No one in the world has the right to cage any living being. We humans, as well as all animals, have the right to live in freedom.
Given this reason, it is a well known fact that the zoos in many parts of the world are being criticised in various quarters. In this backdrop, how uncivilised and disgusting would it be if anyone was making money by displaying people? However, there were people who exhibited humans at human zoos and charged visitors centuries ago.
One of the first human exhibitions in the world was held in August 1835 in New York City, USA where a woman named Joice Heth was displayed by a person named P.T. Barnum.
Heth
He told visitors that Heth was a woman enslaved under Augustine Washington, the father of George Washington, the first President of the United States.
Barnum also told visitors that George Washington, during his childhood, was raised by Heth. None of what he said about Heth was true.
However, people who thought Barnum was telling the truth kept coming to see the woman who was said to have raised the first President of the United States. At the same time, as more and more people became interested in holding human exhibitions, large-scale exhibitions began to be organised.
By the end of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the world began to recognise different ethnic groups that had never been known before.
Ethnic groups
Many people wanted to see what such people were like because those who met and spoke to them came back and told their friends different stories. As a result, thousands of people from different ethnic groups living in Africa, Asia, and the American continents began to be brought to Europe and the United States.
People from different ethnic groups were brought in individually and in groups to be exhibited, and they had to spend time in cages like animals.
The organisers of the exhibitions set up habitats similar to such groups’ natural habitats around the enclosed areas with the aim of giving visitors a real-like experience.
As millions of people came to the human zoos each year, the people who run them became very wealthy in a very short period of time. At the time, human zoos were common in Paris, Hamburg, Chicago, Barcelona and London.
Torture
The helpless people detained in them were unfortunately subjected to various forms of physical and mental torture. They were subjected to various harassments by the owners of the zoos as well as the visitors.
Most of the children who were caged, were given a variety of food and beverages by the visitors who roamed the cages. The adults who were caged in such zoos are said to have been subjected to various forms of insults by the visitors.
Indigenous people exhibited in this way were required to wear casual clothing (often with large body exposures) even in severe winters in European countries and the United States. As a result, many people, especially those brought from African and Asian countries, died of various diseases.
Their bodies are said to have been buried in the same gardens. The families of the detainees in these zoos were disrupted and for such reasons they were in a state of severe depression. Some people have committed suicide even after their release due to the stress of being in cages. One such incident was reported in New York City in the early 19th century.
Congolese
Ota Benga was a Congolese national who was exhibited in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo in New York in a cage containing monkeys. In September 1906, the New York Times reported about Benga, and African people, as a result, were outraged.
He is said to have received close to 4,000 visitors a day. He was released a few days after the New York Times report but unfortunately, he was unable to adapt to living in the United States and committed suicide six years after his release.
With the emergence of various organisations and a greater focus on human rights, human zoos had to be closed. The world’s last human zoo was in Belgium in 1958.
