newspaper archives, I unexpectedly came across the following, contemporary article regarding an 'invitation' from London.
THE CONGO PYGMIES
BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON
The Guardian
2 June, 1905
The article is attached as a pdf file (not extracted separately from page, as much easier given the enormous page length of that time).
It's a story I was unfamiliar with and seems strikingly contrasting to events unfolding in America.
Here, we seem to have a most cordial invitation for a cultural exchange, for example, "brief appearances... to exhibit their dances or methods of tracking game" and a stark warning our "guests" are "not to be harassed by anything like impertinent curiosity".
In due hindsight, would we regard this in comparison to be... I suppose the word is "civilised"...
THE CONGO PYGMIES
BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON
The Guardian
2 June, 1905
The article is attached as a pdf file (not extracted separately from page, as much easier given the enormous page length of that time).
It's a story I was unfamiliar with and seems strikingly contrasting to events unfolding in America.
Here, we seem to have a most cordial invitation for a cultural exchange, for example, "brief appearances... to exhibit their dances or methods of tracking game" and a stark warning our "guests" are "not to be harassed by anything like impertinent curiosity".
In due hindsight, would we regard this in comparison to be... I suppose the word is "civilised"...
Last edited:
Comfortably Numb
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One final newspaper article which might be of interest.
When I came across this, my inclination was to discard as it didn't seem to add anything new.
However, there was one thing which seriously impacted... the final paragraph and its poignancy.
It's a full page feature from the Edmonton Journal, dated, August 13, 2006.
I was just about to delete from saved files and realised I wasn't sure enough about doing so.
Consequently, I believe your judgement is best here and it is actually highlighting a detailed, earlier appraisal.
Duly attached as a pdf file.
When I came across this, my inclination was to discard as it didn't seem to add anything new.
However, there was one thing which seriously impacted... the final paragraph and its poignancy.
It's a full page feature from the Edmonton Journal, dated, August 13, 2006.
I was just about to delete from saved files and realised I wasn't sure enough about doing so.
Consequently, I believe your judgement is best here and it is actually highlighting a detailed, earlier appraisal.
Duly attached as a pdf file.
