Zoos have mixed feelings for many people. On the one hand, you can see your favorite animals up close, but on the other hand, they live in captivity, which is bad. However, in general, the zoo is a pleasant place. A place where animals live.
But isn't a zoo with animals the only kind of zoos? Unfortunately, until recently, human zoos were very common. People were kept in captivity, they were exhibited to the public for fun, and other people paid to see them.
Below you will see photo evidence of the existence of these terrible places.
1. These natives of the Selk'nam tribe were exhibited in the human zoo during the "tour" of Europe.
Carl Hagenbeck is often credited with creating animal zoos as we know them today. He created more natural enclosures for animals closer to their own habitat.
However, a lesser known fact about him is that he was also the first person to "show" his own kind and created a human zoo.
In 1889, with the permission of the government of Chile, he took with him 11 people of the Selk'nam tribe, put them in cages and took them to show all over Europe. Later, people from other related tribes suffered the same fate.
Brussels: Human Zoos
2. This African girl was exhibited at the Human Zoo in Brussels, Belgium in 1958.
This photo has become a symbol of a terrible phenomenon of human zoos: a little African girl in a dress of "white" people. She is fed by the hand of a woman from the crowd of visitors. There is a fence between them.
Fortunately, the "exhibition" did not last long, because soon interest in it disappeared due to the advent of cinema. People could now satisfy their curiosity about foreign countries through films.
Moreover, by the time the exhibition began in Brussels, the concept of "human zoo" was considered disgusting by the world community, and in most countries it was prohibited.
But unfortunately, the changes in the inhabitants of this zoo were not affected so quickly. Most of the 297 people died and were buried in a mass, unmarked grave.
human zoos
3. Ota Benga, a Congo Pygmy, was exhibited at the Bronx Zoo in New York in 1906. During the "shows" he was forced to carry orangutans and other monkeys in his arms.
"Age 23, height 4'11", weight 103 lb. Brought by Samuel Werner from the Kasai River region, Congo Free State, South Central Africa. Exhibited every day throughout September."
Such was the inscription near Ota's "house", where he entertained the audience by shooting at targets with bows and arrows and making funny faces. He was sure that he was going to work at the zoo to take care of the elephant.
He also did various tricks with orangutans and other monkeys in order to entertain as many people as possible, of which there were a lot of people who came to this interesting specimen in the zoo.
However, this case caused criticism from several states, which led to the recall of the "exhibit".
His teeth were pointed down, according to the tradition of his tribe, and the floor of his dwelling - the cage was littered with bones. The organizers did this to make it look intimidating.
He played the role of a savage and was even kept in a cage with monkeys for a while, this was supported by anthropologist Madison Grant, later secretary of the New York Zoological Society and future eminent evangelist.
The New York Times announced the exhibit with the headline: "Bushman Shares Cage with Bronx Monkeys."
In the article itself, Ota was referred to as Bushman (a collective name for several indigenous African hunter-gatherer peoples). Scholars at that time rated the Bushmen very low in terms of significance.
The crowd poured in. Often up to 500 people at a time, and at the height of the exhibition, people came by the thousands.
However, the issue caused more and more concern. A number of prominent pastors have frankly said that this is a monstrous disrespect. The Reverend James H. Gordon, director of an orphanage in Brooklyn, was one of the expo's most vocal opponents.
Benga was eventually released. Leaving the zoo, the man returned to Africa, but no longer feeling that he belonged to that world, he soon returned to the United States. However, even here he could not find spiritual comfort, which led him to commit suicide in 1916 by a shot in the heart.
Human zoos: photos
4. Human zoo in Paris Jardin d "Agronomie Tropicale
In their grandiose but morally twisted desire to exercise power, the French, including to show their colonial power, built six villages that represented the French colonies at that time (Madagascar, Indochina, Sudan, Congo, Tunisia and Morocco). The exhibition ran from May to October 1907.
Over the six months of the exhibition, more than one million people gathered to watch the colonial power of the French. The villages were designed to match colonial life in reality, from architecture to agricultural practices.
Pictured above is a Congolese "factory" built in Marseille to show colonial life. In this regard, several people were brought from the Congo to "work" in this factory.
What then attracted a myriad of people is now neglected and ignored, a historical stain that France has too hastily forgotten about. Since 2006, despite the fact that the territory and pavilions of the human zoo have become available to the general public, in fact, few people have visited them.
Zoos people
5. Sarah Baartman, a girl who embodied all the inhumanity of such a phenomenon as human zoos.
In 1810, 20-year-old Sarah Baartman was "hired" as an exotic animal dealer. With promises of wealth and fame, Sarah went with him to London. There began something that was very far from what was promised.
Sarah naturally had large, protruding buttocks and an unusual shape of the genitals, so she became the subject of much discussion and an excellent exhibition piece.
She was dressed in tight clothes, and exhibited as "novelty", as "something exotic". She died in poverty, and her skeleton, brain and genitals were exhibited at the Musée des Humanities in Paris until 1974. In 2002, at the request of President Nelson Mandela, her remains were repatriated.
Human zoos in Europe
6. "Negro Village" in Germany. Mother and child.
At the world's fair in Paris in 1878 and 1889, the "Negro Village" was presented. It was visited by about 28 million people, and during the world exhibition in 1889, representatives of 400 indigenous tribes were the main "attraction".
The idea of such a village took root best in Germany, where the theories of social Darwinism were widely spread and accepted by many people. The exhibition was even attended by Otto von Bismarck.
7. Several representatives of indigenous peoples, as well as African and Asian races, were very often kept in cages and displayed in an impromptu natural habitat.
8. Paris World's Fair, 1931
The 1931 exhibition in Paris was so successful that 34 million people visited it within six months.
The smaller counter exhibition "The Truth about the Colonies", organized by the Communist Party, attracted far fewer people.
9. People visiting zoos at World's Fairs were entertained by groups of pygmies who were ordered to dance.
10. In 1881, five Cavescar Indians (Tierra del Fuego, Chile) were kidnapped and transported to Europe to become exhibits in the human zoo. They all died a year later.
11. Here, indigenous people take part in archery at the Savage Olympics, organized in 1904.
Organized by white Americans, the Savage Olympiad was attended by indigenous people from various tribes from different parts of the world, such as Africa, South America, the Middle East and Japan.
First human zoo
12. One of the first exhibitions of a man on public display was the B.P. Barnum exhibition.
He made an exhibit of Joice Heth (1756 - 1836). She was an African American slave. In 1835, towards the end of her life, the woman was blind and almost completely paralyzed (she could speak and move her right hand).
That's when Barnum bought it. He began his "career" by parading a dying woman and claiming she was a 160-year-old nurse for George Washington. She died a year later at the age of 80.
Human zoos in the 21st century
Even today there are echoes of human zoos. The reclusive Harava tribe lives on the Andaman Island in India. A video that appeared in 2012 showed one of the safari trips on this island in the beautiful Bay of Bengal, which has recently become a popular tourist destination.
But during the safari, people were shown not only animals, tourists were initially promised the opportunity to observe the life of members of the Harava tribe in their natural habitat.
However, in reality, apparently, everything is not so simple, because in that video the islanders danced specifically for tourists.
These indigenous peoples were just beginning to make contact with the mainland, and their willingness to interact with the outside world was quickly picked up and resulted in some groups being no better today than the human zoos of the past.
At the entrance to the "reserve" there was a sign forbidding the interaction and feeding of the inhabitants of the tribes, but the tourists who visit it by the hundreds every day always came with fruits and nuts.
The "reserve" has policemen who are supposed to protect the people of the tribes from contact, however, in one video, the "protector" was clearly seen instructing the naked women of the tribe how to dance, as food was thrown to them. Unfortunately, tossing food in anticipation of contact is actually a routine, not an exception to the rule.
The government demanded a stop to all this action, and in 2013 the Supreme Court of India completely banned such safaris. However, some activist groups claim that the service continues to be secretly provided to tourists.
Human zoos as a sign of protest
In 2014 in Oslo, as part of the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the country's constitution, two artists decided to recreate the Kongo Village, a famous exhibition in Norway in 1914 held a century earlier.
Then, a hundred years ago, at the exhibition 80 Senegalese were presented in an authentic environment.
One hundred years later, Mohamed Ali Fadlabi and Lars Cuzner recreated the exhibition. They called it the European Attraction Limited and tried to explore what they saw as Norway's colonial and racial amnesia, as well as strike up a conversation about the legacy of colonialism.
People of all nationalities from all over the world were invited to relax in this postmodern zoo.
However, the reaction was not what the artists expected. Many critics said that the exposition simply confirmed and rewrote racist and colonial beliefs in the world. They denied there was any artistic merit in repeating such a dehumanizing spectacle, especially in a world not yet fully healed of racism.
It was only in 1935-36 that the last cages with blacks in zoos were liquidated in Europe - in Basel and Turin. Prior to this, white people willingly went to look at blacks in captivity (as well as Indians and Eskimos).
Already in the 16th century, blacks were brought to Europe as exotics, approximately like animals from new open lands - chimpanzees, llamas or parrots. But until the 19th century, blacks lived mainly in the courts of rich people - illiterate commoners could not even look at them in books.
Everything changed with the era of modernity - when a significant part of Europeans not only learned to read, but also emancipated to such an extent that they demanded the same comforts as the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. This desire of the white common people coincided with the widespread opening of zoos on the continent, that is, from about the 1880s.
Then the zoos began to be filled with exotic animals from the colonies. Among them were blacks, whom the then eugenics also ranked among the representatives of the simplest fauna.
As sad as it is to realize today's European liberals and tolerists, their grandfathers and even fathers willingly made money on eugenics: for example, the last Negro disappeared from the European zoo only in 1935 in Basel and in 1936 in Turin. But the last "temporary exhibition" with the Negroes was in 1958 in Brussels at the Expo, where the Belgians presented the "Congolese village along with the inhabitants."
(Zoo in Basel, 1930, Somalis as an exposition)
The only excuse for Europeans can be that many whites really did not understand until the beginning of the twentieth century how a black man differs from a monkey. There is a known case when Bismarck came to the Berlin Zoo to look at a Negro placed in a cage with a gorilla: Bismarck really asked the caretaker of the institution to show where the person was in fact in this cage.
(German Emperor Wilhelm II examining blacks in the Hamburg Zoo, 1909)
By the beginning of the 20th century, blacks were kept in the zoos of the already mentioned Basel and Berlin, Antwerp and London, and even in Russian Warsaw these representatives of humanity were exhibited for the amusement of the public. It is known that in the London Zoo in 1902, about 800 thousand people looked at a cage with blacks. In total, no less than 15 European cities then demonstrated Negroes in captivity.
Most often, zookeepers were placed in the cells of the so-called. "ethnographic villages" - when several black families were housed in enclosures at once. They walked there in national clothes and led a traditional way of life - they dug something with primitive tools, weaved mats, cooked food on a fire. As a rule, Negroes did not live long in the conditions of European winters. For example, it is known that 27 Negroes died in captivity in the Hamburg Zoo from 1908 to 1912.
Blacks at that time were even kept in US zoos, despite the fact that whites lived there side by side with him for more than 200 years. True, pygmies were placed in captivity, which American scientists considered half-monkeys, standing at a lower stage of development than "ordinary" blacks. At the same time, such views were based on Darwinism. For example, American scientists Branford and Blum wrote then:
“Natural selection, if left unchecked, would complete the process of extinction. It was believed that if it were not for the institution of slavery, which supported and protected blacks, they would have to compete with whites in the struggle for survival. White's great adaptability in this contest was undeniable. The disappearance of blacks as a race would only be a matter of time."
Notes have been preserved about the maintenance of a pygmy named Ota Benga. For the first time, Ota, along with other pygmies, was exhibited as a "typical savage" in the anthropological wing of the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. Pygmies during their stay in America were studied by scientists who compared "barbarian races" with intellectually retarded Caucasians in tests for mental development, in response to pain, and the like. Anthropometrists and psychometrists have concluded that, on intelligence tests, pygmies can be compared to "mentally retarded people who spend an enormous amount of time on the test and make many stupid mistakes."
Many Darwinists attributed the level of development of the pygmies "directly to the Paleolithic period", and the scientist Getty found in them the "cruelty of primitive man." They did not excel in sports either. According to Branford and Bloom, "A record as disgraceful as that set by the pathetic savages has never before been recorded in the history of the sport."
Pygmy Otu was asked to spend as much time as possible in the monkey house. He was even given a bow and arrow and allowed to shoot "to attract the public." Soon Ota was locked in a cage - and when he was allowed to leave the monkey house, "the crowd was staring at him, and a watchman was standing nearby." On September 9, 1904, an advertising campaign began. A headline in the New York Times exclaimed, "Bushman Sits in Bronx Park Monkey Cage." The director, Dr. Hornedy, claimed he was simply offering a "curious exhibit" as a warning to the public:
“[He] ... clearly did not see the difference between a small black man and a wild animal; for the first time in an American zoo, a man was exhibited in a cage. They put a parrot and an orangutan named Dohong in a cage with Benga. Eyewitness accounts stated that Ota was "slightly taller than an orangutan ... their heads are similar in many ways, and they grin the same way when they are happy about something."
In fairness, it should be mentioned that not only blacks were kept in the zoos of those times, but also other primitive peoples - Polynesians and Canadian Inuit, Surinam Indians (the famous exhibition in Dutch Amsterdam in 1883), Patagonian Indians (in Dresden). And in East Prussia and in the 1920s, the Balts were kept in captivity in the ethnographic village, who were supposed to portray the "ancient Prussians" and perform their rituals in front of the audience.
Historian Kurt Jonasson explains the disappearance of human zoos not only by the spread of the ideas of equality of nations, which were spread then by the Face of Nations, but by the onset of the Great Depression of 1929, when ordinary people did not have money to attend such events. And somewhere - as in Germany with the advent of Hitler - the authorities voluntarily canceled such "shows".
French zoos with blacks:
Hamburg Zoo with blacks and other colored people:
The Human Zoo (also known as the "ethnological exposition", "exhibition of people" and "Negro village") - once a common form of entertainment for the general public in the West in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the purpose of which was to demonstrate immigrants from Asia and Africa in the very natural and sometimes primitive-savage form. Such zoos, especially in Germany, had strong racist overtones drawn from the currents of social Darwinism, when Africans were often exhibited next to monkeys to show their common origin.
(Total 24 photos)
1. Ota Benga, a pygmy from the valley, who was shown at the zoo in the Bronx in 1906. In 1916, unable to return to his native Congo, he shot himself.
2. At an exhibition in St. Louis in 1904, Oto Benga (second from left) and other Congolese pygmies.
3. Dance of the Pygmies.
4. Ota Benga shows pointed teeth.
5. At the same exhibition: Eskimo girl Nancy Columbia (1893-1959).
6. Photographs from the "Eskimo village" at the Columbian exhibition in Chicago, 1893. In the center - Nancy Columbia in infancy.
7. "Negro villages" at French exhibitions.
8. "Negro villages" at French exhibitions.
9. The "Negro villages" were especially popular in Germany, where the ideas of social Darwinism were popular. Bismarck himself visited the Negro village.
10. Beginning in the 1870s, human zoos become a symbol of the second wave of imperialism that swept the Western countries fighting for colonies in the world. Then similar zoos appeared in Antwerp, London, Barcelona, Milan, New York, Warsaw, Hamburg, each of which was visited by 200 to 300 thousand people.
11. Australian aborigines; Crystal Palace, 1884
12. Old Fijian cannibal.
13. Somali village. Luna Park, St. Petersburg.
14. Menagerie of Edmond Pezon: Zizi-Bambula.
15. Iroquois.
16. Ceylonese.
17. Often the display of people was part of the so-called "colonial exhibitions", where various economic achievements of the colonies were presented. In Germany, Karl Hagenbeck was especially famous for exhibiting tribes from Samoa and the Sami (Laplanders).
18. Tuareg.
19. A family of Labrador Eskimos in a Hamburg or Berlin zoo, 1880. They converted to Christianity and took German names. The man's name is Abraham Ulrikab; his wife, Ulrika; children Sarah and Maria; nephew Tobias; there was another family with them. Ulrikab thus decided to earn money in order to pay the debt to the missionaries. Within five months they had all died of smallpox, to which they had no immunity. Abraham Ulrikab kept a diary in the Inuktuit language, in which he described all the humiliations that his family went through.
20. Poster from the exhibition.
21. Seminole Indians at an exhibition in New York in 1939.
22. Five Indians of the Kawesqar tribe (Tierra del Fuego, Chile) were kidnapped in 1881 and shipped to Europe to be shown in the human zoo. All five died within a year.
23. Historian Kurt Jonasson explains the disappearance of human zoos not only by the spread of the ideas of equality of nations, which were spread then by the Face of Nations, but by the onset of the Great Depression of 1929, when ordinary people did not have money to attend such events.
24. Sad as it is to realize today's European liberals and tolerists, their grandfathers and even fathers willingly made money on eugenics: for example, the last Negro disappeared from the European zoo only in 1935 in Basel and in 1936 in Turin. But the last "temporary exhibition" with the Negroes was in 1958 in Brussels at the Expo, where the Belgians presented the "Congolese village along with the inhabitants."
