"Seen But Not Heard: The Forgotten Victims of Human Exhibitions"
A human zoo was a type of public exhibition in which people, usually from colonized, Indigenous, or non-Western societies, were displayed in a manner similar to animals in a zoo. These exhibitions were popular in Europe, the United States, and other parts of the Western world during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Organizers often claimed that these displays were educational or scientific, but in reality they promoted racist stereotypes, justified colonialism, and stripped people of their dignity.
The following are the stories of some individuals and groups who were subjected to these exhibitions.
1. Saartjie Baartman (c. 1789–1815)
Saartjie Baartman was a Khoikhoi woman from South Africa who became widely known as the "Hottentot Venus," a name that is now considered offensive.
She was born in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. After the deaths of her fiancé and child, she moved to Cape Town, where she worked as a servant.
In 1810, she traveled to London with the encouragement of a British military doctor, William Dunlop, and others who promised her wealth and fame. Instead, she was exhibited as a public curiosity because of her physical features, especially her large buttocks, a characteristic associated with steatopygia.
She was paraded before crowds, often wearing revealing clothing, while spectators stared at and sometimes touched her body. In Paris, she came under the control of an animal trainer, S. Réaux, who continued to exploit her in degrading public exhibitions.
Baartman died in 1815 at the age of about 26, likely from illness, possibly including pneumonia, smallpox, or complications related to other diseases.
After her death, French anatomist Georges Cuvier dissected her body. Her skeleton, preserved brain and genitals, and a plaster cast of her body were displayed at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris until 1974.
Following years of campaigning by South Africans, including appeals by President Nelson Mandela, France returned her remains to South Africa in 2002. She was given a dignified burial in the Eastern Cape.
2. Ota Benga (c. 1883–1916)
Ota Benga was a Mbuti man from the Congo who became one of the most well-known victims of human exhibitions in the United States.
He belonged to the Mbuti people, an Indigenous community of the Congo rainforest.
In 1904, American explorer Samuel Phillips Verner brought Ota Benga to the United States, where he was first displayed at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair as part of an anthropological exhibit alongside other people from different cultures.
In 1906, he was placed on display at the Bronx Zoo in New York, where he was exhibited in the Monkey House alongside an orangutan. Zoo officials falsely presented him as evidence of an evolutionary link between apes and humans.
The exhibition sparked protests, especially from African American ministers and community leaders, who condemned the display as racist and inhumane.
After his release, Ota Benga lived with several families and institutions. He learned English, attended school, and even had his filed teeth capped to better fit into American society.
Despite these efforts, he struggled with trauma, loneliness, and discrimination. Unable to return to Africa because of World War I, Ota Benga died by suicide in 1916.
3. Ishi (c. 1861–1916)
Ishi was the last known member of the Yahi people of northern California. He was often described as the "last wild Indian" in North America, although that term is now considered outdated.
His real name remains unknown because, according to Yahi tradition, a person does not speak their own name. The name "Ishi" simply means "man" in the Yana language.
The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848 triggered the California Gold Rush, bringing thousands of settlers into Yahi territory. The newcomers seized Indigenous lands, carried out massacres, and destroyed traditional ways of life.
By the early 20th century, the Yahi people were believed to have disappeared.
In August 1911, Ishi emerged near Oroville, California, starving and alone. He was taken into custody before attracting the attention of anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and Thomas Waterman from the University of California, Berkeley.
Ishi lived at the Museum of Anthropology in San Francisco, where he taught researchers about Yahi language, customs, hunting techniques, tool-making, and traditional crafts. He also gave public demonstrations of flint-knapping and bow-making.
Although he was treated with greater respect than many people displayed in human exhibitions, he was nevertheless studied as a scientific subject and frequently observed by the public.
Ishi died of tuberculosis on March 25, 1916. During the autopsy, his brain was removed and later sent to the Smithsonian Institution despite Kroeber's objections.
In 2000, following requests from Native American communities, Ishi's remains were returned to California and buried according to Indigenous traditions.
4. Filipino Indigenous Groups at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair
After the United States took control of the Philippines following the Spanish-American War, more than one thousand Filipinos from different ethnic groups were brought to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
Many Indigenous groups, including the Igorot, were exhibited in reconstructed "native villages."
Visitors watched them perform traditional dances, ceremonies, and daily activities. Organizers also emphasized the Igorots' custom of eating dog meat, sometimes encouraging or arranging demonstrations to portray them as "primitive" and to justify American colonial rule in the Philippines.
5. Aboriginal Australians Exhibited in Europe
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, several Aboriginal Australians were taken to Europe and displayed at exhibitions, world's fairs, and so-called ethnographic shows.
They appeared in reconstructed "native villages" in countries including Germany and France, where they were expected to perform dances, hunting demonstrations, and other cultural practices for paying audiences.
These exhibitions treated Aboriginal people as objects of curiosity rather than as human beings with equal rights and dignity.
Human zoos were not simply forms of entertainment. They reflected the racism, colonialism, and pseudoscientific beliefs of their time.
Millions of visitors viewed these exhibitions, which helped reinforce false ideas about the superiority of some races over others and were used to justify discrimination, conquest, and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples.
Today, these stories serve as powerful reminders of the importance of respecting the dignity, equality, and humanity of every culture and every person.
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