Egan: Most historians who study these exhibitions agree they were a way of
reinforcing or illustrating the racist notions of white supremacy that seemed
to be built into the logic of empire and colonialism. Most nations took great
care to try and mold the people they put on display into images that justified
their own colonial power. In some cases this meant trying to create “savages.”
In other cases, they tried to use these displays of human beings to illustrate
how the colonial presence was “civilizing” people. These exhibits also played
into other forms of popular entertainment. They were a mix of imperial ambition
and circus.
You studied a group of indigenous Aymara Bolivians who
were brought to New York destined for the Chicago fair, but got stranded in New
York. What happened?
These men were brought to the U.S. to be displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair
in 1893, but they never made it to Chicago. They attempted to make a living
putting on their own musical shows in New York and Philadelphia, but everywhere
they went they were basically told that they weren’t exotic enough. After an
unsuccessful tour with a circus through Philadelphia, the group was abandoned
by their managers and José Santos Mamani, the member of the group dubbed the
“giant” by the press, died shortly after they walked back to New York City. The
rest of the group eventually found work in fairs and on Coney Island, but could
only find work making feather headdresses and performing supposed North
American Native American dances for a New York audience. They struggled to make
it back to Bolivia, and I’ve only been able to trace them as far as Panama on
their return journey.
How was what Mamani and his companions went through
similar to the experience of other “imported” indigenous people who came to the
United States?
Their story definitely sounds exceptional, but what’s really shocking about the
history of these “human zoos” is that it isn’t. One study I read estimated that
more than 25,000 indigenous people were brought to fairs around the world
between 1880 and 1930. These people struggled under harsh and changing
conditions. Many of them had to change their hair, their clothes, their entire
appearance to fit the expectations of the organizers and the audiences they
were supposed to perform for. Some people were the targets of racist violence
while they were on display, while others experienced more subtle forms of
violence and were used as subjects of scientific study on racial differences
during the exhibition. And, like Mamani, many people died during these
exhibitions.
American Indians from the United States were often
exhibited alongside indigenous people from other continents. Was the logic
behind exhibiting Indigenous Peoples from the United States similar to
the logic behind exhibiting Indigenous Peoples from other countries?
The U.S. government resisted allowing official exhibits of North American
Indigenous Peoples until after Wounded Knee in 1890, and viewed shows like
Buffalo Bill’s [Wild West Show] as either a semi-threatening glorification of
Native Americans or a crass, unscientific form of entertainment. The U.S.
preferred exhibits that showed Native Americans as passive peoples. For example,
in Chicago, the organizers worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to craft
exhibits that would supposedly show how beneficial and “civilizing” reservation
life and boarding schools were for Native Americans. After occupying the
Philippines in 1898, the U.S. created exhibits of Filipinos that included a
“civilizing” school that the people on display had to attend. Shows of people
from regions the U.S. had not colonized, such as African peoples at the Chicago
fair, played up rumors of cannibalism and their threatening nature. The logic
behind these exhibits in different countries was directly tied to their
imperial and colonial ambitions, and they tried to craft shows that would show
people who had been, or would be able to be, colonized, and sell lots of
tickets.
Didn’t some Native American leaders fight against
exhibits of indigenous people during the 1800s?
One of the most incredible things I found in the archives while researching
this work was a series of petitions and letters written from reservations in
the U.S. challenging the exhibition of Indigenous Peoples and cultures at the
fair. This is a section from a petition from the Creek Territories in 1891 that
was signed by more than 100 people expressing the group’s wish to represent
themselves through a Native American–directed exhibit at the fair:
“We are almost despairing and it is inevitable that our
people trace the cause of that despairing and consequently desperate condition
to the very event which with such large expenditures of wealth you are about to
celebrate. It is not fitting nor wise that you so celebrate a great event
without considering what it meant and still means to a people once great in numbers.…
With a Native American or Indian exhibit in the hands of capable men of our own
blood, such as are willing and anxious to undertake it, a most interesting and
instructive and surely successful feature will be added.”
Another leader, Simon Pokagon, published his Red Man’s
Rebuke during the Chicago fair and distributed it to the press and the
public-at-large outside of the fairgrounds in Chicago. At every turn, Native
American and African American leaders took aim at the racist ideology of the
fair, fought these portrayals and argued for the right to self-representation.
Traveling to a different country and sharing time and space
with a diverse group of people really changed some of the people who were on
exhibit. What did you learn about their experiences?
In the security records of the fair in Chicago I found all
these frustrated notes from security guards who were trying to prevent the
people from different exhibits from socializing with one another. Apparently
people from the different exhibits were hanging out and drinking beer with one
another after the fair shut down. In another study, one where historians were
actually able to interview indigenous women who had been part of the St. Louis
World’s Fair in 1904, those women spoke about the relationships they developed
with other exhibited women and how they overcame language barriers to share
their experiences. I think these stories captivated me because they show the
importance of looking at the people who were brought to be exhibited as
complete human beings and asking: What did they think about what they saw and
experienced? What did they feel about the other people they met? It’s easier to
think about these ‘human zoos’ as spaces you look into. Thinking about these
men and women socializing and struggling makes me wonder what they thought of
these spaces and events as they looked out.
When did “importing” indigenous people to put on display
begin to end, and why?
Because the rationale behind these exhibits was so closely tied to the logics
of empire, or the exhibition of empire, many of these exhibits began to
disappear when the European empires began to decline, but they also began to
change form before then. In a historical study of these events, titled Human Zoos,
several historians propose that these exhibitions began to emphasize showing
cultural differences instead of racial ones by the 1920s. However, some forms
of these exhibits continued well into the 20th century, and certainly, using
the logic of cultural difference to justify political, economic and military
domination has not disappeared.
