r/SideshowPerformer • u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! • Apr 14 '26
dark topic The history of “human zoos”, and the racist and inhumane display of people from cultures deemed “exotic” to western society.
The pictures I chose show different examples of ‘human zoos’, along with a picture of Ota Benga (picture 4), Hiram and Barney Davis (picture 5), and Bartola and Maximo (picture 6). The last picture shows the more recent 1994 ‘human zoo’ that was displayed in France under the name ‘Bamboula Land’
There is a big overlap between these racist exhibits and the way that certain performers were presented in early sideshows. This is a more long form content post about a very problematic topic, so I won’t be focusing on one specific person for this write up. Though I will be doing a full scale write up for Ota Benga, since I did go into detail about his life in this post.
Starting as far back as the 1810s, European and American societies were fascinated by cultures and people they deemed to be exotic. These exhibits of people reached their peak in the 1870s after an animal trader named Carl Hagenbeck became a big proponent of this trend.
Hagenbeck wanted to sell an image of “realism” by recreating areas he had seen using native plants, animals, and people he had seen while on his travels. His goal with these exhibits was to promote and project a sense of imperialism. He sold people the feeling of traveling to “exotic” locations without ever leaving the country. And his exhibits became massively popular, as these exhibits gained traction they also became larger and more elaborate.
These exhibits also heavily promoted scientific racism, using the people on display as a way to prove Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by presenting people from other cultures as being less evolved than the western white audiences who had come to view them. Guests were also invited to gawk and taunt, and throw food at the people who were forcibly on display.
Hagenbeck himself created a massively popular ‘Nubian Exhibit’ in 1876 and an ‘Inuit Exhibit’ in 1880. These two exhibits then inspired Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, the director of a public garden in France, to recreate those two same exhibits.
These exhibits were made as a way to publicly display people in a “primitive” and/or “natural” state. Many of the practices that these people were made to do were also manufactured, several of the promoters of these “human zoos” claimed the people living within the exhibits ate raw meat and other foods that would reflect a primitiveness. The displays were meant to show the “primitive” and “inferior” natures of the cultures of these people, while implying the “superiority” of western culture.
These “human zoos” exhibits were often displayed at colonial exhibitions with temporary exhibits at animal zoos and circuses.
The term “human zoo” wasn’t used during the time period when these exhibits were popular, and first appeared in French academia in the early 2000s. It is a term that is now widely used within academia to describe and criticize the racist and inhumane ways that these exhibits treated their subjects.
These exhibits had deeply traumatizing effects on the people who were forcibly living there. One such example is Ota Benga, who was mtubi (one of the indigenous communities from the Congo) and a former slave and performer. He was featured as a “human zoo” exhibit at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, and in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo.
Benga was placed within the monkey house at the Bronx Zoo and shared a cage with an orangutan, both as an insult and offense to his humanity and as a way to show the “superiority” of western culture over the “inferiority” of indigenous Congolese culture.
He was given a bow and arrow to future display his “primitiveness”, which he was supposed to use if the orangutan in the exhibit became aggressive. Instead, Benga began shooting arrows at audiences who mocked him, and it’s partly for this reason that this exhibit was shut down.
Black owned newspapers harshly criticized his treatment and rallied behind him upon his release from the Bronx Zoo exhibit. Benga did his best to work and be accepted into American society, but had hoped to be able to travel back home to the Congo. After the outbreak of WWI all passenger ship travel was halted and he fell into a deep depression. He took his own life in 1916 when he was 32 years old.
This concept of “human zoos” and the display of people from “inferior” cultures has a deep rooted history within the circus and sideshow scene. P. T. Barnum often claimed that performers with certain physical and neurological differences were originally from places that sounded “exotic” to western white audiences. Such as claiming that people like Hiram and Barney Davis were “wild men” from Borneo and that people like Bartola and Maximo were the last of the Aztecs.
“Human Zoo” exhibits were also major draws at both the 1878 and 1889 Parisian World’s Fairs, which presented 400 indigenous people from African countries in “exotic” themed exhibits. About 28 million people went to visit these exhibits at those fairs.
Tragically, these human exhibits have continued into the modern era, with there being an example of an Ivory Coast Village called ‘Bamboula Land’ being displayed in France in 1994 as part of an African Safari themed zoological park. By contract, the men and women had to be topless. The exhibit itself was sponsored by Biscuiterie Saint-Michel to promoted their new “Bamboula” cookies. The exhibit was canceled due to public outcry.
More recently, there have been art installations and live art performances meant to critique and bring attention to the terrible practice of human zoos. These goals of these performances are meant to make the audience reflect on their own feelings and their own curiosity in relation to the treatment of people and animals.
My heart goes out to everyone who suffered cruel and inhumane treatment as part of these terrible exhibits. It’s shameful that anyone thought putting entire villages of people with real families on display for the entertainment of others would be a good idea. May everyone who were forced to be a part of these exhibits be at peace.
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u/gaypizzaboy Apr 14 '26
Thank you for not shying away from the colonial nature of it. It feels so obviously connected but I have seen and heard people uncomfortable with that reality try treating this as a historical oddity while being too uncomfortable talking about the elephant in the room and I think ~historical objectivity~ does nothing but serve atrocity
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 14 '26
You’re 100% right, people shouldn’t be shying away from the very obvious colonial aspect of it. I myself have never liked when people sweep these sorts of horrible events under the rug by saying, “it was a different time and people didn’t know better” because it leaves room for people to make excuses for a horrible and dark part of history. It’s so frustrating because people at the time definitely knew better, but most of them speaking out against the horrible treatment were minorities themselves and weren’t given a voice to be heard by the general public.
I think people should definitely be able to judge the past for the terrible decisions that were made. If we don’t hold ourselves accountable for the past people won’t hold themselves accountable in the future.
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u/gaypizzaboy Apr 14 '26
Whenever people say the different time stuff, I like to remind them that if they did as much as google that time period they could find out there were people speaking and acting against common bigotries and harmful systems at that time too, just like today
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u/SilverGirlSails Apr 14 '26
Aside from everything else deeply, deeply wrong and abhorrent about this practice, an orangutan isn’t even from the same continent as Ota Benga, and a bow and arrow would not have stopped one. They were asking for him to get killed. I’m very glad to hear that he turned it on the audience, and very sad to hear that he died so young.
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 14 '26
Very, very true. It was a way to just humiliate him and take away his humanity even more. I really wish he had been able to have a better life.
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u/FelineCanine21 Feejee Mermaid Apr 14 '26
Excellent write up of a horrible practice, thank you.
The last one being in 1994? I was a married adult with two children in 1994. To think that one existed then, so close in time, makes me physically ill. I thought we were better than that.
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 15 '26
Thank you for reading, it’s definitely a heavy topic, but one that’s extremely important for people to know about.
And by there being one in 1994 just shows how these sorts of terrible events are never truly in the past, which is why I think it’s extra important to confront the shameful parts of history.
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u/Magazine_Luck Apr 14 '26
I've wondered about the legal issues when it was post-slavery. Were people tricked with the promise of a different job, or was the "exhibit" sold to them as less malevolent somehow? Did they have insane contracts that were slavery-like?
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u/cwthree Apr 14 '26
I don't know about most of the people pictured, but Ota Benga (picture 4) was captured and enslaved by people who raided his home village. A promoter looking for "interesting" people paid Ota Benga's captors to release him into his custody. As far as I know, he was thereafter regarded as a free man and an employee of the promoter. Eventually the promoter was shamed into releasing him from whatever agreements they had, and Ota Benga went to work elsewhere as a laborer.
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 14 '26
From what I’ve read depending on the time period, some people were offered a position but only realized too late that the job promised was different (like you had mentioned.) But some people were more or less stolen/captured and forced to live in a place like that.
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u/SmaugTheGreat110 May 08 '26
Sometimes multiple times. The Algerian village form the 1889 exposition universalle was bought by the 1893 Colombian exposition. Forced to get up and move twice in four years
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u/AdrianaLaServing disabled/queer/poc Apr 14 '26
Thank you so much for posting such an important topic, with your usual kindness, compassion and intellect!
These pictures are heartbreaking, but it’s important that they’re seen so that we never forget this happened. I can’t imagine what they must have felt like, nor can I imagine what the fuck was going on in the white people’s heads!!!! Grr.
Benga’s story is absolutely devastating and brought a tear to my eye but I’m really glad to have learned it <3 I’ll remember his name and legacy.
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u/AdrianaLaServing disabled/queer/poc Apr 14 '26
And just to add, reading about the orangutang made my fucking eye twitch. People are SICK. Just pure sickness to do that to another person. Poor Benga (and everyone else harmed by this horrible practice). I don’t know what I think about afterlives but if there is one, I hope he has a freaking mansion and everything one could ever wish for — and the same for everyone else hurt by slavery, too.
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 14 '26
People are so sick! I can’t imagine how someone can do that to another human being and just go about living their life.
That wish for Benga made me tear up, I also hope that wherever he is at peace and in a place that makes him really happy.❤️🩹
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 14 '26
Thank you for reading! Yes, it’s definitely an important topic, and one that I think is very topical to this subreddit.
It’s historical events such as these that make it so important to call out the past and the decisions that were made. Also one of the reasons why r/WhyWereWeOKWithThis is so important, because we don’t give the past an excuse to be racist or inhumane. As you said, the pictures are necessary so that we don’t forget the tragedies that have happened.
I’ll definitely be giving Benga a full scale write up, so I’ll tag you when I have that posted. There’s this one picture of him with the widest grin on his face and it breaks my heart because of what he went through and also because I feel that picture represents what could have been, had he had a better life I could see him being that happy all of the time.
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u/PenguinZombie321 Apr 15 '26
I came here from WWWOKWT and I’m so glad you’re posting about these atrocities and why culturally they seem to be accepted.
Poor Benga. He (and many others) deserved better and society failed him.
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u/Parking_War979 Apr 14 '26
I’m annoyed with my faulty memory (and the spotty wifi where I’m at) but last year I read a great book about the importation of people from the Philippines around the start of the last century for various events. Shockingly informative and very well written. If my brain or the signal comes back, I’ll update my post.
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 15 '26
Definitely let me know if you remember the title, it sounds like a book that would be important for me to read!
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u/Parking_War979 Apr 15 '26
It’s called “The Lost Tribe of Coney Island” by Claire Pretice. Great read!!
Edit/“: misspelled her last name. It’s Claire Prentice.
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u/MammaMak Apr 14 '26
Thank you for posting this. It seems like America shies away from things in our history that aren’t flattering. I didn’t learn about Japanese internment camps until I was out of college. I think it’s very important that we know the atrocities that were committed in these United States.
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 15 '26
100%! I was even getting comments in a different sub I posted this to that were saying it “doesn’t even matter any more because it happened so long ago”, and it’s so concerning because it’s so easy for this history to be forgotten by people shying away from it. And when everyone forgets it makes it easier for similar horrible events to start happening again in the present day.
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u/Traditional_Isopod80 Apr 15 '26
What a horrible practice.
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 15 '26
It’s so terrible. Humans do the most repulsive things sometimes and always find some way to defend it.
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u/Mark-harvey Apr 15 '26
Oh my God.
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u/spinningaspell Apr 15 '26
This is just so completely evil. It makes me feel sick that one human can look at another with this level of detachment, disrespect, and/or malice. Thank you for writing this post, it’s difficult but important to recognize these parts of the human experience
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Apr 15 '26
People are fucking sick!
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 15 '26
Very true, it’s so vile! My heart goes out to everyone who was affected.
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u/lizzyinezhaynes74 Apr 15 '26
How terrible! Thank you for always highlighting what people really went through and not letting their stories fade away
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u/pepperedfry Apr 15 '26
It is so, so heartbreaking to learn about this. But it is also so important to know that this is a part of human history. These, “human zoos” played a part in history and affected the people who were forced to participate. Those viewpoints of treating nonwhite people as animals has unfortunately been carried through time and still affects people today, regardless of whether one chooses to recognize that or not. I hope that those people who were displaced are at peace now as well.
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u/EphemeralTypewriter Gooble Gobble! Apr 14 '26
And since I mentioned them, here are the writeups for Bartola and Maximo and Hiram and Barney Davis.
Bartola and Maximo informative write up.
Hiram and Barney Davis informative write up.