[SIZE=7]Ota Benga[/SIZE]
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Benga at the St. Louis World’s Fair, 1904
Ota Benga (c. 1883[2] – March 20, 1916) was a Mbuti (Congo pygmy) man, known for being featured in an exhibit at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, and as a human zoo exhibit in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo. Benga had been purchased from African slave traders by the explorer Samuel Phillips Verner,[3] a businessman searching for African people for the exhibition, who took him to the United States. While at the Bronx Zoo, Benga was allowed to walk the grounds before and after he was exhibited in the zoo’s Monkey House. Except for a brief visit to Africa with Verner after the close of the St. Louis Fair, Benga lived in the United States, mostly in Virginia, for the rest of his life.
African-American newspapers around the nation published editorials strongly opposing Benga’s treatment. Robert Stuart MacArthur, spokesman for a delegation of black churches, petitioned New York City Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. for his release from the Bronx Zoo. In late 1906, the mayor released Benga to the custody of James M. Gordon, who supervised the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn.
In 1910 Gordon arranged for Benga to be cared for in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he paid for his clothes and to have his sharpened teeth capped. This would enable Benga to be more readily accepted in local society. Benga was tutored in English and began to work at a Lynchburg tobacco factory.
He tried to return to Africa, but the outbreak of World War I in 1914 stopped all ship passenger travel. Benga fell into a depression, and died by suicide in 1916.[4]
[SIZE=6]Contents[/SIZE]
[ul]
[li]1Early life[/li][li]2Exhibitions[/li][LIST]
[li]2.1St. Louis World Fair[/li][li]2.2American Museum of Natural History[/li][li]2.3Bronx Zoo[/li][/ul]
[li]3Later life[/li][li]4Death[/li][li]5Legacy[/li][li]6Similar case[/li][li]7See also[/li][li]8Footnotes[/li][li]9References[/li][li]10Bibliography[/li][li]11External links[/li][/LIST]
[SIZE=6]Early life[edit][/SIZE]
As a member of the Mbuti people,[5] Ota Benga lived in equatorial forests near the Kasai River in what was then the Congo Free State. His people were attacked by the Force Publique, established by King Leopold II of Belgium as a militia to control the natives, most of whom were used for labor in order to exploit the large supply of rubber in the Congo. Benga’s wife and two children were murdered; he survived because he was on a hunting expedition when the Force Publique attacked his village. He was later captured by “Baschelel” (Bashilele) slave traders.[6][7][6]
In 1904, American businessman and explorer Samuel Phillips Verner traveled to Africa,[8] under contract from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis World Fair), to capture and bring back an assortment of pygmies to be part of an exhibition.[9] Verner discovered Benga while en route to a Batwa pygmy village visited previously; he purchased Benga from the slave traders for a pound of salt and a bolt of cloth.[10][6] Verner later claimed he had rescued Benga from cannibals (11 Sep 1906, Wilkes-Barre Record story “Row Over a Pygmy” cites Verner’s claim he rescued Benga from cannibals).
The two spent several weeks together before reaching the Batwa village. The villagers had developed distrust for the muzungu (“white man”) due to the abuses of King Leopold’s forces. Verner was unable to recruit any villagers to join him for travel to the United States until Benga said that the muzungu had saved his life, and spoke of the bond that had grown between them and his own curiosity about the world Verner came from. Four Batwa, all male, ultimately decided to accompany them. Verner also recruited other Africans who were not pygmies: five men from the Bakuba, including the son of King Ndombe, ruler of the Bakuba; and other related peoples – “Red Africans[clarify]”.[11][12] …(cont)…