Ota Benga (c. 1883[1] – March 20, 1916) was a Congolese pygmy who was featured in a 1906 human zoo exhibit at New York City's Bronx Zoo. Benga came to the United States through the action of businessman and missionary Samuel Phillips Verner. Under contract from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Verner negotiated Benga's release from slave traders in 1904 following his capture by the Force Publique—which had also attacked his village, killing Benga's wife and two children.
Benga performed at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition later in 1904. After nearly two years of travel, including a return trip to Africa, Verner arranged for Benga to live at the Bronx Zoo. Benga roamed freely on the grounds and was encouraged to interact with patrons; he later came to be "exhibited" in the zoo's Monkey House as part of a display intended to promote the concepts of human evolution and scientific racism.
Public outcry eventually led to Benga's removal from the zoo, and he was released into the custody of African American clergy. He lived in a local orphanage until he was relocated in 1910 to Lynchburg, Virginia. There he was groomed for the American way of life, dressing in Western-style clothing and attending primary school. When the outbreak of World War I made a return to the Congo impossible, Benga became depressed. In 1916, he committed suicide with a stolen revolver.
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A member of the Mbuti people,[2] Ota Benga lived in equatorial forests near the Kasai River in what was then the Belgian Congo. His people lived in harmony with local villagers, maintaining amicable if cautious relations. When King Leopold II of Belgium created the Force Publique to exploit the large supply of rubber in the Congo, Benga's people were slaughtered by agents in Leopold's employ. He lost his wife and two children, surviving only because he was away on a hunting expedition at the time they were killed, but was later captured by slavers.[3]
American businessman and missionary Samuel Phillips Verner was sent to Africa in 1904 under contract from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis World Fair) to bring back an assortment of pygmies to perform in an exhibition.[4] Noted scientist W. J. McGee, in hopes of legitimizing the fledgling discipline of anthropology, intended to display "representatives of all the world's peoples, ranging from smallest pygmies to the most gigantic peoples, from the darkest blacks to the dominant whites" to show a sort of cultural evolution.[5] Verner discovered Ota Benga en route to a Batwa village he had visited previously and negotiated Benga's release for a pound of salt and a bolt of cloth.[6] The two spent several weeks together before reaching the village, where the rapidly deteriorating situation with King Leopold had instilled mistrust for the muzungu (white man). Verner was unable to persuade any villagers to join him until Benga spoke of how the muzungu had saved his life, the bond that had grown between them, and his own curiosity about the world Verner came from. Four Batwa, all male, ultimately accompanied them; five non-pygmies from the Bakuba (including the son of King Ndombe, ruler of the Bakuba) and related peoples – "Red Africans" as they were collectively labeled by contemporary anthropologists[7] – came as well.[8]
The group arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, without Verner (who had been taken ill with malaria), in late June when the Louisiana Purchase Exposition had already begun. They immediately became the center of attention; referred to variously by the press as Artiba, Autobank,[9] Ota Bang, and Otabenga, Ota Benga was particularly popular. In addition to his amicable personality, visitors were eager to see his teeth, which had been filed to sharp points in his early youth. As he and the others had learned to charge for photographs and performances, one newspaper account, promoting him as "the only genuine African cannibal in America", claimed "[his teeth were] worth the five cents he charges for showing them to visitors".[7]
When Verner arrived a month later, he realized the pygmies were more prisoners than performers. Attempts to congregate peacefully in the forest on Sundays were thwarted by the crowds' fascination with them, as were attempts to present a "serious" scientific exhibit. On a July 28, an attempt to play to the crowd's preconceived notion that they were "savages" resulted in the First Illinois Regiment being called in to control the mob. Benga and the other Africans eventually performed in a military-style fashion, imitating that of the Indians at the Exhibition.[10] The Indian chief Geronimo (himself on display as "The Human Tyger" – with special dispensation from the Department of War)[9] came to admire Benga and gave him one of Geronimo's famed arrowheads. For his efforts, Verner was awarded the gold medal in anthropology at the Exposition's close.[10]
Benga accompanied Verner when he returned the other Africans, and briefly lived amongst the Batwa while continuing to accompany Verner on his African adventures. He married a Batwa woman who later died of snakebite, although little is known of his second marriage. Benga never felt a sense of belonging with the Batwa, and he chose to remain with Verner on his return trip to the United States.[11]
Verner eventually arranged for Benga to stay in a spare room at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City while Verner tended to other business and negotiated with curator Henry Bumpus over acquisition of Verner's spoils from Africa and potential employment. While Bumpus was put off by the prohibitively high salary of $175 a month Verner had requested and unimpressed with Verner's credentials, he remained interested in Benga. Wearing a duck costume to entertain visitors, Benga initially enjoyed his time at the museum. He became homesick, however:[12]
What at first held his attention now made him want to flee. It was maddening to be inside – to be swallowed whole – so long. He had an image of himself, stuffed, behind glass, but somehow still alive, crouching over a fake campfire, feeding meat to a lifeless child. Museum silence became a source of torment, a kind of noise; he needed birdsong, breezes, trees.[13]
As a result, he began to incite mischief. He tried to slip past the guards as a large crowd was leaving the premises; when asked on one occasion to seat a wealthy donor's wife, he pretended to misunderstand, instead hurling the chair across the room, just missing the woman's head. Meanwhile, Verner was in financial despair and had made little progress in his negotiations with the museum. However, he would soon find another home for the pygmy.[12]
At the suggestion of Bumpus, Verner took Benga to the Bronx Zoo in 1904. Benga was allowed to roam the grounds freely, and he became fond of an orangutan named Dohong, "the presiding genius of the Monkey House", who had been taught to perform tricks and imitate human behavior.[14] The events leading to his "exhibition" alongside Dohong were gradual:[3] Benga spent some of his time in the Monkey House exhibit, and the zoo encouraged him to hang his hammock there, 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.[3] Soon, a sign on the exhibit read:
The African Pigmy, "Ota Benga."
Age, 23 years. Height, 4 feet 11 inches.
Weight, 103 pounds. Brought from the
Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Cen-
tral Africa, by Dr. Samuel P. Verner. Ex-
hibited each afternoon during September.[16]
Bronx Zoo director William Hornaday saw the exhibit as a valuable spectacle for his visitors, and was encouraged by Madison Grant, a prominent scientific racist and eugenicist.[17] However, the exhibit evoked the immediate protests of African American clergymen. Said James H. Gordon, "Our race, we think, is depressed enough, without exhibiting one of us with the apes ... We think we are worthy of being considered human beings, with souls."[3]
Gordon also considered the exhibition hostile to Christianity for its promotion of Darwinism: "The Darwinian theory is absolutely opposed to Christianity, and a public demonstration in its favor should not be permitted."[3] A number of clergymen backed Gordon, if not because the exhibit was dehumanizing to African Americans, then because it was held to be "promoting" Darwinism.[18] In defense of the depiction of Benga as a lesser human, an editorial in The New York Times suggested:
We do not quite understand all the emotion which others are expressing in the matter ... It is absurd to make moan over the imagined humiliation and degradation Benga is suffering. The pygmies ... are very low in the human scale, and the suggestion that Benga should be in a school instead of a cage ignores the high probability that school would be a place ... from which he could draw no advantage whatever. The idea that men are all much alike except as they have had or lacked opportunities for getting an education out of books is now far out of date.[19]
Benga was thereafter allowed to roam the grounds of the zoo as a sort of interactive exhibit. In response to his general situation and to verbal and physical prods from the crowds, his behavior became at first mischievous and then somewhat violent.[20] Around this time, an article in The New York Times stated, "It is too bad that there is not some society like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. We send our missionaries to Africa to Christianize the people, and then we bring one here to brutalize him."[16]
The zoo ultimately bowed to public pressure and had Benga removed from the zoo. For his part, Verner was unsuccessful in his continued search for employment, but he sneaked in occasionally to speak to Benga. The two had agreed that it was in Benga's best interests to remain in the United States despite the unwelcome spotlight thrust upon him by the zoo exhibit.[21] Toward the end of 1906, Benga was released into Gordon's custody.[3]
Gordon placed Benga in the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, a church-sponsored orphanage of which Gordon was the superintendent, but the unwelcome press attention continued. In January 1910, Gordon arranged for Benga's relocation to Lynchburg, Virginia.[22] His teeth were capped and he was dressed in American-style clothes in an attempt to lead as close to a normal life as possible. Tutored by Lynchburg poet Anne Spencer,[23] his English improved, and he attended elementary school at the Baptist Seminary in Lynchburg.[19]
Once he felt his English had improved sufficiently, Benga discontinued his formal education and began working at a Lynchburg tobacco factory. Despite his small size, he proved a valuable employee because he could climb up the poles to get the tobacco leaves without having to use a ladder. His fellow workers called him "Bingo" and he would tell his life story in exchange for sandwiches and root beer. He began to plan a return to Africa.[24]
When the Great War broke out, a return to the Congo became impossible, and Benga became depressed as his hopes for a return to the Congo faded.[24] On March 20, 1916, at the age of 32, he built a ceremonial fire, chipped off the caps on his teeth and shot himself in the heart with a stolen pistol. The death certificate listed his name as "Otto Bingo", a nickname he had acquired during his time in Lynchburg.[25]
He was buried in an unmarked grave, records show, in the black section of the Old City Cemetery, near his benefactor, Gregory Hayes. At some point, however, both went missing. Local oral history indicates that Hayes and Ota Benga were eventually moved from the Old Cemetery to White Rock Cemetery, a burial ground that fell into disrepair.[26]
Phillips Verner Bradford, the grandson of Samuel Phillips Verner, authored a 1992 book on Ota Benga entitled Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo. During his research for the book, he visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which holds a life mask and body cast of Ota Benga. To this day, the display is still labeled "Pygmy", rather than indicating Benga's name, despite objections that began almost a century ago from Verner himself.[27]
The similarities between Ota Benga and Ishi, the sole remaining member of a Native American tribe who was displayed in California around the same period – including the subsequent publication of a book on the subject by the descendants of the scientists involved – have been observed.[28] Adams (2001) argues that, rather than "mak[ing] racial, national, and species differences culturally intelligible" as the exhibits' creators intended, "the spectators came to question their own place within the hierarchy of human races and the narratives of progress on which that hierarchy relied". Rather than simply exposing the racism of the American public (as members of Ota and Ishi's respective races perceived them), the incidents served to humanize the cultures being displayed.[29]
Ota Benga became the subject of a short film directed by the Brazilian Alfeu França. França recovered and used original movies recorded by Verner himself in the early 20th century to create the 2002 documentary Ota Benga: A Pygmy in America.[30] In Brazil the film was shown at the festival É Tudo Verdade ("It's All True").[31] The Brooklyn-based band Pinataland have a song titled "Ota Benga's Name" on their album Songs from the Forgotten Future Volume 1, which tells the story of Ota Benga. The bridge of the song is a poem from M.E. Buhler that appeared in The New York Times.[3]
The play Ota Benga, Elegy for the Elephant was written by Dr. Ben B. Halm and staged at Fairfield University in 1997.[32] A highly fictionalized version of Ota Benga appeared as a character in the 2006 fantasy film The Fall and inspired the character of Ngunda Oti in the 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.[33]
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