Human zoo
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[[Image:Humanzoogermany.jpg|right|thumb|300px|An ad for a "Peoples Show" (''Völkerschau'') in [[Stuttgart]] (Germany), 1928]]
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'''Human zoos''' (also called "ethnological expositions" or "[[Negro]] Villages") were 19th and 20th century public exhibits of human beings, usually in a "natural" or "primitive" state. The displays often emphasized the cultural differences between Western and non-European peoples. Ethnographic zoos were often predicated on [[Unilineal evolution|unilinealism]], [[scientific racism]], and a version of [[Social Darwinism]]. A number of them placed [[Indigenous peoples|indigenous people]] (particularly Africans) in a continuum somewhere between the great apes and human beings of European descent. For this reason, ethnographic zoos have since been criticized as highly degrading and [[Racism|racist]].
== First human zoos ==
[[Image:Baartman.jpg|thumbnail|right|240px|A caricature of [[Saartjie Baartman]], called the ''Hottentot Venus''. Born to a [[Khoisan]] family, she was displayed in London in the early 19th century. ]]
One of the first modern public human exhibitions was [[P. T. Barnum|P.T. Barnum]]'s exhibition of [[Joice Heth]] on [[February 25]] [[1835]]<ref>[http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/joiceheth.html Joice Heth<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> and, subsequently, the [[Conjoined twins|Siamese twins]] [[Chang and Eng Bunker]]. However, the notion of the human curiosity has a history at least as long as colonialism. For instance, [[Christopher Columbus|Columbus]] brought indigenous Americans from his voyages in the New World to the Spanish court in 1493.<ref> [http://migs.concordia.ca/occpapers/zoo.htm "On A Neglected Aspect Of Western Racism"] by Kurt Jonassohn, December 2000, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies </ref> Another famous example was that of [[Saartjie Baartman]] of the [[Namaqua]], often referred to as the ''Hottentot Venus'', who was displayed in London until her death in 1815. During the 1850s, Maximo and Bartola, two [[microcephalic]] children from Central America, were exhibited in the US and Europe under the names "Aztec Children" and "Aztec Lilliputians" (See Aguirre, ''Informal Empire'', ch. 4). However, human zoos would become common only in the 1870s in the midst of the [[New Imperialism]] period.
== 1870s to World War II ==
Exhibitions of exotic [[population]]s became popular in various countries in the 1870s. Human zoos could be found in [[Hamburg]], [[Antwerp]], [[Barcelona]], [[London]], [[Milan]], [[New York]], and [[Warsaw]] with 200,000 to 300,000 visitors attending each exhibition. In [[Germany]], [[Carl Hagenbeck]], a merchant in wild animals and future [[entrepreneur]] of many European zoos, decided in 1874 to exhibit [[Samoans|Samoan]] and [[Sami people]] as "purely natural" populations. In 1876, he sent a collaborator to the Egyptian [[Sudan]] to bring back some wild beasts and [[Nubians]]. The Nubian exhibit was very successful in Europe and toured Paris, London, and [[Berlin]]. He also dispatched an agent to Labrador to secure a number of "Esquimaux" ([[Inuit]]) from the settlement of Hopedale; these Inuit were exhibited in his [[Hamburg Tierpark]].
[[Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire]], director of the ''[[Jardin d'acclimatation]]'', decided in 1877 to organize two ethnological spectacles that presented Nubians and [[Inuit]]. That year, the audience of the ''Jardin d'acclimatation'' doubled to one million. Between 1877 and 1912, approximately thirty ethnological exhibitions were presented at the ''Jardin zoologique d'acclimatation''.
Both the ''[[Exposition Universelle (1878)|1878]]'' and the ''[[Exposition Universelle (1889)|1889 Parisian World's Fair]]'' presented a Negro Village (''village nègre''). Visited by 28 million people, the ''1889 World's Fair'' displayed 400 [[Indigenous peoples|indigenous people]] as the major attraction. The ''1900 World's Fair'' presented the famous [[diorama]] ''living in [[Madagascar]]'', while the [[Colonial exhibition|Colonial Exhibitions]] in Marseilles (1906 and 1922) and in Paris (1907 and 1931) also displayed human beings in cages, often nude or semi-nude.<ref> [http://www.discoverparis.net/newsletter.html?insight=3162983825694464 On the 1931 Colonial Exposition in Paris] </ref> The [[Paris Colonial Exposition|1931 exhibition in Paris]] was so successful that 34 million people attended it in six months, while a smaller counter-exhibition entitled ''The Truth on the Colonies'', organized by the [[French Communist Party|Communist Party]], attracted very few visitors—in the first room, it recalled [[Albert Londres]] and [[André Gide]]'s critics of [[unfree labour|forced labour]] in the colonies. Nomadic [[Senegal|Senegalese Villages]] were also presented.
Native people of [[Suriname]] were displayed in the ''International Colonial and Export Exhibition'' in Amsterdam held behind the [[Rijksmuseum]] in 1883.
[[Image:Ota Benga at Bronx Zoo.jpg|RIGHT|thumb|250px|[[Ota Benga]], a human exhibit, in 1906.]]
{{rquote|right|The African Pigmy, "Ota Benga."''<br/>
Age, 23 years. Height, 4 feet 11 inches.<br/>
Weight, 103 pounds.<br>
Brought from the Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Central Africa, by Dr. Samuel P. Verner.<br>
Exhibited each afternoon during September.<br/>— ''a sign outside the primate house at the [[Bronx Zoo]], September 1906''.<ref name=NYTBenga>[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C04E7D81F3EE733A25753C1A96F9C946797D6CF "Man and Monkey Show Disapproved by Clergy"], ''The New York Times'', September 10, 1906.</ref>}}
In 1906, socialite and amateur [[anthropology|anthropologist]] [[Madison Grant]], head of the [[New York]] Zoological [[Society]], had [[Pygmy|Congolese pygmy]] [[Ota Benga]] put on display at the [[Bronx Zoo]] in New York City alongside [[ape]]s and other animals. At the behest of Grant, a prominent [[eugenics|eugenicist]], the zoo director [[William Temple Hornaday|William Hornaday]] placed Ota Benga displayed in a cage with the chimpanzees, then with an [[orangutan]] named Dohong, and a parrot, and labeled him ''The Missing Link'', suggesting that in [[evolution]]ary terms Africans like Ota Benga were closer to apes than were Europeans. It triggered protests from the city's clergymen, but the public reportedly flocked to see it.<ref>Bradford, Phillips Verner and Blume, Harvey. ''Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo''. St. Martins Press, 1992.</ref><ref name=NYTBenga/>
== Legacy of human zoos ==
The concept of the human zoo has not completely disappeared. A [[Belgian Congo|Congo]]lese Village was displayed at the [[Expo '58|Brussels 1958 World's Fair]].<ref> {{fr icon}} [http://www.cobelco.org/Library/zoohumain_belgique.htm Cobelco. Belgium human zoo]; {{cite news | title=Peut-on exposer des Pygmées? | publisher=[[Le Soir]] | date=July 27, 2002 | url=http://www.cobelco.org/Library/Soir_peutonexposerdespygmees.htm}} </ref> An African Village was opened in [[Augsburg]]'s zoo in [[Germany]] in July 2005.<ref> {{en icon}} {{fr icon}} {{cite news | title=Vers un nouveau zoo humain en Allemagne? (original text in English below the French translation) | publisher=[[Indymedia]] | date=December 6, 2005 | url=http://grenoble.indymedia.org/index.php?page=article&filtre=1&numpageA=3&id=1635}}; {{en icon}} {{cite news | title=England Hacks Away at the Shaken EU | publisher=[[Der Spiegel]] | date=June 6, 2005 | url=http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,359304,00.html}}; {{cite news | title=A Different View of the Human Zoo | publisher=Der Spiegel | date=June 13, 2005 | url=http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,360267,00.html}}; {{cite news | title=Zoo sparks row over 'tribesmen' props for animals, by Allan Hall | publisher=[[The Scotsman]] | date=June 8, 2005 | url=http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=627152005}}; [http://www.eth.mpg.de/events/current/pdf/1120750934-01.pdf Critical analysis of the Augsburg human zoo] ("Organizers and visitors were not racist but they participated in and reflected a process that has been called racialization: the daily and often taken-for-granted means by which humans are separated into supposedly biologically based and unequal categories", etc.) </ref> In August 2005, [[London Zoo]] also displayed human beings wearing fig leaves (though in this case, the participants volunteered).<ref> [http://www.zsl.org/london-zoo/whats-on/the-human-zoo,94,EV.html London Zoo official website];{{cite news | title=Humans strip bare for zoo exhibit | publisher=[[BBC News]] | date=August 25, 2005 | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4184466.stm}};{{cite news | title=Humans On Display At London's Zoo | publisher=CBS News | date=August 26, 2005 | url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/26/world/main798423.shtml}};{{cite news | title=The human zoo? by Debra Saunders (a bit more critical) | publisher=[[Townhall]]|date=September 1, 2005|url=http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DebraJSaunders/2005/09/01/the_human_zoo}} </ref> In 2007, [[Adelaide Zoo]] ran a Human Zoo exhibit which consisted of a group of people who, as part of a study exercise, had applied to be housed in the former ape enclosure by day, but then returned home by night. The inhabitants took part in several exercises, much to the amusement of onlookers, who were asked for donations towards a new ape enclosure. In 2007, [[Pygmy]] performers at the Festival of Pan-African Music were housed at a zoo.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6898241.stm BBC article]</ref>
== See also ==
*[[Anthropology]]
*[[Colonialism]]
*[[Freak show]]
*[[New Imperialism]]
*[[Scramble for Africa]]
*[[Zoo]]
*[[Abraham Ulrikab]]
== References ==
* Robert D. Aguirre, ''Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian Culture'', (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2005).
{{reflist}}
== Bibliography and films ==
*Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, Gilles Boëtsch, Eric Deroo, Sandrine Lemaire ''Zoos humains. De la [[Hottentot Venus|Vénus hottentote]] aux [[reality shows]]'', edition ''[[La Découverte]]'' (2002) 480 pages {{fr icon}} - French presentation of the book [http://www.cobelco.org/Agenda/livre_zoos%20humains.htm here] ISBN 2-7071-4401-0
*''The Couple in the Cage''. 1997. Dir. Coco Fusco and Paula Eredia. 30 min.
*Régis Warnier, the film ''Man to Man''. 2005.
*"From Bella Coola to Berlin". 2006. Dir. Barbara Hager. 48 minutes. Broadcaster -- Bravo! Canada (2007).
*"Indianer in Berlin: Hagenbeck's Volkerschau". 2006. Dir. Barbara Hager. Broadcaster -- Discovery Germany Geschichte Channel (2007).
== External links ==
*{{cite news | authors=Pascal Blanchard, Sandrine Lemaire and Nicolas Bancel | title=Human zoos - Racist theme parks for Europe's colonialists | publisher=[[Le Monde Diplomatique]] | date=August 2000 | url=http://mondediplo.com/2000/08/07humanzoo}} {{en icon}}; {{cite news | title= Ces zoos humains de la République coloniale | publisher=[[Le Monde Diplomatique]] | date=August 2000 | url=http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2000/08/BANCEL/14145.html}} {{fr icon}} (available to everyone)
*[http://migs.concordia.ca/occpapers/zoo.htm "On A Neglected Aspect Of Western Racism"], by Kurt Jonassohn, December 2000 (Jonassohn is known for his book with Frank Chalk, ''The history and sociology of genocide : analyses and case studies'', 1990, Yale University Press; New Haven) {{en icon}}
*[http://www.africansocieties.org/n4/eng/pieterse.htm On the construction of the African "savage" stereotype necessary to colonialism, on Africansocieties.org] {{en icon}}
*[http://www.logomancer.com/aoz/WAC%20papers/NickShepherdandDavidvanReybrouck/ShepherdandvanReybrouckpaper.htm "First thoughts on the site of the ''Groote Schuur Zoo'' by Nick Shepherd & David Van Reybrouck] {{en icon}}
*[http://www.port.ac.uk/special/france1815to2003/chapter6/interviews/filetodownload,18533,en.pdf ''The Colonial Exposition of May 1931''] by [[Michael Vann]] {{en icon}}
*May 2003 Symposium [http://pedagogie.ac-toulouse.fr/philosophie/forma/zooshumains.htm "Human Zoos or the exhibition of the creature"] {{fr icon}}
*[http://pages.unibas.ch/afrika/nocolonies/minder.paper.rtf Imperial Culture in countries without colonies : Africa and Switzerland; The Human Zoo in Switzerland: object of popular curiosity or tool of colonial propaganda?] by Patrick Minder, University of [[Neuchâtel]] {{fr icon}}
*Guido Abbattista, [http://www.cromohs.unifi.it/10_2005/abba_africexp.html Africains en exposition (Italie XIXe siècle) entre racialisme, spectacularité et humanitarisme] {{fr icon}}
*[http://www.humanzoo.com.au "Official site of the Adelaide Human Zoo"] {{en icon}}
[[Category:Colonialism]]
[[Category:Racism]]
[[Category:Anthropology]]
[[Category:Ethnography]]
[[Category:Scientific racism]]
[[Category:Human rights abuses]]
[[Category:Postcolonialism]]
[[Category:History of colonialism]]
[[Category:History by ethnic group]]
[[Category:19th century]]
[[Category:20th century]]
[[Category:21st century]]
[[de:Völkerschau]]
[[es:Zoológico humano]]
[[fr:Zoo humain]]
[[pl:Ludzkie zoo]]
[[pt:Zoo humano]]
[[ru:Человеческий зоопарк]]