Ota Benga (ca. 1883-1916), a pygmy from the Congo who was brought to the U.S. for the 1904 World’s Fair. Unable to return to Africa in 1916, he became depressed and committed suicide in 1916.

And my grandfather negotiated to purchase this pygmy, Ota Benga, for I think it's several bags of salt and a spool of brass wire. Unidentified Man #1: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 26, 1904.

Ota Benga, a pygmy, was born somewhere in a forest in Congo around 1883. He married young and started a family. One day he returned from elephant hunting to find his village slaughtered, ...

When a Congolese man named Ota Benga died in Lynchburg 100 years ago this past weekend, the official (and obvious) verdict was that he had taken his own life. In reality, however, his life had ...

1906 Ota Benga arrived at the Bronx Zoo one day late in the summer of 1906 wearing a white linen suit. He was lugging a wooden bow, a set of arrows, and a pet chimpanzee. Twenty-three years old ...

Like most kids growing up in Gotham we feel like we've always been aware of that the Bronx Zoo at one point put a pygmy on display in the Monkey House, but we'd never registered any of the details ...

The sign above his enclosure read: THE AFRICAN PYGMY. “OTA BENGA.” AGE 23 YEARS. HEIGHT 4 FEET 11 INCHES. WEIGHT 103 POUNDS. . . . EXHIBITED EACH AFTERNOON DURING SEPTEMBER.

For a few yards of cloth and some salt, Samuel Verner, an American missionary and explorer, bought a young man named Ota Benga in the Belgian Congo in 1903. Ota Benga was a Pygmy who had been ...

Ota Benga, a 4ft 11ins Congolese pygmy, was kept in a cage in New York's Bronx Zoo in 1906 as part of an exhibit which saw him perform in front of visitors that jeered and teased him.