Darwin’s book “Origin of the Species” was first published in 1859, and dealed not only with evolution but also with natural selection, and the survival of some races, where other races didn’t survive. This led to a great debate on who was, and who wasn’t, human. And among the humans, who was the most human?
A result of the debate was the case of Ota Benga, a pygmee who was found in the Kongo in 1904 by expeditioner Samuel Verner, and introduced to the president of the Bronx Zoo, William Hornaday. While he was usually seen as a boy, Ota Benga was in fact twice married, his first wife and two children were murdered by white colonists.
Ota was exhibitioned as a ‘symbolic wild,’ along with other pygmees, in the antropological wing of the St Louis World Exhibition of 1904.
To read the entire story: Wikipedia
Great article in Dutch
Hi! My name is Geerte, I'm a researcher of Nineteenth century history from the Netherlands. This blog is where I write about my favourite subject. Feel free to browse around! 
A tragic tale of human ignorance. I did get the feeling from the Dutch article that Darwinism was blamed for the situation, and that the real culprit, human nature, was purposely disregarded.
Human nature presents us with certain mental barriers against the emencity of our enviroment (existance), the labeling of us and them is merely one of those protective measures that makes it easier to choose for our own blood and offspring (our immortallity through genetics) to flourish and grow (at the cost of the rest of existence). We seem to need adversaries (others) to counteract our loose groupings of race and society. The “us or them”, we still see in the Amerika – Terrorism (or anyone else that doesn’t agree) war, in childern playing in schoolyards (your not one of the cool people and we are).
As for the relation between pygmees and apes…. Just check out the local students on a saterday night, yelling and fighting, cavorting and tumbling around drunk, Darwins proof were monkeys.
In just these hundred years, the evolution of the human race did not progress that much, nomatter what we like to believe.