The Inhumane Exhibition: Ota Benga and the Persistence of Prejudice

Prejudice and discrimination has existed through out history. Unfortunately, there are far too many examples of prejudice, discrimination and the devastating effects on people. In this passage, you will be reading about the very disturbing treatment of Ota because he was different. The treatment he received by others had a devastating impact on his life. After reading the passage below, please answer the following questions.

1. Explain how the concepts of prejudice and discrimination apply to what happened to Ota Benga.

2. What attitudes might have changed since that time period?

3. What attitudes might remain the same?

Your response should:

• be a one page essay
• 3 paragraphs in length
  • 450 words total
  • discussion is to be in your own words
• include 6 examples
  • 2 examples from passage
  • 2 examples of changed attitudes
  • 2 examples of attitudes that have remained

The Man in the Zoo

The Bronx Zoo in New York City used to keep a 22-year-old pygmy in the Monkey House. The man—and the orangutan he lived with—became the most popular exhibit at the zoo. Thousands of visitors would arrive daily and head straight for the Monkey House. Eyewitnesses to what they were told was a lower form of human in the long chain of evolution, the visitors were fascinated by the pygmy, especially by his sharpened teeth.

To make the exhibit even more alluring, the zoo director scattered animal bones in front of the man.

Ota Benga, 1906, on exhibit in the Bronx Zoo.

Credit: GL Archive/Alamy Stock Photo

I know it sounds as though I must have made this up, but this is a true story. The World’s Fair was going to be held in St. Louis in 1904, and the U.S. Department of Anthropology wanted to show villages from different cultures. They asked Samuel Verner, an explorer, if he could bring some pygmies to St. Louis to serve as live exhibits. Verner agreed, and on his next trip to Africa, in the Belgian Congo he came across Ota Benga, a pygmy who had been enslaved by another tribe. Benga, then about age 20, said he was willing to go to St. Louis. After Verner bought Benga’s freedom for some cloth and salt, Benga recruited several other pygmies to go with them.

After the World’s Fair, Verner took the pygmies back to Africa. When Benga found out that a Belgian military had wiped out his village and killed his family, he asked Verner if he could return with him to the United States. Verner agreed.

When they returned to New York, Verner ran into financial trouble and wrote some bad checks. No longer able to care for Benga, Verner left him with the director of the American Museum of Natural History. Later, Benga was turned over to the Bronx Zoo, which put him on display in the Monkey House, with the same type of sign they used to identify animal specimens:

The African Pygmy, “Ota Benga.” Age 23 years. Height 4 feet 11 inches. Weight 103 pounds. Brought from the Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Central Africa by Dr. Samuel P. Verner. Exhibited each afternoon during September.

Exhibited with an orangutan, Benga became a sensation. An article in The New York Times said it was fortunate that Benga couldn’t think very deeply or else living with monkeys might bother him.

When the Colored Baptist Ministers’ Conference protested that exhibiting Benga was degrading, zoo officials replied that they were “taking excellent care of the little fellow.” They added that “he has one of the best rooms at the primate house.” (I wonder what animal had the best room.)

Not surprisingly, this reply didn’t satisfy the ministers. When they continued to protest, zoo officials decided to let Benga out of his cage. They put a white shirt on him and let him walk around the zoo. At night, Benga slept in the monkey house.

Benga’s life became even more miserable. Zoo visitors would follow him, howling, jeering, laughing, and poking at him. One day, Benga found a knife in the feeding room of the Monkey House and flourished it at the visitors. Unhappy zoo officials took the knife away.

Benga then made a little bow and some arrows and began shooting at the obnoxious visitors. This ended the fun for the zoo officials. They decided that Benga had to leave.

After living in an orphanage for African American children, Benga went to work as a laborer in a tobacco factory in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Always treated as a freak, Benga was desperately lonely. In 1916, at about the age of 32, in despair that he had no home or family to return to in Africa, Benga ended his misery by shooting himself in the heart.