Inside Human Zoos is the English title of a documentary film which premiered in 2018. In 2024, it was shown on French and German television (arte tv).
The French title
Sauvages: au Coeur des Zoos Humains
The German title
Die Wilden: In den Menschenzoos
The topic of this film is a dark chapter in the history of mankind.
In the years shortly before and shortly after 1900, more than 30,000 people of colour (men, women, and children) were transported from their homeland in remote locations to countries in Europe - primarily France, Germany, and Switzerland - as well as the USA, where they were exhibited as freaks and monsters.
They were treated like animals in a zoo.
Hence the title of the film.
They were placed in a human zoo and they were told that they had to give a good performance for the local audience of white people.
Some of them were captured and forced to go to destinations chosen by others. But many of them volunteered to go, because they were promised a rosy future as performers on a stage in Europe or the USA and because they believed what they were told.
Once they reached their destinations, they discovered that the role they had to play was not at all what they had been promised when they were invited to go. There was no rosy future for them in a human zoo.
Some of them died on the voyage to Europe or the USA. Those who made it to the destination had to perform in a human zoo and not all of them survived.
Some of them were killed by diseases against which they had no defence.
A few of them managed to return to their homeland, but their lives were never the same as before. They had been exploited in Europe or the USA, because they were people of colour. Because they were “the others.”
In Europe and in the USA, they were used to illustrate the development of the human race.
The white person represented the highest level, while the people of colour represented the lowest level. They were not civilized. Not human. They were savages.
In this film, the amazing - almost unbelievable - history of these people is told by focusing on six individuals whose lives are documented to a certain degree.
Here are the names:
# 1. Petite Capeline – from Patagonia – Tierra de Fuegos
# 2. Tambo – an aboriginal from Australia
# 3. Moliko – from Guyana
# 4. Ota Benga – from Congo
# 5. JeanThiam – from Senegal
# 6. Marius Kaloie – a Kanak from New Caledonia
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Directors: Bruno Victor-Pujebet and Pascal Blanchard
** Writers: Bruno Victor-Pujebet, Pascal Blanchard, and Coralie Miller
** Languages: (1) French (2) German (3) A mixture of languages = always the original language
** Subtitles: (1) English (2) French (3) German
** Run time (full version): 92 minutes (arte tv)
** Run time (short version): 52 minutes (Amazon Prime)
Several persons are interviewed in the film.
Here are the names of the participants
# 1. Historical experts
** Nicolas Bancel – professor of colonial history – University of Lausanne
** Pascal Blanchard – a historian – CNRS
** Gilles Boëtsch – an anthropologist – CNRS
** Jacob Cassady – director – Mungalla Station Museum
** Sylvie Chalaye – professor of theater history – University Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle
** Didier Daeninckx – author of several books
** Ayana V. Jackson – a photographer
** Sandrine Lemaire – a historian
** Achille M’Bembe – professor – University of Witwatersrand
** John M. MacKenzie – professor emeritus – University of Lancaster
** Pamela Newkirk – professor – New York University
** Fanny Robles – Department of English Studies - Aix-Marseille University
** Robert Rydell – professor – Montana State University
** Nanette Jacomijn Snoep – a Dutch anthropologist and museum curator
** Benjamin Stora – a historian – University Paris XIII
** Lilian Thuram – a former football player – a human rights activist
** Félix Tiouka – chairman – Association des Amérindiens de Guyane française
# 2. Descendants of people who had to perform a show in human zoos
** Sylvette Kaloie – daughter of Marius Kaloie
** Walter Palm Island – a descendant of Tambo
** Ndiaga Seck – a descendant of Jean Thiam
** Carolina Toka – a descendant of Moliko
** Lydia Toka – a descendant of Moliko
Archive footage is used between the talking heads. Archive footage is used to support and supplement the statements made by the talking heads.
Archive footage is used when the narrator is talking. Archive footage allows us to see a glimpse of the following persons who are no longer alive:
** Josephine Baker
** William Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill
** Geronimo
** Jean Thiam
What do reviewers say about this film?
On IMDb it has a rating of 72 percent, which corresponds to a rating of 3.6 stars on Amazon.
On Amazon (which offers a short version of this film) there is at the moment only one global rating which offers five stars. There are no reviews of this product.
In my opinion, the rating on IMDb is too low, while the rating on Amazon is more appropriate.
The story of human zoos is an important chapter of world history. The story deserves to be told, and in this film, it is done very well.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
REFERENCES
# 1. Items available online
Hugh Schofield
“Human zoos: When real people were exhibits.”
BBC News
27 December 2011
Joanna Kakissis
“Where ‘Human Zoos’ Once Stood, A Belgian Museum Now Faces Its Colonial Past,”
NPR = National Public Radio
26 September 2018
Farah Nayeri
“Remembering the Racist History of Human Zoos,”
New York Times
29 December 2021
Sven Töniges
“How colonialists presented people in human zoos,”
Deutsche Welle
01 October 2022
Peter Preskar
“The Heartbreaking Human Zoos – The Dark Chapter in Human History,”
Medium
07 March 2023
[This article is placed behind a paywall]
Letizia Gaja Pinoja
“Dehumanisation, animalisation: Inside the world of Swiss human zoos,”
The Conversation
22 June 2023
# 2. Books
Human Zoos:
Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires
Edited by Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, Gilles Boëtsch, Eri Deroo, Sandrine Lemaire, and Charles Forsdick
Translated by Teresa Bridgeman
(2009)
Human Zoos:
The Invention of the Savage
Edited by Pascal Blanchard, Gilles Boëtsch, and Nanette Jacomijn Snoep
(2012)
# 3. Film and video
Human Zoos:
America’s Forgotten History of Scientific Racism
Director: John G. West
Available on YouTube
Run time: 55 minutes
(2019)
*****
Sauvages:
Au Coeur des Zoos Humains
The French title of the film
*****
Die Wilden:
In den Menschenzoos
The German title of the film
*****
Human Zoos:
Science and Spectacle in the
Age of Colonial Empires
(2009)
*****
Human Zoos:
The Invention of the Savage
(2012)
*****
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