Ota Benga

2011-03-29T23:57:38Z

EvolutionHatred:

'''Ota Benga''' was a [[Pygmy]] man who was dehumanized by [[Darwinian]] [[racism]] and was placed on display alongside an [[orangutan]] at the Bronx Zoo in 1906. This incident reveals the racism and the horrors of the [[theory of evolution]] propagated by [[Charles Darwin]], and is a noted precursor to the evolutionist [[Nazis]] and the [[Holocaust]].<ref name=CREATIONRESEARCH>{{cite web|url=http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/30/otabenga.html|title=Ota Benga: The Story of the Pygmy on Display in a Zoo|author=Jerry Bergman|format=HTML|accessdate=2008-07-07|publisher=Creationresearch.org}}</ref>

Ota Benga lived in the Kasai region<ref name="TE">{{cite book
|author= Fatimah Tobing Rony
|title= The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle
|publisher= Duke University Press
|location=
|year= 1996
|pages= p157
|isbn= 0822318407
|oclc=
|doi=
}}</ref> in [[Congo]], but lost his family in a mishap. A businessman named Samuel Phillips Verner, who was influenced by the theories of Charles Darwin,<ref name=CREATIONRESEARCH/> went to [[Africa]] in 1904 to bring pygmies for exhibition where he found Ota. In 1904, Ota along with several other pygmies were shipped across the Atlantic and were displayed<ref name="CAHC">{{cite book
|author= Haviland et. al.
|title= Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge
|publisher= Thomson Wadsworth
|location=
|year= 2005
|pages= p81
|isbn= 0534624871
|oclc=
|doi=
}}</ref> by [[Theory of evolution|evolutionist]] scientists<ref name="ED87">{{cite book
|author= Harun Yahya
|title= The Evolution Deceit
|publisher= Global Yayincilik
|location=
|year=
|pages= p87
|isbn= 9758718819
|oclc=
|doi=
}}</ref> at a World's Fair in Saint Louis, Missouri.<ref name="CAHC"/> Evolutionist scientists described him as "the closest transitional link to man".<ref name="ED87"/> The fair was successful for its organizers and the pygmies were shipped back to Africa where Verner collected many artifacts with the help of Ota. He returned to the [[United States]] in the summer of 1906 along with Ota Benga. Ota was handed over to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and was later transported to the Bronx Zoo.<ref name="CAHC"/> The evolutionist<ref name="ED88">{{cite book
|author= Harun Yahya
|title= The Evolution Deceit
|publisher= Global Yayincilik
|location=
|year=
|pages= p88
|isbn= 9758718819
|oclc=
|doi=
}}</ref> director of the zoo Dr William Temple Hornaday<ref name="AS">{{cite book
|author= Bernth Lindfors
|title= Africans on Stage
|publisher= Indiana University Press
|location=
|year= 1999
|pages= p192
|isbn= 0253212456
|oclc=
|doi=
}}</ref> displayed Ota in a cage at the Monkey House<ref name="SN">{{cite book
|author= Lee D. Baker
|title= From Savage to Negro
|publisher= University of California Press
|location=
|year= 1998
|pages= p72
|isbn= 0520211685
|oclc=
|doi=
}}</ref><ref name="TE"/> with an orangutan<ref name="SN"/> named Dohung under the denomination of "ancient ancestors of man".<ref name="ED88"/> A sign was placed in the front of the cage which stated Ota's name, height, weight etc. as in the case of animals in a zoo.<ref name="AS"/>

Black clergies protested against this display and ultimately the exhibition was closed. On September 27, 1906, Ota was transferred to the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, a church-sponsored orphanage.<ref name="ITC44">{{cite book
|author= Karl Kroeber, Clifton B. Kroeber
|title= Ishi in Three Centuries
|publisher= U of Nebraska Press
|location=
|year= 2003
|pages= p44
|isbn= 0803227574
|oclc=
|doi=
}}</ref> Clergyman James H. Gordon condemned this exhibition, which was aimed for promoting [[Darwinism]], and called the dehumanization of Ota Benga hostile to [[Christianity]].<ref name=NYT>{{cite web|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/nyregion/thecity/06zoo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all|title=The Scandal at the Zoo|author=Mitch Keller|date=2006-08-06|format=HTML|accessdate=2008-07-07|publisher=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> On March 20, 1916, Ota committed suicide by shooting himself with a stolen revolver.<ref name="ITC44"/>

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Evolution]]
[[Category:Africa]]

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Ota Benga