ST. LOUIS BLACK HISTORY- OTA BENGA

 For the most part, I don't know too many people form my city that has heard the story of Ota Benga. A sad life that ended in tragedy to say the least. Read up on his story below. Know your history.

 -taken from wikipedia

Ota Benga (circa 1883 – March 20, 1916) was a Congolese Mbuti pygmy known for being featured with other Africans in an anthropology exhibit at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904, and later in a controversial human zoo exhibit at New York City's Bronx Zoo in 1906. Benga had been freed from slave traders in the Congo by the missionary Samuel Phillips Verner, who had taken him to Missouri. At the Bronx Zoo, Benga had free run of the grounds before and after he was "exhibited" in the zoo's Monkey House. The display was intended to promote the contemporary concepts of human evolution and scientific racism.

African-American newspapers around the nation carried editorials strongly opposing Benga's treatment. Dr. R.S. MacArthur, the spokesperson for a delegation of black churches, petitioned the New York City mayor for his release. The mayor released Benga to the custody of Reverend James M. Gordon, who supervised the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn and made him a ward. That same year Gordon arranged for Benga to be cared for in Virginia, where he paid for him to acquire American clothes and to have his teeth capped, so the young man could be part of society. Benga was tutored in English and began to work. When, several years later, the outbreak of World War I stopped passenger travel on the oceans and prevented his returning to Africa, he became depressed. He committed suicide in 1916 at the age of 32.
A member of the Mbuti people, Ota Benga lived in equatorial forests near the Kasai River in what was then the Belgian Congo. His people were killed by the Force Publique, established by King Leopold II of Belgium as a militia to control the natives and to exploit the large supply of rubber in the Congo. Benga lost his wife and two children, surviving only because he was away on a hunting expedition when the Force Publique attacked his village. He was later captured by slavers.

The American businessman and missionary Samuel Phillips Verner was sent to Africa in 1904 under contract from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis World Fair) to bring back an assortment of pygmies to be part of an exhibition. To demonstrate the fledgling discipline of anthropology, the noted scientist W. J. McGee, intended to display "representatives of all the world's peoples, ranging from smallest pygmies to the most gigantic peoples, from the darkest blacks to the dominant whites" to show a sort of cultural evolution. Verner discovered Ota Benga while en route to a Batwa village visited previously; he negotiated Benga's release for a pound of salt and a bolt of cloth.The two spent several weeks together before reaching the village, where the abuses of King Leopold's forces had instilled mistrust for the muzungu (white man). Verner was unable to persuade any villagers to join him until Benga spoke of how the muzungu had saved his life, the bond that had grown between them, and his own curiosity about the world Verner came from. Four Batwa, all male, ultimately accompanied them; five non-pygmies from the Bakuba (including the son of King Ndombe, ruler of the Bakuba) and related peoples "Red Africans" as they were collectively labeled by contemporary anthropologists came as well.

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