Posted: March 3rd, 2022

268 CHAPTER 9 Race and Ethnicity

268 CHAPTER 9 Race and Ethnicity

Down-to-Earth Sociology

The Man in the Zoo

The Bronx Zoo in New York City used to keep a 22-yearold pygmy in the Monkey House. The man—and the orangutan he lived with—became the most popular exhibit at the zoo. Thousands of visitors would arrive daily and head straight for the Monkey House. Eyewitnesses to what they thought was a lower form of human in the long chain

of evolution, the visitors were fascinated by the pygmy, especially by his sharpened teeth.

To make the exhibit even more alluring, the zoo director had animal bones scattered in front of the man.

I know it sounds as though I must have made this up, but this is a true story. The World’s Fair was going to

be held in St. Louis in 1904, and the Department of Anthropology wanted to show villages from different cultures. They asked Samuel Verner, an explorer, if he could bring some pygmies to St. Louis to serve as live exhibits. Verner agreed, and on his next trip to Africa, in the Belgian Congo, he came across Ota Benga (or Otabenga), a pygmy who had been enslaved by another tribe. Benga, then about age 20, said he was willing to go to St. Louis. After Verner bought Benga’s freedom for some cloth and salt, Benga recruited another half dozen pygmies to go Benga couldn’t think very deeply, or else living with monkeys might bother him.

When the Colored Baptist Ministers’ Conference protested that exhibiting Benga was degrading, zoo officials replied that they were “taking excellent care of the little fellow.” They added that “he has one of the best rooms at the primate house.” (I wonder what animal had the best room.)

Not surprisingly, this reply didn’t satisfy the ministers. When they continued to protest, zoo officials decided to let Benga out of his cage. They put a white shirt on him and let him walk around the zoo. At night, Benga slept in the monkey house.

Benga’s life became even more miserable. Zoo visitors would follow him, howling, jeering, laughing, and poking at him. One day, Benga found a knife in the feeding room Of the Monkey House and flourished it at the visitors. Unhappy zoo officials took the knife

Benga then made a little bow and some arrows and began shooting at the obnoxious visitors. This ended the fun for the zoo officials. They decided that Benga had to

I eave.

with them.

After the Verner took the Ota Benga, 1906, on exhibit in American children, Benga ended up

After living in several orphanages for African

World’s Fair, the Bronx Zoo. pygmies back to Africa. When Benga found out that a hostile tribe had wiped out his village and killed his family, he asked Verner if he could return with him to the United States. Verner agreed.

When they returned to New York, Verner ran into financial trouble and wrote some bad checks. No longer able to care for Benga, Verner left him with friends at the American Museum of Natural History. After a few weeks, they grew tired of Benga’s antics and turned him over to the Bronx Zoo. The zoo officials put Benga on display in the Monkey House, with this sign:

The African Pygmy, ‘Ota Benga.’ Age 23 years. Height 4 feet I I inches. Weight 103 pounds. Brought from the Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Central Africa by Dr. Samuel P. Verner. Exhibited each afternoon during September.

Exhibited with an orangutan, Benga became a sensation.

An article in The New York Times said it was fortunate that working as a laborer in a tobacco factory in Lynchburg, Virginia,

Always treated as a freak, Benga was desperately lonely. In 1916, at about the age of 32, in despair that he had no home or family to return to in Africa, Benga ended his misery by shooting himself in the heart.

Source: Based on Bradford and Blume 1992; Crossen 2006; Richman 2006

For Your Consideration
See what different views emerge as you apply the three theoretical perspectives (functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and conflict theory) to exhibiting Benga at the Bronx Zoo.

2. How does the concept of ethnocentrism apply to this event?

3. Explain how the concepts of prejudice and discrimination apply to what happened to Benga.

the Native Americans “savages,” making them seem inferior, somehow less than hu Killing them, then, didn’t seem the same as killing whites in order to take their pro

It is true that most Native Americans died not from bullets but from the diseases t whites brought with them. Measles, smallpox, and the flu came from another contin and the Native Americans had no immunity against them (Dobyns 1983). But disease wasn’t enough. To accomplish the takeover of the Native Americans’ resources, the settlers and soldiers destroyed their food supply (crops and buffalo). From all causes,

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268 CHAPITRE 9 RACISM AND ETHNICITY

Sociology for Everyday People

The Zookeeper’s Man

The Monkey House at New York City’s Bronx Zoo formerly housed a 22-year-old pygmy. The man and the orangutan he lived with became the zoo’s most popular exhibit. Thousands of visitors would arrive every day and make their way straight to the Monkey House. Eyewitnesses to what they believed to be a lower version of human in the long chain

of evolution, the visitors were fascinated by the pygmy, especially by his sharpened teeth.

To make the exhibit even more alluring, the zoo director had animal bones scattered in front of the man.

I know it sounds as though I must have made this up, but this is a true story. The World’s

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