The Biggest Society Scandals To Rock New York

Ota Benga was the name of a member of the Congolese tribe of Mbuti pygmies who, in 1906, was famously displayed in the Bronx Zoo monkey exhibit. At 23 years old he had already survived a massacre by the Belgian colonial army, been enslaved, widowed, and eventually brought to New York by an anthropologist. Soon after Benga arrived, he caught the interest of Bronx Zoo Zookeper, William Temple Hornaday. Fascinated by exhibiting animals in their natural habit and apparently a horribly racist darwinist, Hornaday was quick to have Benga encaged within electrically charged bars to shoot arrows and play with orangutans. Drawing in as many as 40,000 visitors a day, Benga quickly became the zoo's main attraction. Despite a story in the New York Times and angry letters to Mayor George B. McClellan, Hornaday and the Bronx Zoo patrons were unfazed by the cruelty and racism of the situation. 

[Photo via @rabia.m.yener]