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The Black Boy Who Was Showcased in a Zoo Cage
Showcased by humans as if he were an animal
Society kinda stopped to surprise me of how deranged some people are, however, there are certain things that still amaze me to this day such as the story of Ota Benga who was treated by the white people of America as an animal. How could you put a person, let alone a small child in a cage whilst having thousands of people coming from different places to look at the way he lives? He was humans just like all of us, most probably even more human than most of us.
Far from Home
Ota Benga was born in a tribe from Congo known as the Mbuti. A tribe which at the time was quite isolated from the rest of the world and living a happy life for the same fact. However, at the end of the 19th century, King Leopold II of Belgium decided that he wanted to set up a Belgian colony in Congo, around the area where the Mbuti tribe was located. It is said that the Belgians who colonized Congo mass murdered many African natives during the process.
One of the people enslaved was young Ota, who was chosen to work in America. In 1904, Ota Benga was displayed at the St. Louis World’s Fair where he was bought by an America “businessman” by the name of Samuel Phillips Verner. Samuel was actually an American slave trader who enslaved native…
