Oromos in Human Zoos at the Turn of the 20th Century?

by Dr. Hourisso Gemechu, Washington, DC.

In an attempt to explain to myself why there are photographs of Oromos here in the United States before 1902 or earlier, I made a discovery that there was not only a good and well documented explanation of for their presence in the United States and elsewhere, but also the primary reason for their presence was the ignorance of human beings in so-called civilized countries.

The photo below began my curiosity and I present it here for contextual reference. Also, this article is an adaptation of several articles on the subject matter of human zoos.

Human ignorance in observing differences among different societies and races has always been a burgeoning, expanding, sub-intelligent subset of other human stupidities.  Sometimes these are exhibited liberally and freely, and stupidly; other times it is difficult to see and thoughtless.   These prejudices have been spectacularly exhibited in many ways over the centuries—forced immigration, complete removals, ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, slavery, expulsion, legal intolerance, and so on.  Sometimes people were gathered together and moved far away; other times they were gathered together and removed into compounds right in the middle of cities in which they lived (as in ghettos, “hospitals” and asylum). A Genre not-too often discussed is the human zoo.

During a dark period of world history, intellectuals pondered where to draw the line between humans and animals.  They arrayed humans hierarchically, from the lightest to the darkest skin. Believing that Africans were ape-like, they weren’t sure whether to include apes as human, or Africans as apes.

One artifact of this thinking was the “human zoo.”  Kidnapped from their homes at the end of the 19th century and into the next, hundreds of indigenous people were put on display for white Westerners to view.  Human Zoos shows involved the abduction of indigenous peoples from around the world, particularly Africa.”Often they were displayed in villages built in zoos specifically for the show,”  “but they were also made to perform on stage for the amusement of a paying public.”  Many died quickly, being exposed to diseases foreign to them.

In the 1870s, exhibitions of exotic populations became popular in various countries. Human zoos could be found in Paris, Hamburg, Antwerp, Barcelona, London, Milan, New York, and Warsaw with 200,000 to 300,000 visitors attending each exhibition.

Interestingly nowadays, many people do not think of this horrible indignity of humanity when they flock to Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.  However, about 100 years ago, the same sprawling garden used to be visited by hundreds of thousands of people to not only marvel at the creation of Gustave Eiffel but also to get amused and entertained by the ‘exotic’ people from faraway lands like Asia, Africa and Oceania, who were exhibited primarily because of their different size, ethnicity, culture and color.

A young African girl in a human zoo in Belgium

Carl Hagenbeck

One of the most prominent of the human zoo operators was the Hamburg animal trader Carl Hagenbeck. He would go on expeditions in foreign countries and bring back both animals and people for European collections. The zoo in Hamburg still bears his name. In his memoirs, Carl Hagenbeck praised himself, writing, “it was my privilege to be the first in the civilized world to present these shows of different races.”   Carl Hagenbeck, decided in 1874 to exhibit Samoan and Sami people as “purely natural” populations. In 1876, he sent a collaborator to the Sudan to bring back some wild beasts and Nubians. As the photo below testifies, he also brought oromos.

These captives are from Oromo in Ethiopia

The photo below shows to Harari somalis in the Carl Hagenbeck’s “Galla” troupe.

Other examples of human zoo participants were

This group of captives is from Sri Lanka (called Ceylon at the time):

This group of captives is from India: