The young black man who arrived at the Bronx Zoo in the summer of 1906 cut a striking figure. Dressed in a white suit, he was carrying a wooden bow, a quiver of arrows, and a chimpanzee. He stood 4’ 11” tall and weighed 103 pounds, and when he smiled, he revealed a set of pointy whittled teeth, like a piranha’s.
At 23, Ota Benga had already lived an equally unusual life to go with his appearance.
A member of the Mbuti pygmy tribe, he had hunted elephants, survived a massacre by the Belgian colonial army, and been enslaved and freed. After being escorted to the United States in 1904 by explorer and missionary Samuel Phillips Verner, Benga had more memorable experiences. He danced at Mardi Gras, met Geronimo, and along with other members of his pygmy tribe, was displayed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair in an anthropological exhibit called “The Permanent Wildmen of the World.” Though he was often referred to as “boy,” Benga had been widowed twice – his first wife was kidnapped by a hostile tribe; his second died from a poisonous snake bite.
By the time Verner brought Benga to New York, the explorer was flat broke. He contacted the director of the Bronx Zoo, William Temple Hornaday, who agreed to temporarily loan Benga an apartment on the grounds. Whether Hornaday had ulterior motives from the start is not clear. An eccentric man who believed he could read the thoughts of his animals, he had many good qualities. Namely, he was one of the first to encourage the display of animals in natural settings rather than small cages. But Hornaday also believed that pygmies were a sub-race, closer to animals than humans. And before long, he was displaying Ota Benga at his zoo in what he called an “intriguing exhibit.”
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