Ota Benga (c1883 – 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.

 Reader discretion is advised

Ota Benga (c1883 – 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 native African slave traders by the explorer Samuel Phillips Verner, 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. Benga was placed in a cage with an orangutan as a lampoon on Darwinism.

 To enhance the primitive image and presumably protect himself if need be from the ape, he was given a functional bow and arrow. He used this instead to shoot at visitors who mocked him and partially as a result of this the exhibition was ended. 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, the 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 H. 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 developed depression and died by suicide in 1916.

𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞

As a member of the Mbuti people, 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 oppress the local people and communities, most of whom were used as forced labourers in the extraction and exploitation of Congo's massive supply of rubber. Benga's wife and two children were slaughtered; he survived because he was on a hunting expedition when the Force Publique attacked his village. He was later captured by slave traders from the enemy "Baschelel" (Bashilele) tribe.

In 1904, American businessman and explorer Samuel Phillips Verner travelled to Africa, under contract from the St. Louis World Fair, to bring back an assortment of pygmies to be part of an exhibition. Verner came across Benga while en route to a Batwa pygmy village visited previously. He purchased Benga from the Bashilele slave traders, giving them a pound of salt and a bolt of cloth in exchange. Verner later claimed he had rescued Benga from cannibals.

The two spent several weeks together before reaching Batwa village. The villagers did not trust the muzungu ("white man"). 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.

𝐒𝐭. 𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐫

The group was taken to St. Louis, Missouri, in late June 1904 without Verner, as he had been taken ill with malaria. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition had already begun, and the Africans immediately became the centre of attention. Benga was particularly popular, and his name was reported variously by the press as Artiba, Autobank, Ota Bang, and Otabenga. He had an amiable personality, and visitors were eager to see his teeth that had been filed to sharp points in his early youth as ritual decoration. The Africans learned to charge for photographs and performances. One newspaper account promoted Benga as "the only genuine African cannibal in America", and claimed that "[his teeth were] worth the five cents he charges for showing them to visitors".

When Verner arrived a month later, he realized the pygmies were more prisoners than performers. Their attempts to congregate peacefully in the forest on Sundays were thwarted by the crowds' fascination with them. McGee's attempts to present a "serious" scientific exhibit were also overturned. On July 28, 1904, the Africans performed to the crowd's preconceived notion that they were "savages", resulting in the First Illinois Regiment being called in to control the mob. Benga and the other Africans eventually performed in a warlike fashion, imitating Native Americans they saw at the Exhibition. The Apache leader Geronimo (featured as "The Human Tyger" – with special dispensation from the Department of War) grew to admire Benga and gave him one of his arrowheads.

𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐮𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲

Benga accompanied Verner when he returned the other Africans to the Congo. He briefly lived amongst the Batwa while continuing to accompany Verner on his African adventures. He married a Batwa woman who later died of snakebite, but little is known of this second marriage. Not feeling that he belonged with the Batwa, Benga chose to return with Verner to the United States.

Verner eventually arranged for Benga to stay in a spare room at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City while he was tending to other business. Verner negotiated with the curator Henry Bumpus over the presentation of his acquisitions from Africa and potential employment. While Bumpus was put off by Verner's request for what he thought was the prohibitively high salary of $175 a month and was not impressed by the man's credentials, he was interested in Benga. Benga initially enjoyed his time at the museum, where he was given a Southern-style linen suit to wear when he was entertained. He became homesick for his own culture.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞

What at first held his attention now made him want to flee. It was maddening to be inside – to be swallowed whole – for 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, and trees.

The disaffected Benga attempted to find relief by exploiting his employers' presentation of him as a 'savage'. 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 struggling financially and had made little progress in his negotiations with the museum. He soon found another home for Benga.

𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐱 𝐙𝐨𝐨

At the suggestion of Bumpus, Verner took Benga to the Bronx Zoo in 1906. William Hornaday, director of the zoo, initially enlisted Benga to help maintain the animal habitats. However, Hornaday saw that people took more notice of Benga than the animals at the zoo, and he eventually created an exhibition to feature Benga. At the zoo, the Mbuti man was allowed to roam the grounds, but there is no record that he was ever paid for his work. 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 behaviour.

The events leading to his "exhibition" alongside Dohong were gradual 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.

𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞

Gordon placed Benga in the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, a church-sponsored orphanage in Brooklyn that Gordon supervised. As the unwelcome press attention continued, in January 1910, Gordon arranged for Benga's relocation to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he lived with the family of Gregory W. Hayes.

So that he could more easily be part of local society, Gordon arranged for Benga's teeth to be capped and bought him American-style clothes. He received tutoring from Lynchburg poet Anne Spencer[31] in order to improve his English, and began to attend elementary school at the Baptist Seminary in Lynchburg.

Once he felt his English had improved sufficiently, Benga discontinued his formal education. He began working at a Lynchburg tobacco factory and began to plan a return to Africa.

𝐃£𝐚𝐭𝐡

In 1914, when World War I broke out, a return to the Congo became impossible as passenger ship traffic ended. Benga became depressed as his hopes for a return to his homeland faded. On March 20, 1916, at the age of 32 or 33, he built a ceremonial fire, chipped off the caps on his teeth, and shot himself in the heart with a borrowed pistol.

Benga was buried in an unmarked grave in the black section of the Old City Cemetery, near his benefactor, Gregory Hayes. At some point, the remains of both men went missing. Local oral history indicates that Hayes and Benga were eventually moved from the Old Cemetery to White Rock Hill Cemetery, a burial ground that later fell into disrepair. Benga received a historic marker in Lynchburg in 2017.

(𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞: 𝐎𝐭𝐚 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐱 𝐙𝐨𝐨 𝐢𝐧 𝟏𝟗𝟎𝟔. 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚'𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞, 𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞"; 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝)

(𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞: 𝐎𝐭𝐚 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐝 & 𝐖𝐢𝐤𝐢)