[5] Except for a brief visit to Africa with Verner after the close of the St. Louis fair, Benga lived in the United States, mostly in Virginia, for the rest of his life.

Robert Stuart MacArthur, spokesman for a delegation of black churches, petitioned New York City Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. for his release from the Bronx Zoo.

In late 1906, the mayor released Benga to the custody of James H. Gordon, who supervised the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn.

In 1910, Gordon arranged for Benga to be cared for in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he paid for his clothes and to have his sharpened teeth capped.

[6] As a member of the Mbuti people,[7] Ota Benga lived in equatorial forests near the Kasai River in what was then the Congo Free State.

[4][9] In 1904, American businessman and explorer Samuel Phillips Verner traveled to Africa,[10] under contract from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, to bring back an assortment of pygmies to be part of an exhibition.

He had an amiable personality, and visitors were eager to see his teeth that had been filed to sharp points in his early youth as ritual decoration.

One newspaper account promoted Benga as "the only genuine African cannibal in America", and claimed that "[his teeth were] worth the five cents he charges for showing them to visitors".

On July 28, 1904, the Africans performed to the crowd's preconceived notion that they were "savages", resulting in the First Illinois Regiment being called in to control the mob.

[17] The Apache leader Geronimo (featured as "The Human Tyger" – with special dispensation from the Department of War)[16] grew to admire Benga, and gave him one of his arrowheads.

[19] Verner eventually arranged for Benga to stay in a spare room at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City while he was tending to other business.

While Bumpus was put off by Verner's request of what he thought was the prohibitively high salary of $175 a month and was not impressed by the man's credentials, he was interested in Benga.

He tried to slip past the guards as a large crowd was leaving the premises; when asked on one occasion to seat a wealthy donor's wife, he pretended to misunderstand, instead hurling the chair across the room, just missing the woman's head.

[4] He became fond of an orangutan named Dohong, "the presiding genius of the Monkey House", who had been taught to perform tricks and imitate human behavior.

[b] Brought from the Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Cen- tral Africa, by Dr. Samuel P. Verner.

[24] Hornaday considered the exhibit a valuable spectacle for visitors and was supported by Madison Grant, Secretary of the New York Zoological Society, who lobbied to put Ota Benga on display alongside apes at the Bronx Zoo.

[26] In defense of the depiction of Benga as a lesser human, an editorial in the New York Times suggested: We do not quite understand all the emotion which others are expressing in the matter.

As the unwelcome press attention continued, in January 1910, Gordon arranged for Benga's relocation to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he lived with the family of Gregory W.

During his research for the book, Bradford visited the American Museum of Natural History, which holds a life mask and body cast of Ota Benga.

The display is still labeled "Pygmy", rather than indicating Benga's name, despite objections beginning a century ago from Verner and repeated by others.

[36] Publication of Bradford's book in 1992 inspired widespread interest in Ota Benga's story and stimulated creation of many other works, both fictional and non-fiction, such as: Similarities have been observed between the treatment of Ota Benga and Ishi, the sole remaining member of the Yahi Native American tribe, who was displayed in California around the same period.