Ota Benga was a Mbuti (Congo pygmy) man, known for being featured in a human zoo exhibit in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo. Benga had been purchased from African slave traders. He tried to return to Africa, with no success.
Benga fell into depression and committed suicide in 1916.
Benga fell into depression and committed suicide in 1916.
When Benga, a teenager, returned from an elephant hunt in Congo, he found that his entire family and village had been slaughtered by Force Publique, the private army of King Leopold created to enforce rubber production quotas.
He was kidnapped by slave traders and put to work.
He was kidnapped by slave traders and put to work.
In 1904, Benga was "freed" by an American missionary and amateur anthropologist Samuel Phillips Verner who was under contract from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition to bring back pygmies to be part of a human exhibition at the fair.
Verner found Benga and negotiated his release from the slave traders for a pound of salt and a bolt of cloth. Verner recruited other Africans for the exhibit as well and the group was brought to St. Louis in June 1904.
For his efforts, Verner was awarded a gold medal in anthropology at the close of the Expedition.
He was about 33 years of age at the time of his death.
The colorized image is FREE to use for educational purposes.
The pond of the “Senegalese Village,” Universal Exposition of Liège (Belgium), 1905.
Benga (second from left) and the Batwa in St. Louis
He was buried in an unmarked grave in the black section of the Old City Cemetery. At some point, his remains went missing. Local oral history indicates that Benga was eventually moved from the Old Cemetery to White Rock Hill Cemetery.
"The zoo encouraged him to hang his hammock and to shoot his bow and arrow at a target. On the first day of the exhibit, September 8, 1906, visitors found Benga in the Monkey House."
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
