INTRODUCTION

There is no question but that 1901 was an exciting year for the residents of Buffalo, New York, its surrounding communities, and indeed the world as the city was the host for the Pan-American Exposition that year.  In 1899 the United States Congress passed an Act to ìencourage the holding of a Pan-American Exposition on the Niagara FrontierÖî¹ The Act described the purpose of this Exposition as the vehicle ìto fittingly illustrate the marvelous development of the Western Hemisphere during the nineteenth century, by a display of the arts, industries, manufactures, and the products of sail, mines and sea."² During its six month run, the Exposition attracted over 8 million visitors to exhibits and displays that celebrated the monumental scientific, technological and artistic accomplishments of the time.³

As we continue to examine the history of the 1901 Pan American Exposition, particularly the countries and cultures represented on the Midway, none perhaps is so striking as the portrayal of the people of color from around the world, especially those of African descent. For people of African descent, it is particularly striking because it partially illuminates the tragic story of African contact with European imperialism/colonialism.  This is clearly apparent in three exhibits, namely ìDarkest Africa,î  ìThe Old Plantationî and the ìNegro Exhibit,î previously thought lost.  

Each exhibit was distinct and tells an important history.  The ìAfrican Village,î for example actually symbolized two elements, the birthplace and ancestry of colonial Americaís slaves as well as 20^th century Africa under colonial rule.  Most of the participants in the African Village, for example, were subjects of the various colonial empires including Britain, Belgium, Germany and others.⁴  Participants of the ìOld Plantationî were imported from 19^th century slave holding states, namely Georgia, and represented the enslavement of Africans in North America.⁵ The hard fought for ìNegro Exhibit,î previously exhibited at the International Paris Exposition of 1900,⁶ represented the accomplishment of slave descendents after less than 40 years of freedom from slavery.

In essence, these three exhibits represent a linear march through time of a people from a period of pre-capture on the African continent to enslavement and later emancipation.  The emphasis of the Pan Am was on the first two exhibits that were located on the Midway.  It was on the Midway that visitors paid to witness the ìprimitive and wild tribesî of Darkest Africa and their ìdarkieî brethren on the ìOld Plantation. î At the same time, the Negro Exhibit, later lost to history for nearly one hundred years, portraying the accomplishments of a formerly enslaved people, languished in near obscurity in the Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building.

The following is a brief description of the Midway at the Pan American Exposition and each of the exhibits featuring African and African Americans.  (It is, however, important to note that we have not included the ìStreets of Cairoî (Egyptian) nor the Cleopatra Exhibit that included scores of Nubians from the Sudan as these represented themes rather than ethnographic "human exhibits." 

THE MIDWAY

• Darkest Africa
• Popularity of the Exhibit
• References

The foreign-village type of Midway show was introduced at the 1889 Paris Fair and expanded at Chicago in 1893.⁷   In Buffalo, directors made a clear if unwarranted distinction between ìscholarlyî explorations of culture in the Exposition buildings and popular ìethnologiesî on the Midway where people from different cultures became living exhibits.⁸  

The Pan American theme of human progress from ìsavageî to ìcivilizedî played itself out on the Midway and reinforced negative attitudes toward people of color.  These perceptions were also related to the modernist notions that drove the Exposition: everything western and industrial was good; all else was inferior, suffering at best from what early anthropology dubbed a ìcultural lag.î⁹   The ìliving exhibits,î of particular interest for this page is that of  ìDarkest Africa,î and the ìOld Plantation.î 

Located in the northwest section of the Exposition grounds, the Midway was reputed to have ìnearly a mile of streets.î¹⁰ In fact, the Midway exhibits occupied nearly one-third of the 350 acres that comprised the fairís site.  A visitor to the Pan American Expositionís Midway could find much of interest there. As one eye witness observed, ìThe Midway is interesting always, but especially so in the evening.  Its incongruity is perhaps its chief charm.  Here, amid surroundings that suggest everything but America, wander people of every age and condition in life.î¹¹

The Midway featured over forty attractions that provided a curious mix of amusements, sideshow style entertainment and ìeducationalî exhibits.  For an additional cost, the Midway visitor could explore ìDarkest Africaî, attend a minstrel show at the ìOld Plantationî or venture into the future in the ìTrip to the Moonî.   In fact, given the promotion of the exotic, the novel and even the forbidden, it is no wonder that the Midway attracted millions of fair goers.   According to Leary and Shole,s¹² most of the 8.1 million visitors to the Exposition made the Midway  ìa central destinationî of their visit. 

DARKEST AFRICA

This was a ìhuman exhibitî arranged by Xavier Pene an explorer, entrepreneur who was the ìaccredited agent of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution.¹³  Pene had gone to Africa to secure ìhis company of natives,î primarily from the West Coast of Africa. The purpose of the exhibit was ìto present not only a strange form of entertainment for the curious onlooker, but it will be an intensely interesting scientific ethnological exhibit-a character study of the various races of equatorial Africa.î¹⁴   A newspaper article, contested by some researchers, reported that ìthe European governments in whose African possessions these people are found, strenuously oppose the temporary emigration of large numbers for exhibition, and it was with exceeding difficulty that permission was granted."¹⁵ 

The same article reported that Pene did, however, secure permission but had to assure these various governments, British, German, French and Portuguese that the object of transporting the Africans to the Exposition was purely scientific and educational.  Pene also had to pay for ìhis natives,î such that ìIt was necessary to deposit a large sum in gold as security for the return of the natives to their country at the close of the Exposition.î¹⁶ 

Where did these Africans come from? It was reported that Occupants for the African Village were ìobtained from Libreville, on the Gabon, in French Congo, hardly a degree north of the equator, to Mopamades, in Angola or Portuguese West Africa, sixteen degrees south.  The best-known natives are the Pongos of the Gabun, whose Bantu language is generally spoken along the coast.  In the interior, east of Gabun, are the Fans, a rising power, which are driving the Congos to the coast.  The Fans are cannibals, but their cannibalism has been abandoned, except by those far in the interior where prisoners of war are still eaten.î¹⁷

The African Village was billed as an ethnological exhibit but was also considered to be ìone of the leading entertainment features of the Pan American Midwayî¹⁸  which was to have enormous economic success. It occupied a prominent location not far from the main entrance to the Midway and has a site covering over 60,000 square feet. It was one of the largest concessions on the amusement street of the exposition.¹⁹ 

Immediately outside the exhibit, a child ëspieler,í or ëbarkerí dressed in exotic clothing, was ìbarkingî out the promise of excitement within.  ìAfrican Village inhabitants were portrayed as fascinating but dangerous: ìAfrican warriors from Darkest Africa � Assegal Throwers, Zulus, CannibalsÖî²⁰   Sixty-two people supposedly representing 35 tribes were brought to Buffalo to demonstrate weapons, handicrafts, songs, dances and it was said, witchcraft.  Only one, John Tivie, had been outside Africa before, to Chicago in 1893, and they all remained secluded in their compound.î²¹

Within the village, from May to October, eleven tribes from the West Coast of Africa demonstrated village life, performed dances, and produced handcrafts.  The native builders preceded the main company to make the village ready for its occupants when the Pan-American Exposition gates were thrown open on the first of May.²²  A consignment of building materials for the village came from Libreville by French steamer.  The Africans also brought with them the materials and household utensils they needed to build traditional huts, implements of labor, weapons of war and the chase.  The artifacts included spears, axes, knives, and swords.²³  In the center of the village was a big dancing pavilion.  Here the ìfetetchî dance was performed at the close of the evening.²⁴ 

On completion, the building gave no more than a bare hint of the interior curiosities that would greet the visit to the African Village upon the opening of the exposition.²⁵  

Newspaper reported state that:  ìThere were representatives of fifteen tribes from the Ashantis of the Gold Coast to the dwarf Ocoas of the Upper Congo River, a company, all told, of about 150 uncivilized blacks, men, women and children, living precisely as they do in their jungle homes, in huts build by themselves of materials which will be brought from Africa for that purpose and put together by native builders.î²⁶

The different tribes were represented by families or villages, each having a number of their artisans and tradesmen and exhibits of the products of their country.  There was ivory, gold and coffee from the French Congo and coffee, iron, cautchouc and palm oil from Angola.²⁷

It was indeed an interesting group of natives who came to the Exposition.  There were members of the Congo Royal Guards and a corps of native dancers, who will perform the ìKingís Dance of the Dahomeyans.î For at least one of this group, this was not their first time in America.  The group from Dahomey had also participated at the Chicagoís Worldís Fair in 1893.  At that time, Xavier Pene was also their agent.²⁸

While there appeared to be little or no attempt to make a connection between the Africans and the participants on the Old Plantation, an interesting feature of the entertainment was that the villagers were expected ìto provide the African chants of which, it was said, all the Southern Negro melodies present modifications.  The original chants are the common songs of the different tribes.  Lecturers will also relate the folk tales, those of ìBrer Foxî and ìBrer Rabbit,î amid realistic surroundings.î²⁹

POPULARITY OF THE EXHIBIT

Promoters of the African Village billed it as being ìÖ the largest and most interesting company of blacks that has landed in America since slavery days.î³⁰  It was also billed to ìbe the last exhibit of wild, native life from the tangled jungles of West Africa that will ever be transported to any civilized country.  The protecting powers have agreed to forbid it and the people of Pan-America will be curious to see the natives whom the great powers of the earth are afraid to let out of their sight.î³¹

At the exhibit, a pamphlet entitled,  ìDarkest Africa, Real African Life in a Real African Villageî was sold depicting the Darkest Africa exhibit.  It was reported in the pamphlet, that the Village was ìIn the Midway but not of it.î  It stated specifically that ìBeing on the Midway it must use Midway methods or be neglected, but it still remains that the exhibit is not a mere Midway show, but one of high scientific and educational interest.î³²

ìDarkest Africa was also billed as an ethnological exhibit but was also considered to be ìone of the leading entertainment features of the Pan American Midway.î Leary and Scholes reported that ìexceptional interest attached to the African Village because of its scientific associations but point out that  ìThe degree of ability and knowledge present within the compound was ignored by some visitors who wanted only to see the Africans practice vile and unspeakable acts despite the fact that those were largely fictions created by the promoters.î³³

FORWARD TO THE OLD PLANTATION

RETURN TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS

REFERENCES

[1] Pan American Magazine, 1899.

[2] Leary, Thomas and Elizabeth Sholes. Images of America. Buffaloís Pan-American Exposition, 1998. Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, South Carolina, p.7.

[3] Express, March 31, 1901.

[4] Barry, Richard H. Snapshots on the Midway of the Pan American Exposition. Buffalo. New York: Robert Allen Reed. 1901.

[5] W.E.B. DuBois. The Negro Exhibit. American Monthly Review of Reviews (22), November, 1900.

[6] Leary and Sholes.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] http://intoten.buffnet.net/bhw/panamex/midway.htm Buffalo History Works. Reprinted from the Official Catalogue and Guide Book; The Midway to the Pan American Exposition.

[11] Betts, Lillian W. ìThe People at the Pan- American.  The Outlook, No. 69, September 14, 1901.

[12] Leary, Thomas and Elizabeth Sholes. Images of America: Buffaloís Pan American Exposition. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Press, 1998.

[13] Leary and Sholes, p. 103.

[14] Express, March 31, 1901.

[15] Express. March 31, 1901.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Leary and Sholes, p. 102.

[22] Express. March 31, 1901.

[23] Pan Am African Village, 190. http://freenet.buffalo.edu/library/local/village.html.

[24] Courier, July 25, 1901.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Express. March 31, 1901.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Darkest AfricaÖReal African Life in a Real African Village. Pamphlet, p. 4.

[33] Leary and Sholes, p. 103. 

Co-developers in this project are by Peggy Brooks-Bertram, Dr. P.H. and Barbara A. Seals Nevergold, Ph.D.  The material seen in this section of buffalonian.com is reposted with permission from the website entitled, UNCROWNED QUEENS http://wings.buffalo.edu/uncrownedqueens was launched on February 15, 2001 and began a year-long celebration of the accomplishments of these women, to culminate in a book entitled, African, Darkies and Negroes: Black Faces at the Pan American Exposition of 1901. 

Note:  This history page is a work in progress.  The subject of the Africans and Africans at the Pan American Exposition of 1901 is a very complicated and involved story.  We wanted to at least provide you with a beginning of some of the important matters involving Africans and their descendants in this world-wide event.  References are being updated daily and corrections and additions occur daily as well.  Please be patient with us as we gather together the history of this momentous event.  Thank you.

Copyright © 2001 Uncrowned Queens 
This Page has been donated to buffalonian.com by Peggy Brooks-Bertram, Dr. P.H. and Barbara A. Seals Nevergold, Ph.D. No portion of Uncrowned Queens shall be duplicated without expressed written permission of the authors and buffalonian.com.