"Everything Was Beautiful, And Nothing Hurt."

There are many things in the world in which we live, that shudder with injustice and evil. There are many things in the past that we are not proud of, and especially the way that people used to be treated. In times that people were treated like another piece of property or as an animal in an exhibition. The caliber example of this kind of evil is the story of "The Pygmy in the Zoo."
In 1904, the World's Fair was to be held in St. Louis and the Fair was in need of something new and interesting that would attract many people. As a result, Samuel Phillips Verner, a missionary, was hired by the fair to travel to Africa and bring some natives back to the fair. He traveled to Africa and brought back some natives of Africa, one of them being a pygmy named Ota Benga. Benga was a member of a pygmy tribe named the Batwas in the Belgian Congo. Pygmies are types of people who are abnormally short, usually the same size as a pre- teen child. Ota Benga was obtained by Verner when Verner met with a tribe who had Benga help as a captive. Verner offered the tribe a trade for Benga which consisted of sugar, salt, and other miscellaneous items. The natives were brought to the fair and then they were returned home as promised by Verner. When they arrived home, however, Benga's people had been wiped from existence while he was gone and he did'nt seem to fit in with the other tribes. He decided to return to America and to try life there.

While living in America in 1906, Ota was put in the Monkey Cage in the Bronx Zoo as an exhibition. He was placed in there with a chimpanzee and was an isntant hit. It is estimated that over 40,000 people visited the exhibit daily to see Benga. This was seen immoral and unethical in many eyes, including the African- American ministers of the country. They protested to the point that the exhibit was abandoned and Ota was sent to the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum and then was sent to Lynchburg, Virginia where he tried living with numerous families. He was to be civilized and follow the American ways but was mostly seen spending his time in the woods and seemed as though he missed his old life back in Africa. One day in March of 1916, Ota borrowed a gun from one of the host families, went to the edge of the town in a woodland area, built a bonfire, and committed suicide by shooting himself. He believed this would help him "send his soul back to Africa."

After reading this story, it was very hard for me to soak in. It made me realize how immoral people can be and it really flat out angers me. Step into someone else's shoes and think about how it would feel. People like the administrators of the Bronx Zoo make me sick and almost make me ashamed to call myself a human being. To treat a fellow human being as an exhibit and not as a fellow human is not only inhumane, but evil and disturbing. Ota was so homesick and filled with pain that it drove him to his own suicide.

Ota Benga is very much related to Tom Robinson in " To Kill a Mockingbird." Both of them were put in a very bad situation that they should have had no part in and were treated as property. They were put in front of society to be mocked and jeered at for the way they were. Most importantly, they were both so unhappy that they both took their own lives. They may have in different ways, but essentially, both ended their own lives because of their anguish and unhappiness. Ota can also be related to "Romeo and Juliet." They both were expected to live certain way in which they were told what to do and not to make any choices for themselves. Because of this confinement, they took their own lives so that they could be in better places and happy there.

Let us never forgot the story of Ota Benga and how he was treated.

" If we do not learn from our mistakes, then we are bound to repeat them."- Anonymous