race and empire: the rise of popular ethnography in the late nineteenth century

RACE AND EMPIRE: THE RISE OF POPULAR ETHNOGRAPHY IN THE

LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY

By WILLIAM SCHNEIDER

owards the end of the nineteenth century ethnographic exhibitions developed as a new medium of popular culture that played a powerful role in shaping European popular attitudes towards non- Westerners. They did this in part by reaching audiences as large as other sources of popular culture of the day, such as the mass newspaper

and illustrated pr&s which by the 1890’s numbered their readers in the mil- lions. But what gave the exhibitions their unique impact was that they permitted large numbers of people to see, for the first time, with their own eyes, “these most strange and rare examples of far-distant peoples.”l The importance of the exhibitions was attested t o by contemporaries ranging from members of the scientific community t o high government officials; and the mass press reinforced the impact of the exhibitions by giving them extensive coverage.

The basic format of the exhibitions was worked o u t in the 1870’s and 1880’s when the first of these “far-distant” peoples,” was presented t o the public. Typically the exhibition was held in a public park or fairground where a re- plica of the subjects’ lodgings was reconstructed. The number of people in the exhibition varied from a dozen t o several hundred. They usually included men, women and children and were often accompanied by domestic or wild animals from their homeland. The majority of the time was spent by the subjects going about their daily routines, because the original purpose of the exhibitions was t o show what life was like among peoples in faraway lands. An admission charge was collected from visitors, usually minimal.

A change occurred in the nature of these exhibitions towards the end of the 1880’s, however, which had important consequences for the presentation of non-Westerners t o the European public. Prompted by the financial necessity of drawing larger and larger crowds, sponsors began presenting exhibitions that emphasized the unusual and the bizarre or appealed t o the public’s desire to be entertained. The most obvious change in format was the addition of a performance by the subjects which served as a focus of interest for visitors and, when repeated, could help spread the crowds. The nature of the performance de-

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pended on the subjects of the exhibition, and varied from Asian religious dances t o mock battles between African warriors. The overall effect of these and other changes were far-reaching. What began as a possible means of educating the mass public about people with different customs and appearances, became by the 1890’s little more than a circus sideshow.

Although exhibitions were presented in most major European cities in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it is convenient t o focus on one of the most popular exhibition sites: The Jardin d’Acclimatation in the Bois du Boulogne outside of Paris. In addition, t o examine more closely the effect that colonial conquest had on the ethnographic exhibitions, it is helpful to look at how the subjects from one geographical area were presented at the Jardin. West Africa is o f particular interest because France was very active in establishing a colonial empire there, a fact which is reflected by the number of West African exhibitions.

WEST AFRICAN ETHNOGRAPHIC EXHIBITIONS

In 1887 an exhibition of Ashantis from the Gold Coast was presented as the first ethnographic exhibition from West Africa a t the Jardin d’Acclimatation. In prior years a variety of subjects from South America, Nubia, Ceylon, the Arctic and the American West had been presented, but these exhibitions had consisted only of the setting up of a model village or encampment a t the Jardin for the curious to observe how they lived at home.2 These recreations of natural habi- tats had even prompted regular visits by the Paris Anthropological Society whose members took advantage of the opportunity t o examine these exotic specimens of humanity without having t o spend the time or money needed t o visit the re- mote regions they came from.

By the time the Ashantis arrived, however, the exhibitions were aimed at something quite different from scientific edification. Visitors were entertained with daily performances of war dances, snake charmers and a grand finale con- sisting of a full scale mock battle befitting these enemies of the British in the 1873 Ashanti War. As an observer described i t , the scene was a far cry from the outdoor ethnographic laboratory of earlier exhibitions.

You are positively frozen by the sight o f these black men in fantastic attire crawling on the ground as in an ambush and then springing with a prodigious agi- lity, shouting a war cry and swinging their sabres in a dizzying whirl.3

Hence, the nature of the ethnographic exhibitions had already changed by the time the first West Africans were presented t o the French mass public. The em- phasis was on spectacle and sensation, ferocity and savagery in order t o attract and entertain the crowds.

With the beginning of full scale French colonial conquests in 1890, West Africa became even more popular.4 Promoters hurried to assemble troupes from

100 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

the ports and hinterland of West Africa, especially the regions which were fast gaining notoriety in the press, such as Dahomey, the Ivory Coast and the Wes- tern Sudan. Exhibitions became so popular that other places besides the Jardin d’Acclimatation began to present them. In Paris the Champs-de-Mars was the scene of a Dahomean exhibition in 1893, one from Senegal and the Sudan in 1895, and Madagascar in 1896. The Casino de Paris hosted a troupe of Daho- means bound for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Many of the promoters took their troupes on extensive tours of French provincial cities as well as the major capitals of Europe. One Dahomean exhibition which appeared at the Jar- din d’Acclimatation in the spring of 1891 was reported in Prague in October, 1892.5

The importance of West Africans as subjects of ethnographic exhibitions can be seen in the following chart.

FIGURE 1 MAJOR ETHNOGRAPHIC EXHIBITIONS

IN PARIS 1887 - 1896a

Year Exhibitionb Attendance Notes

1887

1888

1889

1890

1891

1892

1893

1894

1895

1896

*Ashantis

Hottentots Cossacks Lapps

*Senegalese, et. al. (World’s Fair) Somalis

*Dahomeans 800,000 Egyptians Carabs 400,000

*Pai-Pi- Bris *Dahomeans (Champs- 2,700,000c de-Mars) *Touaregs (Champs-de- Mars) *Sudanese (Champs-de- Mars) Madagascar (Champs- de-Mars)

699,905 (total year’s attendance at J .A.)

854,459 (total year’s attendance)

645,607 (total year’s attendance) 959,430 (total year’s attendance) 679,750 (total year’s attendance)

225,060 frs. gross receipts closed because of fraud charges 372,000 frs. gross receipts

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*Exhibition from West Africa.

aFigures are from reports from stockholders in Bulletin de la Socidte/ d’Acclirnation, plus reports from various undocumented sources, such as Le Chenil and the Petit Journal. Receipt figures from Champs-de-Mars exhibitions are from the Bulletin rnunicipale officiele de la ville de Paris.

b At Jardin d’Acclimatation unless otherwise noted.

CThis figure is quoted in newspaper accounts and is probably from the promoter; hence its accuracy is questionable. Gate receipts as reported to the city of Paris, upon which rental o f the Champs-de-Mars was based, tend t o argue for a lower figure, but other facts - the four month duration of the exhibition and the great deal of press coverage it received - tend t o support the claim. For more on the Dahomean exhibition. see below.

In general, these exhibitions followed the format which had evolved at the Jardin d’Acclimatation in the 1880’s. In addition t o the sensationalism as noted earlier, they also differed in their timing and subject matter. Although there continued to be exhibitions, like the Somali and Egyptian, which were brought t o Paris because they happened to be touring Europe, the majority were more topical. Promoters sought t o take advantage of the interest created by the increase in French colonial activity after 1890. The exhibitions of Dahomeans in 1891 and 1893 followed closely each of the two Dahomean wars. An exhibition of Touaregs opened only months after the French capture of Timbuctou and the Bonnier massacre in 1894; and an exhibition from Madagascar was presented the year following the French occupation of the island.

The remaining exhibitions, the Pai-Pi-Bris a t the Jardin d’acclimatation in 1893, the Sudanese at the Champs-de-Mars in 1895 and the Senegalese at the World’s Fair of 1889, although not directly related to specific colonial news events, capitalized on the general increase in French involvement in such areas as t h Ivory Coast, the Western Sudan and Senegal. In this respect, the mass press helped stimulate interest in the exhibitions not only by its specific coverage of the exhibitions themselves but by its extensive coverage of colonial news events in general.6

One result of the timing and subject matter of these exhibitions was a recog- nition by the French government of the powerful role they could play in publi= cizing the new colonial empire. In 1889 the government even went so far as to finance, recruit and present an exhibition from Senegal a t the World’s Fair in Paris. This was quite a change from the 1878 World’s Fair when a proposal by th explorer Joseph Bonnat t o bring a troupe of West Africans t o Paris was declined in favor of a more traditional display of local products and artifacts in an exhibition hall.7 In 1889 model villages, temples and markets were recnon- structed not only for a Senegalese exhibition but ones from Indo-China, Gabon and Tahiti as we11.8

The rest of the ethnographic exhibitions presented in Paris in following years


years were the work of private promoters, but there was another way that the government could use them t o publicize its colonial policy: visits by government officials. The President of the Republic, Carnot, visited the Dahomean exhibition in 1891, and the following year he attended the Carab exhibition from French Guyana along with Rouvrier, the Minister of Finance, and Roche, the Minister of Commerce. Gustave Binger, the newly appointed Governor of the Ivory Coast, visited the Pai-Pi-Bri exhibition in 1893, and a host of local officials opened the Sudanese exhibition at the Champs-de-Mars in 1895. These visits also bestowed an element of legitimacy o n the exhbitions. That purpose had earlier been served by visits of special committees of the Paris Anthropological Society; but given the changes in the nature of the exhbitions, it was fitting that government officials should now fill that role.

The practice of giving a performance each day for visitors was continued in the West African exhibitions, but the nature of the performances reflected the new developments in colonial affairs. Most important was the beginning of full scale highly publicized colonial wars in which the local inhabitants changed from being just another curiosity of the local countryside t o formidable millitary opponents. The change was reported in daily newspapers and graphically portrayed in the new mass illustrated press; and in order t o attract visitors, the sponsors made exhibitions conform t o new public tastes and expectations. The Ash- anti exhibition had shown the popularity of mock battles, but it was the Daho- mean Wars that made war dances and military exercises a standard feature of ethnographic exhibitions. For the Dahomean and Ashanti exhibitions there was, a t least, some justification for such performances. Warfare was a significant part of these peoples’ social organization and their relations with Europeans had emphasized it. This was not , however, the case with the Pai-Pi-Bris whose society was agrarian and decentralized, and who had always traded preacefully with the French. Yet their exhibition also included a mock attack o n the model village constructed at the Jardin d’Acclimatation in order t o give visitors the excitement they expected.9

Even the military performances could become stale, and promoters often went to great lengths in order to present unusual attractions or performences that would draw crowds by their novelty. This was only logical once the exhibitions entered the realm of entertainment. Occasionally there were births of children at the exhibitions which were celebrated and recelebrated in traditional ceremonies for spectators. At the Sudanese exhibition there was a marriage which was publicized in advance and drew large crowds. The most unusual attraction dreamed up by promoters, however, was the great baggage porters race held during the 1893 Dahomean exhibition at the Champs-de-Mars.

This second exhibition of Dahomeans in Paris was, by far, the largest under- taking of its kind since the beginning of the ethnographic exhibitions. France had just concluded a long and victorious warin Dahomey that had received a great deal of attention in the press. A promoter, Thomas Bruneau, was quick t o take advantage o f events and put together a troupe o f over 130 people to partici- pate in an exhibition. In order t o handle the large crowds he expected, Bruneau petitioned the Prefect and Municipal Council of Paris for use of the Palace of

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Liberal Arts, a building left over from the 1889 World’s Fair a t the Champs-de- Mars. After a ten thousand franc bond was posted, Bruneau’s request was granted in March, 1893.10

The exhibition opened on March 25, 1893, and, as could be expected, the central feature was a mock battle held every afternoon.11 There were also other novel features designed t o attract the curious. Early morning spectators were allowed t o walk around in the model village constructed in the Palace of Liberal Arts and talk with the Dahomeans, “by gestures” as one newspaper suggested. In the afternoon there were war dances and exercises which preceded the mock battle. The popularity of the exhibition was so great that one of the owners of a Parisian theater immediately tried t o hire fifty members o f the troupe t o give a performance at night. Bruneau declined the offer, but seeing its possibilities, he had lights installed at the Palace of Liberal Arts and began presenting a reenact- ment of the march on Abomey every evening complete with a simulated burning of the Dahomean capital. Thus, Parisian audiences were able t o enjoy their first sound and light spectacle.

In the middle of April an animal sacrifice ceremony was added t o the morning program at 1 1 : O O A.M., in order “to educate the public in the ways of the dark continent.” Soon a second sacrifice ceremony was added in the afternoon. By April 25th the mass newspaper, the Petit Journal, could announce, “the Palace of Liberal Arts has become the rendez-vous of all Paris.” Chairs were installed t o seat visitors, and in the beginning of May an orchestra was added to entertain the audience as it rested. The PetitJournal noted, however, that it was worth a visit just to see “the effect o f the orchestra o n these blacks.”

The baggage porters race was announced by Bruneau o n May 4, 1893, For some months the French public had witnessed a series of races between dock workers who unloaded baggage and cargo. The object of the races was to see who could carry a one hundred kilogram sack for one hundred kilometers in the fastest time. The races received much coverage in the press, as local groups from most of France’s commercial centers issued challenges t o one another. From these races emerged, perhaps, the first working class heroes of modern French society, forerunners of twentieth century sports stars. The announce- ment of a challenge race t o be held between the Dahomeans of the ethnographic exhibition and these new French heroes was a promoter’s dream. It combined the two biggest sensations of the day. Bruneau announced the race as “an ex- periment o f public and scientific interest.” The Petit JournaE quickly dubbed it, “Black versus White.”

A 370 meter track was built inside the Palace of Liberal Arts for the contest. One thousand francs were offered as first prize in order t o attract the best French contestants, and for certain stars, like Jules Certaux who had just won the Paris t o Reims race, transportation was paid. The newspapers helped publicize the event, and in the next two weeks over sixty applicants repsonded from all over France. The Dahomeans began training which in itself was an added attraction for visitors. A problem soon developed, however, which threatened the whole contest. The Africans were not accustomed t o carrying loads on their backs like Frenchmen; and because they wore no shirts, when they tried carry-


ing the sacks in the French manner, they soon rubbed their skin raw. After con- sulting with doctors, Bruneau decided t o allow the Dahomeans t o carry their sacks on their heads, bu t since this was considered t o be more difficult, the load was lightened t o sixty kilograms.12

On May 21 the race began. Forty-two Frenchmen and ten Dahomeans parti- cipated. The race was run non-stop, but the rules allowed contestants t o rest when they wanted. To everyone’s suprise a Dahomean named Ahivi jumped out t o an early lead. At the end of the first twenty-four hours he was three kilometers ahead of the nearest two Frenchmen who were closely followed by five other Dahomeans. After forty-eight hours Ahivi had increased his lead t o eight kilometers over a Frenchman named Soustkre who was even with another Da- homean. The favored Jules Certaux was over twenty kilometers behind the leaders and blamed his poor showing o n a mild case of influenza. By the end of the third day of the race Ahivi’s lead was insurmountable, and after eighty hours and twenty minutes he completed the race more than ten kilometers ahead of Souscere. To show that he was not tired, Ahivi made three extra laps holding his sack above his head while the crowd cheered and applauded wildly. Then the other Dahomeans lifted him on their shoulders and carried him once more around the track as one Dahomean in front waved a tricolor.

Ahivi became a celebrity overnight. His picture appeared in the PetitJournul and its magazine the /ournu2 I l lustd He was introduced during intermission at one o f the Parisian theaters, and, of course, he became a special drawing card for the ethnographic exhibition after the race. He was even the subject of a Congo Soap advertisement which ran jingles based on the latest events of the day >

Le succks d’Ahivi n’a rien qui nous Aonne; I1 naquit au pays d u Savon du Congo, Et depuis son enfance il s’enduit; se bichonne, De ces succes qui font L’homme ardent, solide et beau.13 \

The baggage porters race was so successful, one week later Bruneau announced a race t o be held between the women of the Dahomean troupe and two Basque women who wanted t o race one hundred kilometers with a ten kilogram jug of water o n their heads. Other entries were invited, bu t the race was never run. Instead, the final months of the exhibition featured track events between Frenchmen and Dahomeans including long distance races and obstacle courses.

The baggage porters race a t the 1893 Dahomean exhibition was an excep- tional event, but the element of spectacle it contained was typical of most ethnographic exhibitions after 1886. This new element was certainly popular with the public, if scattered attendance figures are accurate: bu t it also added to a current of criticism that had accompanied the exhibitions almost from their start. The French scientific community had been the first t o express its reser- vations about the authenticity o f the exhibitions, bu t there was even stronger disapproval expressed in such middle class newspapers and magazines as I’ Illustration for the “good bourgeois who returns from the Champs-de-Mars with the sensation of having braved the terrible amazons of Behanzin [ the recently

RACE AND EMPIRE 105

defeated king of Dahomey] .”I4 Le Temps used an equally effective means of showing its disapproval by largely ignoring the ethnographic exhibitions. Even the mass newspaper, the Petit Purisien, labelled the first Dahomean exhibition, “a scandalous exhibition”, that is, prior to its opening and before its great popularity with the masses had become apparent.15

Whether critics attacked the taste of the masses or the authenticity of the exhibitions, it was the promoters who bore the brunt o f their scorn. It was the promoters who recruited the subjects for the exhibitions and determined the manner in which they would be presented t o audiences. Both supporters and critics of the exhibitions referred t o the promoters as “barnums.” Although the public was the ultimate determinant of how the exhibitions turned out , it is equally true that promoters played a crucial role of interpreting and catering t o public taste.

Little was known or reported about these middlemen, but they appear t o have been largely the product of the cosmopolitan ports that were the meeting place between non-Western and Western cultures in the Age of Imperialism. At least one, the promoter of the 1891 Dahomean exhibition named John Hood, was a non-Westerner. He was variously described as a “Europeanized Hindu” and the “son of a Hindustani and Maylaysian.”l6 Most, however, were Euro- peans like the Italian promoter of an 1879 Nubian exhibition who had spent years in Abyssinia or his German and Greek partners. Johannes Barbier, who presented the 1895 Sudanese exhibition, was a merchant for ten years in Dakar with his brother before attempting his new economic venture.

Because they lacked respectable credentials as men of science or disinterested explorers, the promoters were very concerned with legitimizing their ethnographic exhibitions. For the early exhibitions, visits by members of the Paris Anthropological Society served this purpose, and t o a certain extent the French government officials filled the role in later years. Edmund Foa, who explored Dahomey in the late 1880’s, was invited by Hood t o visit the Dahomeans at the Jardin’d Acclirnatation in 1891, and through his good offices the troups made an appearance at a meeting of the Paris Geographical Society. In 1 8 9 3 Bruneau persuaded Jean Bayol, the former Vice-Governor of French Establishments in Benin, which had included the Dahomey coast, to write the descriptive pam- phlet at the second Dahomean exhibition. Bruneau also went to the trouble of presenting the exhibition in the name of the “Colonial Ethnographic Society,” even though there exists no record of such a society holding a meeting or pub- lishing a bulletin.17

Promoters also claimed t o have the official sanction of local administrators in the colonies in recruiting subjects for their exhibitions. This was designed to counter charges that subjects were simply hired at the most convenient port of call and given the name of warrior, feticher or priest depending o n the needs of the exhibition.18 The promoter who stopped in Paris on his way to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with seventy Dahomeans told reporters he had certificates of attestation from local authorities for each member of his troupe. In fact, with the exception of the Senegalese exhibition at the 1889 World’s Fair, there is no record in the French colonial archives o f participation by local administra-


tors in any of the West African exhibitions or even any acknowledgement that recruiting was taking place.19 It seems likely, therefore, that many of the critics’ doubts as t o authenticity were justified. Yet only one exhibition, the Touaregs presented by Bruneau the year after his highly successful Dahomean exhibition, was exposed as a fraud. Presented as the nomads of the desert whom the French had fought at Timbuctou, the subjects were discovered to have been recruited among the inhabitants of Constantine province in Algeria.20

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ETHNOGRAPHIC EXHIBITIONS AND POPULAR ATTITUDES

What did the ethnographic exhibitions contribute t o popular French con- ceptions of West Africans? Only a few observations can be made from the sketchy record that is left from them. The preceding analysis has indicated that ethnographic exhibitions placed West Africans in a setting of spectacle and emphasized their warlike and savage nature. This was the result both of changes in the nature of ethnographic exhibitions as well as broader developments in colonial affairs in West Africa. These conclusions are drawn from an overall examination of the form and content of the exhibitions. Any attempt t o gain deeper insight into spectators’ reactions presents a much more difficult problem.

The average visitor t o the exhibition did not leave any record of his reactions other than his attendance, and even that record is incomplete. The observations of the scientific community exist only for the early exhibitions and are too narrow t o indicate subjective reactions. The only other descriptions that may be of value are the comments by reporters sent t o the exhibitions by French mass newspapers such as the Petit Journal and the Petit Purisien. The fact that they often expressed similar reactions indicates that their responses may also have been shared by other visitors t o the exhibitions. This is in addition t o the fact that their mass reading audiences most likely made up a large part of the audiences that attended the exhibitions. Thus, their observations may also have in- fluenced visitors’ reactions.

One of the most frequently made comments was on the physical appearance of the West Africans. Any lengthy description usually contained a perfunctory account of the customs and land from which the exhibition came; but the descriptions of physical appearance were different in that they were obviously based on first hand experience and, thus, more revealing. Consider the following quick assessment by the reporter for the Petit Purisien who met the Dahomeans at the train station and noted, “They are just like the types popularized by en- gravings: very pronounced thick lips, flat nose, receding forehead and frizzy hair.”21 There is evidence, however, that the exhibitions also served t o break down some of these commonly held notions. One unexpected feature of the Africans’ physical appearance was the color of their skin which was not found t o be the dark black that was usually assumed. The reporter for the Petit]ournul at the Pai-Pi-Bri exhibition found their color, “a copper shade like a Florentine bronze,” which was similar t o a remark made b y the Petit Purisien reporter at the 1891 Dahomean exhibition that , “their skin is rather bornze.”22 Another

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feature of the West Africans that was often noted was their build. Ahivi, the winner of the baggage porters race, was described as, “a superb fellow whose sculptural features are admired by all the spectators.” The Pai-Pi-Bris were described as “agile and supple,” and the Ashantis as “powerfully muscular.”23

It is true that many of these descriptions reflect the traditional European predilection t o find animal-like qualities in Africans, but some observers even brought themselves t o an overall aesthetic judgement that was grudgingly com- plimentary. The women of the 1891 Dahomean exhibition were called, “for the most part young and pretty . . . in their own way.” A warrior in the 1893 Da- homean exhibition was described as “not ugly at all, for a negro;” and it was noted “the Pai-Pi-Bri woman is not lacking a certain grace.”24 These physical descriptions were by no means glowing portraits of noble savages, but they d o indicate, a t least subconsciously, that Frenchmen began t o appreciate that there were differences between the simplified caricatures of Africans as described in the mass press and the live human beings in the ethnographic exhibitions.

Despite this positive effect of the ethnographic exhibitions, there was one unexpected feature that observers found very denigrating t o the subjects. This was the practice of visitors throwing them money. How it started is difficult t o de- termine, but it appears t o have been part of the earliest exhibitions. As the Petit JournaZ noted,

Whether it is Bufallo Bill’s redskins, the Cey- lonese, or Hottentots, Galibis or Dahomeans, all seem t o give the impression that the seeking of gain is the basis of existence, . , . the chasing after money which spurs us on in Europe and e l s e ~ h e r e . ~ S

The physical layout of the exhibitions did much t o encourage the practice. The subjects were physically separated from visitors by a fence or, later when performances became important, a railing. It was only natural for spectators t o respond t o cries of “donne moi un sou” from women and children leaning over the railing by tossing coins or bills. It was not very different from any spectator tossing peanuts or popcorn to other attractions at the zoo.

By the time of the first West African exhibition the practice had become well established and even a source of entertainment. For the Dahomean exhibition of 1893 and the Sudanese exhibition of 1895 one member of the troupe was designated as policeman t o make sure that no one crossed the railing to retrieve coins that had fallen short of their mark.26 The inevitable arguments and bait- ing o f the police greatly amused the crowds. The money that was accumulated in the manner also served as a significant bonus t o members of the exhibitions who from all accounts had been recruited at a fixed amount while still a t home. It was reported that in the three days following Ahivi’s victory in the baggage porters race he received over five hundred francs in ten and twenty franc pieces:, “a tidy sum for a Dahomean warrior.”27

Begging became so commonplace that it was considexd unusual when it was not practiced. In 1894 an exhibition of Fulani from Sokoto was brought t o the


World’s Fair a t Lyon and given space next t o a larger exhibition from Senegal an the Western Sudan that had already been installed by Barbier. The reporter for the Progrks IlEustrg of Lyon was struck by these new additions, especially the skilled weavers and jewelers of the troupe.

The negroes that we have seen have been taken from among the craftsmen in workshops and not from ports of the Sudanese [sic] coast where the negroes that one finds are, for the most part, employed in loading ships and pulling carts. The latter are somewhat lazy. - These specimens of the Fulani race have been particulary well chosen from among the most interesting; they d o not beg and are content with selling the objects that they manufacture.28

Begging may have been a source of amusement for the crowds, b u t it probably did nothing t o enhance their opinion of West Africans.

The ethnographic exhibitions were a product of the Age of Imperialism. They began and flourished in the time just prior t o and including colonial conquest and were a response t o the tremendous rise of interest in overseas lands. As a result, their timing reinforced their impact, despite the relatively short amount of time that they lasted. By the end of the 1890’s there were effective adminis- trative controls in most colonies, and colonial ministries in Europe had a stake in emphasizing the positive aspects of the newly acquired lands. The medium of the ethnographic exhibition was too influential t o be left in the hands o f private interests who gathered subjects in the colonies for exhibitions catering t o the public whim. After 1900 another kind of exhibition, modeled on those presented at World’s Fairs, replaced the private exhibition. In France the change was signalled at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1900 and especially by the first colonial exposition in Marseille in 1906. Now a more official image of the colonies was presented t o the public which was much more positive, although it was not necessarily more accurate.

But the ethnographic exhibitions had already done their job as a molder of public opinion and shaper of popular attitudes. They were the medium that had first portrayed live t o mass audiences a bizarre, sensational and generally ne- gative picture of non-Westerners. If, as is often said, first impressions are the strongest, then much of twentieth century Western racism can be traced back t o these first direct encounters with far-distant peoples.

NOTES (1) Fulbert Duinontcil, Les Achantis de Z’Afrique equatoriale (Paris, 1887). p. 5. (2) For a complete list of these exhibitions and information on their importance t o gate

receipts, see William Schneider, “The Image of West Africa in Popular French Culture, 1870- 1900,” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1976) , p. 182.

(3) PetitPurisien, March 20, 1893.

RACE AND EMPIRE 109

(4) See Schneider, pp. 47, 1 2 8 and 130. (5) Petit Parisien, October 1, 1892. No systematic analysis of exhibitions in other coun-

tries was done, but references in the French press alone mentioned ethnographic exhibitions in London, Brussels, Berlin, Hamburg and Prague as well as the major French provincial cities.

(6) For more on mass press coverage of colonial events, see Schneider, pp. 45-83, 112- 73.

(7) Petit Journal, September 20, 1877; July 30 , 1878. (8) For observations on the colonial exhibitions in general at the World’s Fair, see Le

Temps, March 18 , May 1, May 28, July 1 7 , October 3 , and October 20, 1889. For more specifically on the Senegalese exhibition, see Alfred Gasconi, Le Senegal e t ses dgpendances h 1’Exposition Uniwerselle de 1889 (Paris, 1889) .

* /

( 9 ) Pet i t journal , August 7 ,1893. (1 0 ) Conseil municipal de Paris: d h b t h i o n s . Bulletin municipal officiel de la wille de

Paris (1893), 133, 614. (11) The account which follows is reconstructed from the extensive coverage carried in

the Petit Journal from April through July, 1893. In addition to occasional feature articles, there were short ten line advertisements almost daily for the exhibition in the “Foyers et Coulisses” column of the day’s theatrical attractions. These plus similar listings in the “Courrier des Theatres” section of the Petit Parisien provide a fairly complete record of additions and changes made during the course of the exhibition.

(12) PetitJournal, May 19 , 1893. (13) Peti t journal , May 26,1893. (14) Illustration (1893), 226. (15) February 5 , 1891. This article was published the day before the exhibition opened.

Only four days later, after the first crowds were reported, the newspaper abruptly changed its assessment of the exhibition. “It is better than an ethnographic exhibition of Dahomey,” it said; “it is a representation of the adversaries our soldiers have fought.”

(16) Petitjournal, February 9 ,1891. (1 7) Robert Lasteyrie du Saillant, Bibliographie generale des trawaux historiques e t archeo-

(18) Courrierdu Havre, April 6 , 1893. (19) This includes a search of the local records of the former colonies of Senegal and Da-

homey held at archives in Dakar and Porto-Novo, as well as the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mar in Paris.

0 /

l og iquespub l i spar les socie(t& sawantes de la France. (Paris, 1888-1918).

(20) Petit Journal, August 14,1894. (21) March 20,1893. (22) PetitJournal, July 11 ,1893;Pet i t Parisien, February 9 , 1 8 9 1 . (23) PetitJournal, May 22, July 11,1893;Septernber 11, 1887. (24) PetitJournal, February 1,1891;March 25,1893;August 7 , 1893. (25) PetitJournal, May 22,1893. (26) Illustration (1895), 508;Pet i tJoumal , May 22 ,1893. (27) PetitJournal, May 28,1893. (28) Progres I l lustr i (Lyon) , June 10, 1894.

William Schneider is a Lecturer in History at Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia. He recently completed his Ph. D. at the University of Pennsylvania and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in what was formerly French West Africa.

race and empire: the rise of popular ethnography in the late nineteenth century

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