Shame of Britain’s ‘human zoos’: How families from the colonies were put on display at UK events until the early 20th century – as 1899 footage shows group of Africans perform mock battle for paying crowds in Earl’s Court

They paraded before a packed audience at London’s Hippodrome and were described by critics as a ‘revelation into strange humanity’.

The year was 1904 and the so-called performers were six members of the Bambuti tribe.

They had been shipped from their homeland – in the Congo region of Africa – by British explorer Colonel James Harrison so they could be displayed before large crowds in England.

Images of it can be seen in the Channel 4 documentary Britain’s Human Zoos.

The show, hosted by Somali-born writer Nadifa Mohamed, details how from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, hundreds of Africans were brought to Britain and used as a form of traveling entertainment.

The program revealed footage from 1899 of a huge group of Africans taking part in a mock battle performed several times a day in front of paying spectators at Earl’s Court in London.

They were recruited from the Zulu and Swazi tribes by English circus impresario Frank Fillis to recreate the British defeat of the Matabele people in the 1890s.

The battle scenes were part of a show called Savage South Africa.

Ms Mohamed said: ‘They have gone to great lengths to make it look realistic but all that happens is the Zulus run towards the English and then run away again.

“So it reinforces the idea that Britain is destined to have this huge empire.”

Spectators – 16,000 of whom came during the duration of the exhibition – could also wander around Kaffir Kraal, a mock-up of a Matabele village.

There they would watch the same artists play out their lives for the benefit of prying eyes.

English women were said to be overwhelmed by the sight of the half-naked African men.

Ms Mohamed described how there was a ‘national moral panic’ over the issue.

The documentary shows one news report that states, “Some of these women are using all their arts of fascination to please these sons of the African wilderness.”

It added that the exhibition at Earl’s Court had ‘devolved into an exhibition of white female visitors, and it is a deeply disgusting exhibition.’

Among those present was Peter Lobengula, the 25-year-old grandson of the King of Matabele, whose forces were defeated in battle in what is now Zimbabwe in the 1890s.

He had come to Britain after mining magnate and politician Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company founded Rhodesia at the end of the second Matabele war.

After independence in 1980, the country was renamed Zimbabwe.

Lobengula caused a stir when he fell in love with 23-year-old Cornish woman Kitty Jewell.

The couple tied the knot in 1899, despite fierce criticism in the press.

The prince’s relationship with Jewell caused a sensation. An article in the now defunct Evening News said: ‘There is something unspeakably disgusting in the idea of ​​the white girl playing with the dark savage.’

A minister refused to marry them at their local church, St Mathias, in Earls Court.

However, they obtained a special permit and were married at Holborn Land Registry on 11 August 1899.

When the union collapsed two years later, Kitty moved to America and Lobengula worked as a miner in Salford, Greater Manchester.

Lobengula left the show after his marriage but had no choice but to return after his divorce because he had no money.

He attempted to participate in a competitive show in Vienna, but was arrested for theft of his native costume.

Shortly afterwards the show closed for good and Lobengula moved to Greater Manchester to work as a miner.

Footage unearthed by the documentary makers shows him laughing as he left the mine in Pendlebury with fellow miners.

He subsequently married an Irish woman named Lily. The couple had six children: Alexandra, in 1902, Kitty in 1904, Peter, in 1906, Dollina, in 1909, Eva, in 1911, and Vincent in 1913.

Tragically, only two of the children survived to adulthood.

Lobengula died of tuberculosis on the eve of the First World War at the age of 38.

His wife died seven years later at the age of 39.

The six Bambutis performed at the Hippodrome for fourteen weeks and were then sent by Fillis to tour Britain and Europe.

Well over a million spectators saw the performances. They were also invited to the House of Commons and Buckingham Palace to meet the royal family.

The group even released a record, the first made by Africans in Britain.

Between performances they lived at Brandesburton Hall, Colonel Harrison’s country home.

Members of the public received letters and even gifts.

However, members of the group were also photographed naked. Ms Mohamed described the images as ‘really disturbing’.

Ms Mohamed also told how the remains of a stillborn Bambuti baby that was dissected by anatomist Sir Arthur Keith are still preserved at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

The organization said last week in response to its criticism that the baby’s remains had been removed from a catalog of items available for medical examination.

The baby was the daughter of one of two Bambuti women brought to Britain as part of the group of six.

She gave birth in Bedford, but the child died shortly afterwards.

Ms Mohamed said she was “disgusted” and had spoken to members of the modern-day Bambuti tribe in the Democratic Republic of Congo about the issue.

They did not know that the stillborn child was in the possession of a museum in Great Britain.

The Bambuti finally returned to their home in 1908

Although they ended earlier in Britain, human zoos eventually became extinct in Europe in the mid-20th century.

Mohamed added, “I’ve wanted to know more about the history of Human Zoos for a long time, but I wasn’t sure if I would ever have the opportunity to go beyond the surface of what was already known.

‘Taking this trip gave me the opportunity to let go of some of the secrecy and find stories that were moving and disturbing, but that also went against my own prejudices.

“It is a true privilege to give light, agency and dignity to members of these human zoos who came here at a very different time.”

Shaminder Nahal, head of specialist factual programs at Channel 4, said: ‘This is a story that needed to be told and Nadifa brings the power of a master storyteller to these shocking hidden histories.

‘As she explores a love story that caused a scandal, a series of fascinating lost figures and the disturbing reality of imperial fantasy dressed up as anthropology, we come face to face with difficult questions about the past that resonate to this day .’