‘Human Zoo’ Belgium, 1905.

Exhibited in Life and Death: Western Imperialism and the Exhibition of Colonised Bodies

Zara Choudhary on living exhibitions or human zoos, that were commonplace in major cities in Europe and North America in the 19th century.

“AN AFRICAN EXHIBITION AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE,” a headline in the Times announced in 1895, predicting that the event would be “certain to prove very attractive to the public at large” and “of great practical interest for all who are concerned in the development of colonization and trade in the dark continent.”

Spectators arriving through the doors of London’s glistening Crystal Palace would be greeted not with ‘African’ artefacts, but rather Africans themselves, ‘exhibited’ alongside huts and wild animals. 53 men, 6 women and 6 children from a village in Somaliland, performed a rehearsed routine, involving a choreographed fight with spears, and wild animals as audiences eagerly watched on. The women, we are told, are “not very attractive”, while the men have “…a habit of combing their hair all their leisure time, and some of them rub into it a yellow paste made of clay and lime, while they evidently take great pride in their teeth, which they are constantly rubbing with a small bit of wood.” 

Living exhibitions human zoos
Ad for the ‘African exhibition’ in London, 1895.

Living exhibitions, or human zoos, were commonplace in the major cities of 19th century Europe and North America, taking place against a backdrop of international trade, colonialism and missionary activity. They were held in exhibition centres, theatres, parks and zoos.

Native Village, from the ‘African exhibition,’ London, 1895.

This was, by no means, a new phenomenon; the use of living ‘exotic’ peoples, i.e. not white, for exhibition, has been documented from the 15th century onwards. As advances in technology allowed European powers to embark on ‘voyages of discovery’ to the far corners of the globe, ‘natives’ were often brought home to be paraded as ‘trophies’ acquired on the expedition. Following his first voyage, Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) took with him seven Arawak Indians of the West Indies and presented them at the Spanish royal court; Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1451–1512), after whom America is named, captured more than 200 Native Americans, who were subsequently exhibited at fairs in Spain.

Human zoos
Prince Giolo,1697.

Over the following centuries, there are documented instances of these exotic people being used at fairs for entertainment, advertised as ‘freak shows’ or ‘human curiosities.’ Giolo, a heavily tattooed, enlaved man from the island of Miangas, was one such example; brought to England by explorer and naturalist William Dampier, he was exhibited in 1691 to large crowds in London, dying of smallpox just months later. 

Living exhibitions human zoos
Ad for an ‘Eskimo’ exhibition, London, 1909.

Exhibitions of Western Superiority 

Living exhibitions reached their zenith with the World Fairs of the 19th century, where the world’s powers came together to display their most innovative technologies and the riches of their colonial empires. Alongside prestigious objects, colonial natives, recruited by contract for the express purpose, were exhibited in costume with props and painted backdrops that signalled their cultural backgrounds and ‘natural settings.’ Aside from the entertainment value they provided to curious spectators, these exhibitions were, in essence, part of a global display of Western cultural and economic superiority.

Human zoos
Ad for an exhibition of Sámi in Hamburg

‘Native Villages’ as they came to be known, were recreated in major cities across Europe and North America, including Paris, Hamberg, Milan, New York and Chicago. The very first took place at the Paris World Fair of 1878, with purpose-built pavilions to house the ‘villages.’ 400 natives were put on display from the French colonies of Indochina, Senegal and Tahiti. 

Following on from their success in Paris, living exhibitions became common place at World Fairs. The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, saw displays of indigenous peoples from North America itself, Java, Samoa and Egypt; the Greater Britain Exhibition of 1899 saw 174 natives from South Africa exhibited alongside animals; Brussels World Fair featured a Senegalese Village in 1910.

Human zoos
The Senegalese Village at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris

Carl Hagenbeck, a merchant of wild animals, was one of the major proponents of this sort of exhibition. Credited with creating the model on which modern zoos are based, that places animals in environments akin to their natural settings, he applied the same principle to human zoos. He displayed Sami and Samoan people with tents, reindeers and other props, and was instrumental in bringing the African Exhibition of 1895 to London. 

Living exhibitions human zoos
 “Les Gallas au Jardin Zoologique d’Acclimatation,” postcard of the exhibition organized by Carl Hagenbeck in 1908, Paris.

These exhibitions, or human zoos, held an appeal for spectators primarily on the basis of difference, both in the appearance and customs of those on display. This is reflected in the newspaper reporting of the events; we are told of the Somaliland natives, “The dandies of the tribe devote a good deal of attention to their hair, which is not only curled, but is sometimes dyed a peculiar light shade of brown.”  

Observations were not only limited to what was immediately apparent; impressions were often based on preconceived notions that viewed indigenous peoples as savages, and in need of civilising through the colonial project. A brochure from London’s 1909 Imperial International Exhibition refers to the indigenous Dahomy (modern-day Benin) participants of one exhibition as “bloodthirsty potentates” and praised the French colonists for their intervention in “the blackest spot in West Africa” which has ensured “the days of savagery are passing away.”1

Western Imperialism and Science 

The public ‘othering’ of human beings, that lay at the heart of living exhibitions and zoos, was inextricably linked to Western imperialism and colonialism, and notions of Western or European cultural superiority. This was enabled, in part, by the pseudo-science and racial theories of the time that saw non-white people as less civilised and evolved than their white counterparts. 

Alongside their entertainment value, living exhibitions were presented as an educational endeavour, and were often curated by scientists, such as anatomist Robert Knox, whose exhibition of the “Bushmen” of Africa was held at London’s Exeter Hall in 1847. 

Exhibited in Death

This marriage between entertainment and colonialism, science and imperialism, is especially apparent in the lives of two women. 

The first, Saartje (Sarah) Baartman (c.1775-1815), was a South African Khoikhoi woman exhibited at freak shows in Britain under the name Hottentot Venus, due to her unusually enlarged buttocks. 

Baartman
“A Pair of Broad Bottoms,” a caricature by William Heath from 1810. The article “Lipreading: Remembering Saartjie Baartman” from The Australian Journal of Anthropology describes it as follows: “On the aftermath of the court case Saartjie Baartman was exhibited in Piccadilly when it was (erroneously) anticipated that the Perceval government would fall and would be replaced by a coalition government headed by Lord Grenvill [sic], which was dubbed by Horace Walpole as the ‘Broad Bottom Ministry’. Richard Sheridan, the English playwright and parliamentarian is measuring Saartjie Baartman’s buttocks. Grenville is saying, ‘Well I never expected Broad Bottoms from Africa, but one should never despair! Mind Sherry, don’t let your Fiery Nose touch the Venus for if there’s any Combustibles around here we shall be Blown Up!!!’ Sheridan answers, ‘I shall be Careful Your Lordship! But such a spanker, it beats your Lordships Hollow!!!'”

She arrived in London in 1810, at the behest of William Dunlop, a Scottish military surgeon in Cape Town, though it is unclear whether she went by choice or was coerced. She was first exhibited in the same year in the Egyptian Hall of Piccadilly Circus. Baartman’s fame came just a few years after the Slave Trade Act of 1807 was passed, and so her act did cause some controversy when questions about her liberty were raised. 

She was later exhibited in France, after having been sold to an animal trainer, and by now, she was effectively enslaved (slavery was not illegal in France at this time). As Rachel Holmes states in her biography of Baartman, “French audiences both feared and adored Saartjie for her difference. It was an idolatrous kind of love, infused with unapologetic, intensely eroticised exoticism.” 

Human zoos
A poster for the Hottentot Venus Exhibit in London to advertise the exhibit.

Baartman’s body, long objectified, was now also receiving interest from French scientists. She posed for scientific paintings, though, as in her exhibitions, refused to appear completely nude. She died in 1815 from an undetermined illness, following which, a cast was made of her body before it was dissected, and her genitalia preserved in jars. Her remains were used as ‘proof’ supporting theories of racial evolution and compared to apes. Baartman’s body cast and skeleton were displayed in museums until the 1970’s. For decades, there was calls from Khoisan communities for the return of Baartman’s remains to her native South Africa, and President Nelson Mandala made a formal request to France in 1994. She returned home in 2002, two centuries after she had left, and was finally laid to rest. 

The second woman, Truganini (c. 1812 – 8 May 1876), was one of the last full-blooded Tasmanians of her race. When Captain Cook arrived on the shores of Tasmania in 1777, within a century the native Tasmanian population would be all but wiped out. Truganini was born into a life that would soon be violently disrupted by British settlement and the Black War, that saw hundreds of Tasmanians killed or forced off their own land and into camps. Numerous historians have called the near-destruction of Tasmania’s Aboriginal population an act of genocide. 

Truganini spent most of her life under the supervision of the colonial authorities, effectively imprisoned in camps. Here natives were to be ‘christianized and europeanized,’ an endeavour that proved unsuccessful. Truganini and the remaining members of her race held onto their traditional ways, but by 1861, only 14 of them remained.

Truganini
Truganini

In 1876, Truganini was one of the two last full-blooded members of her race. Before her death, she expressed concern that her body would be given to the museum against her wishes. When she died a short while later, she was initially buried, but two years later the Royal Society of Tasmania exhumed her skeleton for scientific purposes, displaying it to the public until 1947. A century after she died, in 1976, Truganini’s remains were finally cremated and returned to local Aborigines in Tasmania who scattered her ashes. In 2002, the Royal College of Surgeons in England repatriated skin and hair samples thought to belong to Truganini, along with the remains of several other Aboriginal people. 

There are countless other examples of captured natives and colonised people whose bodies were used ‘for science.’ Giolo, the tattooed man from Miangas, had his skin preserved by Oxford’s Bodleian library, where it was hung on the wall next to a map. Julia Pastrana (1834-1860), an indigenous Mexican woman that had a condition that caused her to have facial hair, was first exhibited in life, and then in death, after her body was preserved through embalming. It was displayed around the world in museums and amusement parks for over a hundred years. Despite calls for her body to be released for burial, it lay for years in a coffin at Oslo University for scientific research. She was finally laid to rest in Mexico in 2013.

Human zoos
Julia Pastrana. Lithograph by Vinzenz Katzler, c. 1900.

Repatriation 

Museums in Europe are still thought to be in possession of the remains of thousands of individuals from former colonies. In 2016, it emerged that the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Germany still held over a thousand human skulls that originated from Rwanda and Tanzania, both former German colonies. In 2011, the Natural History Museum in London returned the bones of 138 Torres Strait Islanders, while in 2015 said it may hold Zimbabwean human remains in its collection. These are but a few examples. 

Indigenous communities around the world have been campaigning for decades for the return of ancestral remains so that they can be afforded burials in accordance with their own customs, and thankfully, progress has been made

Attitudes have changed since days of living exhibitions, the last of which was held in Belgium in 1958. Scientific racism has long been considered unacceptable, and most people would now be repulsed at the idea of exhibiting human beings on the basis of racial difference, or dissecting their remains for display without their express consent. While this may be true, notions of Western superiority have endured, as can be evidenced by the stubborn refusal of institutions such as the British Museum to heed calls for the repatriation of looted artefacts and some human remains

Although Baartman and Truganini are long gone, the mechanisms that led to their dehumanisation are still alive and well today. If institutions with colonial pasts are serious about decolonisation and repairing some of the harm caused by centuries of colonialism, racism and the exploitation of Black and brown bodies, there is still a long road ahead. 

A version of this article was first published on TRT World under the heading “The Continued Legacy of Human Zoos by Zara Choudhary.

Footnotes 

1 Quoted in Raymond Corbey, Ethnographic Showcases 1870-1930, “Cultural Anthropology” August 1993. p342. 

Sources 

Sadiah Qureshi, Peoples on Parade, University of Chicago Press; First Edition (21 Oct. 2011).

Rachel Holmes, The Hottentot Venus, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (17 Mar. 2008).

Raymond Corbey, Ethnographic Showcases 1870-1930, “Cultural Anthropology” August 1993. 

MORE LIKE THIS

Challenge Orientalism

Zeen is a next generation WordPress theme. It’s powerful, beautifully designed and comes with everything you need to engage your visitors and increase conversions.

Newsletter

SUPPORT OUR WORK
If you enjoy our content and believe in our vision, please consider supporting us financially by becoming a Patron