1. 1
HST 398
Academic Voyeurism: The Role of Preconceptions
about Indigenous Peoples and the Public Desire for
Theatrical Display as the Paramount Influences on
Anthropometric Photographyand the Great Exhibitions
in the Colonial Period.
A dissertation, presented as part requirement for the degree of BA in
English and History, University of Sheffield, 2014-2015
Registration Number: 120124446
Word Count: 7,337
Supervisor: Saurabh Mishra

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Contents
List of illustrations 3
Introduction 4
Chapter One: Science and Voyeurism: Colonial Photography 9
Chapter Two: Colonised Bodies on Display: The Great Exhibitions 19
Conclusion 29
Bibliography 32

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List of Illustrations
Image showing facial profile of slave photographed by Louis Agassiz, Slave daguerreotypes
series. http://mirrorofrace.org/louis-agassiz-full-face-and-profile/ [accessed
28/03/2015]…page 12.
Image showing unidentified topless woman, from Louis Agassiz Photographic Collection,
Mixed Race Series. Photographer: Walter Hunnewell. Manaus, 1865–1866…page 13.
Image showing Iba-Hambi, a Native American photographed in 1883 by Roland Bonaparte,
http://www.galerieflak.com/prince-roland-bonaparte-portrait-de-iba-hambi/ [accessed
28/03/2015]…page 15.
Image showing ‘Billy’, ‘Jenny’ and ‘Little Toby’ photographed in the mid-1880s by Roland
Bonaparte, http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=149689&PICTAUS=TRUE
[accessed 26/03/15]…page 16.
Image of Julia Pastrana in Hutchinson, The Living Races of Mankind, 1900…page 26.

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Academic Voyeurism: The Role of Preconceptions about Indigenous Peoples and the Public
Desire for Theatrical Display as the Paramount Influences on Anthropometric Photography
and the Great Exhibitions in the Colonial Period. Registration number 120124446
Introduction
Suheir Hammad’s 2010 poem Not Your Erotic, Not Your Exotic features the lines ‘don’t
wanna be your exotic/women everywhere are just like me/some taller darker nicer than
me/but like me but just the same’1 articulates the tendency, even in contemporary
postcolonial society to view subjects, particularly women, from other cultures as exotic and
‘Other’. This was paramount during the colonial period, particularly in the discipline of
photography, which aimed to exaggerate the differences between Europeans and colonial
subjects, in order to present them as inferior, uncivilised, and in some cases, a species of
separate origin. This sought to justify the colonial expeditions, with photographs showing
indigenous people envisioned as savage giving a philanthropic justification to colonialism as
a means of civilising them and aiding development in the western constructed ‘tropics’.
Moreover, the growing discipline of anthropology made use of photography as a means of
studying and comparing various races, using prescribed standardised poses and grids to
highlight the variation between subjects. Despite being considered by some contemporary
scientists to be a useful tool of comparison and portrayal, imperial photography was
controversial, both within the contemporary zeitgeist and today, for a plethora of reasons.
Whilst it was claimed to be for scientific purposes and to allow maximum scope for
comparison, the photographing of subjects naked suggested voyeurism and exploitation,
drawing links with its contemporary photographic discipline: pornography.2 Furthermore, the
use of stereotypical props such as spears and tools in staged portraits allowed the
1 Suheir Hammad, ‘Not Your Erotic, Not Your Exotic’ in Born Palestinian Born Black & The Gaza Suite, (New
York: 2010),p. 64.
2 Brian Wallace,‘Black Bodies,WhiteScience: Louis Agassiz’s SlaveDaguerreotypes’, American Art 9, (1995) p.
54.

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preconceptions of the photographer to detract from the scientific value of the photographs,
displaying western ideas of other cultures opposed to accurate representations.
The Great Exhibitions of the nineteenth and early twentieth century were a parallel means
of displaying and representing colonised people and cultures. Like photography, these were
initially presented as scientific, featuring lectures in pseudoscience such as phrenology with
colonial subjects present to illustrate them. A later reliance on public funding led to these too
taking a voyeuristic turn and seeking to present indigenous people as exhibits to be observed
and enjoyed. They staged mock battles and dances in reconstructed ‘native’ settlements, and
offered a sense of stimulated tourism in the mythical ‘tropics’. The willingness of colonial
subjects to participate in these varied across the Empire, with settlers colonies under British
administration, such as India, submitting exhibits to represent their economic prosperity and
potential exports. Less thriving nations such as the African and Australian colonies were
constructed as underdeveloped in order to garner support for civilising colonial missions
there. As will be examined in chapter two, evidence suggests that many residents of the
exhibitions were kidnapped or coerced into participation. The specific experiences of three
colonial subjects deemed particularly extraordinary are examined in chapter two as case
studies.
Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) presents a perfect framework with which to assess the
role of scientific photography and colonial exhibitions in creating constructions of colonised
nations to present to academic communities and the general public at home. Asserting that
‘the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea,
personality, experience’,3 Said’s view is that non-Westernised societies were culturally
constructed to consolidate the identity of the West. This suggests that the nature of
presentations of colonial subjects is resultant of the desire to display them as uncivilised and
3 Edward Said, Orientalism, (5th edn, London, 2003) p. 1.

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under-developed, thus showing Europe to be justified in its colonial civilising mission. In
being the designers and authors of a westernised view of non-European countries, colonisers
were able to mask the hegemonic relationships held to dominate their subjects. This presented
colonialism as mutually beneficial, orchestrating a voice for the nations represented and using
it to justify their exploitation and convince the public that indigenous people were in need of
Western support and did not warrant the same degree of humanity Westerners were credited
with. As will be examined further in later chapters, the postcolonial lens through which
photography and the great exhibitions are now viewed provides us with great insight into
assessing the true motivations behind their construction. From the early intentions to use
colonial bodies to prove pseudoscientific theories to the later succumbing to the will of the
general public in presenting exotic bodies and cultures for financial and voyeuristic purposes,
the motivations of imperial nations will be revealed as orientalist.
This dissertation is presented in two halves: the first will focus on photography in the
colonial period, charting its development from early anthropometric photographs of subjects
from nations perceived to be the least advanced. The use of an anthropometric grid in the
background of each picture, coupled with the standardised poses and nudity of the subjects
presents them as a tool for comparison between races, allowing for the bone structure and
stature to be analysed. Anthropometry is defined by Oxford English Dictionary as ‘the
measurement of the human body with a view to determine its average dimensions, and the
proportion of its parts, at different ages and in different races or classes’.4 Working in
conjunction with other contemporary practises, such as phrenology, in order to rank the
various races of humanity, it emphasised the differences between them, contributing to
theories that separate races were in fact separate species with no common origin. I will
examine sources such as contemporary articles and reviews on the process of photography
4 OED, ‘anthropometry’, www.oed.com [accessed 17/04/2015].

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and photographic exhibitions to assess the degree to which it was utilised as a scientific tool.
Earlier anthropometric sources, by racial photographers such as Louis Agassiz will be
compared to the works of Oscar Mallitte, who used traditional props and European costumes
in his works on subject ‘Jack’ to construct an example of a successful civilising process. I
will draw conclusions on whether there was any true scientific justification to these sources,
or whether the preconceptions and racial stereotypes of the perpetrators clouded the
possibility of genuine research. The roles of voyeurism and sexualisation will also be
considered, as an increasing public interest in indigenous peoples, fuelled in part by the great
exhibitions, shifted focus from scientific research to satisfying the public appetite for
anything exotic or grotesque, and convincing them of the justifications of colonialism.
The second section will centre on colonial exhibitions, with sources such as lecture
transcripts, diaries and articles used to gain an insight into both the official conceptions of the
exhibitions and the first hand realities of the experience. Whilst the personal accounts and
testimonies of participating subjects in the exhibitions are scarce, a sense of their experience
can be derived from both primary and more recent sources focussing on individual cases such
as those of Sara Baartman, Julia Pastrana and the ‘last Aztecs’ of South America. These will
be examined at the end of Chapter Two, allowing for consideration on how each individual
was treated and why their experiences may have differed from those of the majority of
exploited colonial subjects. The enduring legacy of subjects such as Baartman ‘the Hottentot
Venus’ shows how the colonial period was the catalyst for a fascination with peoples
considered ‘Other’ and cultural stereotypes about non-European societies and developing
nations which are still prevalent today. To say that photography and the exhibitions can now
be discredited as scientific tools is obvious. This dissertation will seek to probe further,
questioning the extent to which public opinion influenced contemporary science and how

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preconceptions about ‘natives’ were the main reason for the lack of scientific worth in
presentations of them.

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Chapter One: Science and Voyeurism: Colonial Photography
A Letter to the editor of the Lancet in 1898 praised the scientific aspects of the International
Photography Exhibition at Crystal Palace in the same year, emphasizing the possible
contribution the new technology of photography could make to science. It noted that
‘photography plays both as a recording agent and otherwise in so many scientific and
manufacturing processes’.5 The author sought to justify photography as an academic tool,
stating that ‘a considerable area has been devoted to collections illustrating as fully as
possible the many scientific applications of photography.’6 This attempt to legitimise
scientific photography reflects the practises prevalent at the time in disciplines such as
anthropology: for instance the use of profile shots against an anthropometric grid allowed
anthropologists and ethnographers to measure and compare the physical characteristics of
different races. Described as ‘one of the most important aids to research in many fields of
science’7 by Nature magazine in 1874, the use of photography as a tool for scientific
documentation and colonial propaganda in late nineteenth and early twentieth century was
paramount. In Colonial Photography and Exhibitions (1999), Anne Maxwell correlates the
rise of scientific photography of colonial subjects with contemporary theories of race, such as
the Darwinist random mutation and natural selection. Racial science manipulated
photography as an implement for confirming its views, taking advantage of the fact the
photographs were seen as solely objective and realistic sources, and their findings were likely
to be taken literally when circulated within an audience. Despite this, Maxwell casts doubt
upon the academic motivations of many photographers in the period, asserting that ‘whereas
anthropologists’ goal was to document the physical and cultural characteristics of what they
believed were the world’s least advanced races, photographers travelling to the East set out to
5R. Child-Bayley,‘International Photography Exhibition,Crystal Palace’, Lancet, (1898) p. 260.
6 Ibid.
7 ‘The Photographic Society’, Nature 5 (1874) http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech-
ind?type=article&did=HistSciTech.Nature18740205.i0006&id=HistSciTech.Nature18740205&isize=M [accessed
27/03/15] p. 264.

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cater to public hunger for information on exotic peoples’ appearances and living habits.’8
This chapter aims to explore the depth of the relationship between photography and science
in the colonial period, and the extent to which anthropometric photography was clouded by
preconceptions regarding the advancement of races and by the voyeurism of photographers
and the general public.
Despite its attempt to add scientific justification to anthropology as a discipline, the role of
photography as an objective source was flawed. J. H Lamprey’s anthropometric grid was
designed to compare subjects of various races in positions such as full frontal, side view and
seated. Subjects were photographed naked to allow for maximum assessment. Maxwell notes
this, concluding that it only worked as a method when subjects were so heavily repressed that
they ignored their own reluctant nudity and submitted to the procedure without complaint.
This manipulation of the least rebellious colonial subjects added a veneer of intellectual and
moral superiority to the violence and oppression of the colonial regime, presenting colonised
peoples as lacking agency, and the aggressive efforts of European colonisers as being
academically motivated. Despite being written after the majority of anthropometric
photography examined in this essay was produced, P. C. Mahalanobis’ On the Need for
Standardisation in the Measures of the Living (1928) is useful here as a signifier of the lack
of standardisation in the anthropometric measurements of human subjects. Claiming that
‘lack of agreement between different observers about fundamental definitions and techniques
of measurements constitutes an almost insurmountable obstacle to comparative studies in
Anthropometry of the living’,9 Mahalanobis acknowledges that the practise of using
photographic evidence to compare the anatomy of races was defective. The lack of an
8 Anne Maxwell, Colonial Photography and Exhibitions: Representations of the ‘Native’ and the Making of
European Identities, (2nd edn. London, 1999), p. 38.
9 P.C. Mahalanobis,‘On the Need for Standardisation in the Measurements of the Living’, Biometrika 20A
(1928) http://www.jstor.org/stable/23331938 [accessed 28/03/15] p. 1.

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indisputable set of outlines decreases the value of anthropometric photography, as variation
in method allows for the preconceptions and intentions of the photographer to influence the
product. Whilst he condemns the lack of standardisation, rather than the use of photography
and the discipline itself, this still undermines the efforts of nineteenth and early twentieth
century photographs to use such images to justify views of racial difference and separate
origin. As a contributor to anthropometry himself, Mahalanobis founded the Mahalanobis
distance as a means of measurement. His critique of anthropometry’s ability to accurately
portray various races and acknowledgment of the discrepancies between the works of
photographers reflects the increasing discrediting of racial science towards the end of the
colonial period, and its eventual branding as pseudoscience.
The photographs of African slaves and South Americans taken by Louis Agassiz in the
nineteenth century take the form of fifteen silver daguerreotypes displaying slaves in a
physiognomic approach from the front and side views. Agassiz’s intention was to use these
photographs as an anthropological tool to confirm his theory of polygenesis. In his work on
Agassiz, Brian Wallace notes ‘if it is a shock to see full frontal nudity in early American
photography, it is even more surprising to see it without the trappings of shame or sexual
fantasy.’10 Despite the lack of explicit sexualisation within Agassiz’s photographs, when
Anne Maxwell’s view that the majority of naked subjects were those who were too repressed
by the regime to protest is considered, it is problematic to assume that the subjects of these
photographs were without shame. Furthermore, Wallace makes the later admission that ‘it is
perhaps not coincidental that by their unprecedented nudity, the slave daguerreotypes
intersect with pornography’.11 In images showing colonised subjects such as Sara Baartman,
focus is placed on the proportions of her body, emphasising her derriere as being larger than
that of the average Caucasian woman, and attributing this to the view that black people were
10 Wallace,‘Black Bodies’,p. 40.
11 Wallace,‘Black Bodies’,p. 54.

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not only intuitively sexual, but vulgar and animalistic. Wallace later states that ‘the equally
complex acts of taking, reading, or organising photographs animate all the trajectories of
power and desire, mastery and projection, self and other that triangulate the visual fields and
govern reception,’12 acknowledging that the preconceptions and intentions of the
photographer cannot be separated from the finished product of photographs.
Examples of
Agassiz’s slave daguerreotypes. http://mirrorofrace.org/louis-agassiz-full-face-and-profile/
In her analysis of Agassiz’s work, Nancy Leys Stepan emphasises the idea of the ‘tropics’
as a haven of sensuality with none of the Victorian, bourgeois morals and standards of
decency that were prevalent in Britain. She acknowledges that ‘the frankly erotic, sexually
available body (almost always female and partially nude), situated in a tropical landscape, is
among the most alluring in the European tradition.’13 This also points toward the motivations
behind the departure of some contemporary photographers from scientific and ethnographic
photography to titillating photographs fulfilling the public desire to see native subjects as
erotic. This change can be linked to the development of the exhibitions as public attraction
12 Wallace,‘Black Bodies’,p. 48.
13 Nancy Leys Stepan, Picturing Tropical Nature (London, 2001),p. 88.

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when, upon losing scientific funding, they became increasingly exploitative and circus-like in
order to entertain audiences rather than to educate them and generate revenue from ticket
sales. The romanticising of the colonies as exotic sources of goods and adventure fuelled the
public desire to see them presented as thus, opposed to merely as scientific specimens.
Louis Agassiz PhotographicCollection. MixedRace Series.
Phrenological portrait, unidentifiedwoman. Photographer: Walter Hunnewell. Manaus, 1865–1866.
As well as providing titillation to viewers, these images sought to confirm views on the
colonial subject as a noble savage: at one with nature, and not yet ready to match the West in
terms of civility. Whilst the majority of Agassiz’s more eroticised photographs did not enter
wide circulation and therefore are not widely available to view today, we can interpret
photographs (such as the one above) showing an unidentified, shirtless woman in front of an
urban backdrop by a peer of Agassiz, as attempts by contemporary photographers to establish
a middle ground. It is insufficiently explicit to be discounted as pornography, yet still more
eroticised than original anthropometric photographs, allowing them to project personal ideas
of the sensual tropics onto their ‘scientific’ works.

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Despite being used by anthropologists to garner information on physical aspects of each
race, using these to assess their levels of civilisation and development, Agassiz’s
physiognomic daguerreotypes do not offer any insight into the cultural aspects or social
traditions of the subjects. The use by contemporary photographers of props such as weapons
in less scientifically motivated photographs can be perceived as having reinforced cultural
stereotypes and western preconceptions of indigenous people. Despite this, some
photographers did attempt to document colonial subjects in a way that ‘endowed them with
the traits normally associated with civility.’14 This can be said of Prince Roland Bonaparte, a
French prince whose obituary asserts that ‘he was not concerned with royal aspirations, but
devoted himself rather to scientific pursuits.’15 As President of the Société de Géographie,
Bonaparte attempted to feature the subjects of his photographs as active participants in their
construction, with the only detraction from his aim to represent other cultures accurately
being that he photographed subjects in exhibitions, not their home countries. His photographs
of Surinamese nationals in the Amsterdam exhibition and Native Americans in Pairs
‘highlight these people’s dignified carriage, their subtle sense of humour, and their obvious
pride in their culture…by exposing himself to the scrutiny of the ‘other’, Bonaparte was
arguably opening up a space for reciprocity’.16 The image overleaf, showing Iba-Hambi of
the Paris Exhibition highlights the dignity of the subject. Whilst he is shot in profile, inviting
comparison with the anthropometric photographs of Agassiz, the subject is fully clothed and
carries a prop representative of his culture, confirming this as a portrait opposed to a
daguerreotype.
14 Maxwell,Colonial Photography, 44.
15 ‘Obituary of Roland Bonaparte’, Geographical Review 14, (July, 1924), http://www.jstor.org/stable/208429
[accessed 27/03/15]
16 Maxwell,p. 44.

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Iba-Hambi, a NativeAmerican photographedby Bonapartein 1883
http://www.galerieflak.com/prince-roland-bonaparte-portrait-de-iba-hambi/
Bonaparte’s contemporary, Maurice Victor Portman details the procedure recommended for
photographing ‘less advanced’ races in his anthropological essay ‘Notes on the Andamese’:
It is absolutely necessary to have patience with the sitters, and to be in no
hurry…never lose you temper, and never show a savage that you think he is stupid, or,
on the other hand, allow him to think that, by playing the fool, he can annoy you, [or]
put you off your work.17
Whilst this presents the portrait photography of indigenous subjects within a captive setting
as a two way process, of the photographer working with his subject, it undermines the role of
coercion in what were essentially photographs of captives. This issue was exemplified in
1883 when nine Australian Aboriginals were captured by Canadian theatre agent Robert
Cunningham and toured around Europe and America as ‘Exotic Boomerang Throwers’.
Writing on the Australian National Gallery website, which displays photographs of the
subjects, Gael Newton highlights the ignorance of their captors stating that ‘six of the nine
17 M.V. Portman, ‘Notes on the Andamese’, Journal of the Anthropological Institute 25 (1896) p. 77.

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troupe members ‘recruited’ were from separate communities on Palm Island and three from
Hinchinbrook Island. They did not all speak the same traditional languages.’18 She also
describes the group’s insistence on stage costumes for their act as they ‘deeply resented
requests to be photographed naked’.19 The image below shows ‘Billy’, ‘Jenny’, and ‘Little
Toby’ the only three members of the group to survive to be photographed by Bonaparte in the
mid-1880s. The defensive stance and hostile expressions of the group exemplify their
unwillingness to be made a spectacle of; even with Bonaparte’s attempts to engage with his
subjects and present their cultures as they desired, the finished image appears to conform to
the western idea that Aboriginals were savage and uncivilised. This is evidence both that the
public display and the photographs of the group were scientifically redundant. Regardless of
Bonaparte’s intention to prevent his own ideas from clouding their portrayal, the formation of
the group from unrelated communities and the lack of attention for their individual cultures
ensues that Cunningham’s ignorance and preconceptions of them as generic savages renders
any examination of
the group as
representative of a
particular culture as
pointless.
‘Billy’, ‘Jenny’ and ‘Little Toby’
photographedby Bonaparte in
the mid-1880s.
18 Gael Newton, Text accompanyingpicture‘Members of R. A. CunninghamAustralian Aboriginal international
touring company, Crystal Palace,London, April 1884’,
http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=149689&PICTAUS=TRUE [accessed 26/03/15].
19 Ibid.

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The work of Agassiz’s peer Oscar Mallitte in photographing the Andaman Islands to prove
their worth as a potential penal colony draws contrast with Agassiz’s work. His human
photography features multiple shots of a single subject, ‘Jack’, attempting to document his
growing civility, opposed to seeking to prove that he is of separate origin to Caucasians and
is therefore incapable of developing in the same way. Historian Claire Andersen has worked
extensively on researching Mallitte’s career and her 2009 paper ‘Oscar Mallitte’s Andaman
Photographs. 1857-58’ gives a familiar account of the research party’s procurement of ‘Jack’:
‘the survey party kidnapped and forcibly removed [him] to Calcutta, with a view for showing
him the supposed benefits of ‘civilisation’ and learning something of Andamanese culture.’20
The development of the photographic series begins with ‘Jack’ reluctantly posing naked
against a backdrop of Andananese cultural objects. This picture aims to display his lack of
civilisation when captured, yet also unwitting reveals the violent coercion used by Mallitte
and his party in the Andamans. Despite being captured naked, ‘Jack’ is said to have been
reluctant to remove his newly acquired clothes for the camera, and embarrassed to redisplay
his body. Mallitte’s companion Mouat later revealed in an untitled lecture that ‘we had to
keep him at his post by menace of a stick’,21 attempting to use this episode of ‘Jack’s refusal
to strip to justify the civilising aspects of colonisation, claiming that within a short time in the
company of Westerners, ‘Jack’ had advanced to feel shame about his naked body and desired
to cover it. Instead of revealing the results of a slow path of cultural and civil advancement,
Mallitte’s later photograph of ‘Jack’ in a naval uniform leaning against a Western house
simply show his indoctrination, and the obvious attempts of the party to present him as
compliant with their plans for the island. One photograph showing his anthropometric
measurements aside, Mallitte’s photographs of ‘Jack’ demonstrate an alternate reason for
20 ClaireAndersen, ‘Oscar Mallitte’s Andaman Photography, 1857-58’,History Workshop Journal 67, (2009)
http://Ira.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/9818 [accessed 15/03/15] p.152.
21 Andersen, ‘Oscar Mallitte’, p. 158.

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colonial photography: as a means of propaganda in attempting to display benefits to
colonised people by the regime. This propaganda was necessary, as the nature of racist
photography changed to accommodate the public views on colonialism at the time: the
initially romanticised ideas about civilisation and prosperity gave way to disillusionment
from back home in the later nineteenth century. The manipulation of the discipline of colonial
photography by Mallitte also reflects the growing fascination of the public with more
theatrical portrayals of indigenous peoples, showing them culturally staged opposed to in a
scientific context.

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Chapter Two: Colonised Bodies on Display: The Great Exhibitions
In 1851, the Great Exhibition of Crystal Palace, London opened to rave reviews from the
Lancet. Stating that ‘a really representative exhibition of our imperial resources should make
a most useful, as well as a most fascinating show’,22 the exhibition is a perfect example of the
fascination with both the cultures and people of the colonised countries in the British Empire.
Akin to colonial photography, the exhibitions provided the academic communities and
general public with examples of colonial subjects to examine, contributing to scientific
research and consolidating views on western superiority and the justification of colonialism.
The Lancet’s further remark that ‘the greater number of the Crown Colonies have made
arrangements to be represented…little doubt that Canada, New South Wales, South Australia
and New Zealand will be officially represented’23 highlights the diversity of the exhibits
present. Official displays are advertised from the more anglicised settler colonies to highlight
the success of British exploits there, whereas today the exhibitions are more widely
remembered for voyeuristic exhibits showcasing British portrayals of the cultures of less
‘civilised’ colonial subjects. Whilst few eyewitness sources exist to inform us of the realities
of witnessing and participating in the exhibitions, the paradigm shift in the content and
intentions of those in France is well documented by Anne Maxwell in Colonial Photography
and Exhibitions. She places the initial exhibitions, such as the 1867 Paris Exposition
Universelle as being motivated by the desire to increase support for French colonialism by
educating the public in progressivist evolution: the idea that evolution among the human race
is staggered, and that the West was more advanced teleologically. Like the early British
exhibitions where indigenous people from colonised nations were displayed alongside
pseudoscientific lectures on their development and mental capacity, the Exposition
Universelle featured exhibits such as a Tunisian barbers and an Indian bazaar. These were
22 ‘The Crystal Palace:An Interesting Exhibition’, Lancet, (November, 1904).
23 Ibid.

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staffed by representatives from these countries, allowing visitors to interact with them and
experience their culture first hand. The 1889 acceptance of anthropology as a legitimate
discipline was hugely influential in this sense, as it gave academic backing to the exhibitions
and justified a visit to them as an intellectual activity linked to gentlemanly pursuits. This
defines them as a legitimate successor to the racist photography of the earlier nineteenth
century: the growing disillusionment with the objectivity of photography gave way to the
exhibitions, which appeared more legitimate cultural representations as they were live and
allowed the audience to interact.
The late 1880s saw the reduction of private funding for scientific pursuits in both England
and France.24 This led to an increased reliance on profit from the general public meaning that
the voyeuristic aspects of the exhibitions became more prevalent alongside the anthropologic
and ethnographic features. The Paris exhibition introduced bars and fences surrounding the
exhibits, meaning that visitors had less of an opportunity to interact with participants and the
exhibits took on a more circus-like role, with mock battles and traditional dances promising
to ‘transport the imagination to the enchanted countries of the far off orient’.25 The scientific
elements were forced to work within these performance-centred boundaries, with the Chaillot
Hill area of Paris being converted in 1889 into a replica African village, erected with
traditional materials and showing indigenous occupants engaging in ethnographically
inaccurate local rituals and crafts. Whilst this gave scientific opportunity to study the
inhabitants of the villages, making the world increasingly ‘measurable and knowable’26 the
lack of respect for cultural and tribal variation meant that people of different cultures and
languages were often displayed together as a single exhibit. This detracted from their
24 Maxwell,Colonial Photography, p. 17.
25 Ibid.
26 Maxwell,Colonial Photography, p. 19.

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anthropological value as an example of a particular race and rendered the exhibit
scientifically redundant.
Whilst not scientifically successful or useful by today’s standards, the native village
exhibits did aid contemporary racial pseudoscience by reinforcing racial hierarchies and
aiming to confirm theories of separate levels of development in their controlling of the
perceptions of certain groups. Maxwell presents the example of the Dahomeyans, who were
presented as pathetic and unprepared for civilisation by their constant nakedness and
scavenger lifestyle; a lifestyle out of their control, as they had neither livestock nor
appropriate land for growing crops.27 This nominates them as the perfect example of people
resident of lands seen as unsuitable for western settlers; the Lancet mentions that ‘there can
be no doubt that the chief barrier to intimate relations between the mother country and some
of the dependencies has hitherto been caused by the conditions of tropical or climatic disease’,
rendering them unsuitable for residence by Europeans. Whilst it must be noted that the
Lancet28 speaks in reference to England, their portrayal of certain climates as suitable only
for underdeveloped and primitive societies was one prominent within the entire European
intellectual zeitgeist of the nineteenth century. The Dahomeyans’ 1890 declaration of war on
the French in Africa changed their portrayal to that of bloodthirsty savages, whilst their later
defeat rendered their presentation as increasingly pathetic once again. The French
administrators of the exhibition went so far as to attempt to recreate the race of life and
civilisation with the Baggage Porters Race, a race between celebrated French athletes and
Dahomeyan men carrying 100 kilo sacks. The race was won by Ahivi, a Dahomeyan man,
with much embarrassment to the organisers and resulting celebrity for him.
27 Maxwell,Colonial Photography, p. 20.
28 ‘The Crystal Palace’, Lancet.

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Whilst the Exhibition Universelle is a prime example of the commodification of colonial
subjects perceived as less civilised, the India and Colonial Exhibition in London presents a
contrasting view of the exhibitions as India is presented as a profitable and valuable imperial
subject. The rise of consumerism was manipulated by the exhibitions that alongside
presenting colonial subjects as beings to be visually consumed focused on the designs and
craftsmanship of India, harnessing its potential as a myriad of exotic consumer goods. The
Board of Trade meeting, 1908, on the ‘Participation of Great Britain in Great International
Exhibitions’ highlights the commercial benefit of the exhibitions in acknowledging that,
whilst the more popular and highly regarded exhibitors are reluctant to pay their own
expenses, ‘second-rate and third-rate people are often not only willing but eager to take
advantage of an opportunity of showing their things and advertising themselves.’29
Furthermore, John McCarthy’s 1887 lecture in celebration of Queen Victoria’s jubilee
‘Reminisces of the Colonial and India Exhibition: A Lecture’ pays tribute to the exhibition’s
role in consumerism stating:
Many members of the mercantile community are not satisfied with reading of goods
they wish to purchase and trade in. They are anxious to have practical experience of
them, and surely in no better manner could one become familiar with known
products or investigate new ones than by paying a visit to the recent Exhibition.30
McCarthy’s lecture does include reference to encountering native Indians; however his focus
is not a voyeuristic fascination with their culture or levels of development, but rather a
celebration of their contribution to the Empire: ‘sepoys, sowars and native officers of our
Indian army are all represented. Clothed in their various shades of ‘Karkee’, some standing to
29 ‘Minutes of Evidence taken by the Board of Trade with reference to The Participation of Great Britain in
Great International Exhibitions’,(1908).
30 John McCarthy, Reminisces of the Colonial and India Exhibition: A Lecture (1887).

23. 23
attention, others at ease, we have reason to be proud of our East Indian warriors’.31 This
presents an alternative side to the motivations of the exhibitions: whilst to a degree they
focused on using ethnography to justify western superiority and dominance over other races,
they also aimed to induce nostalgia, romanticising the colonies as a proud and paramount
contributor to contemporary Britain. The Canadian Court of the Exhibition is described as
‘more like home than any other’32 clarifying McCarthy’s intention to create a sense of unity
and harmony in his portrayal of the colonies, and providing his audience with the notion of
foreign travel and exploration that contemporary events such as the Napoleonic Wars and the
high cost of travel made inaccessible to many British people.33 This interpretation of the
intentions of the exhibitions is resultant of the growing need to defend imperialism at the end
of the nineteenth century. McCarthy’s presentation of Indian soldiers as a source of pride and
Canada as a home from home for the English implies a degree of success for the civilising
mission and compliance and pride on the part of colonial subjects.
Prior to the mid nineteenth century, the usual form of colonial exhibitions was an
ethnographic lecture followed by the exhibiting or performance of a colonial subject deemed
particularly crowd pleasing, such as Sara Baartman, the renowned Hottentot Venus, or
tribesmen from Australia or Latin America presented as primitive and fearsome. These were
usually staged by aspiring showmen seeking fame and profit, or by missionaries using the
opportunity to raise funds for further expeditions and to generate awareness of their work,
fusing financial gain with the rising philanthropic notion of public education. In Peoples on
Parade (2011), Sadiah Qureshi attributes these early spectacles with the rise of science as a
professional discipline. This is a recent contribution to research in colonial history, as the
history of science has broadened in recent years to include the study of folk and indigenous
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Sadiah Qureshi, Peoples On Parade, (Chicago,2011),p. 2.

24. 24
practises as well as science as a gentlemanly pursuit and specifically colonial sciences such as
phrenology which have now been discredited. These shows linked morals and mental
capacity to climate and social organisation, featuring ‘natives’ of less developed societies
with traditional props such as spears as proof of this. Whilst these were performed under the
pretence of being for scientific research purposes, educating the public on their imperial
compatriots and allowing anthropologists to examine specimens, to describe them as purely
academic ventures would be to detract from the changing role of the colonial subject as an
anthropological specimen. Rather, these early shows served more as ‘living curiosities’34,
also featuring exotic animals and remarkable people such as dwarves and bearded women.
Qureshi warns against seeing these early exhibits solely as freak shows, stating that ‘whilst
this has been fruitful in understanding how conventions of representing deviance may have
shaped the shows’ histories, it has also encouraged, supported and consolidated the
implication that foreign peoples were routinely interpreted as evidently strange, deformed,
bizarre, anomalous, or even pathological.’35 Although Qureshi is correct to acknowledge that
the reducing of early colonial exhibitions to freak shows is too simplistic and detracts from
the genuine scientific curiosity into other cultures at the time, there are a plethora of examples
of colonial subjects being treated as objects of voyeuristic curiosity which will now be
examined as brief case studies.
Sara Baartman is perhaps the most well-known example of an extreme case of colonial
caricature. A Khoi woman now most commonly remembered for her prominent buttocks,
Baartman was ‘the subject of much learned commentary, most famously perhaps by Sander
Gilman, who saw her as emblematic of black female sexuality.’36 She was brought to
England in 1810 by Hendrick Cezar, her employer’s brother, where she was displayed in
34 Qureshi,p. 8.
35 Ibid.
36 Robert Gordon, ‘The Life and Times of Sara Baartman:The Hottentot Venus’, American Anthropologist Vol.
102, No. 3 (2000) http://www.jstor.org/stable/683422 [accessed 21/03/15] p. 606.

25. 25
various shows receiving half of the profits. Despite Baartman’s financial gain from her own
exploitation, she was still objectified and viewed voyeuristically as an exotic object. Noted by
Charles Mathews in his memoirs: ‘one pinched her; one gentleman poked her with his cane;
one lady employed her parasol to ascertain that all she was, as she called it ‘nattral’…on
these occasions it took all the authority of the keeper to subdue her resentment’.37 Upon her
death, Baartman’s body was embalmed and her genitalia preserved. She was not restored to
her native South Africa until 1999.
The treatment of Julia Pastrana, a Mexican woman suffering from hypertrichosis, now
recognised as a disease causing excessive growth of bodily hair, is another paramount
example of a subaltern being viewed as a curiosity and subjected to invasive and intuitive
treatment in the names of entertainment and science. In his examination of her body
following her death from childbirth, M Trettenbacher describes the appearance of her head as
‘unprecedented in the history of the development of the human body.’38 As well as his
anthropological measurements of her limbs, Trettenbacher appears to display a certain sexual
interest in her corpse, stating that ‘she was remarkable for the full development of her
breasts’.39 The bodies of both Pastrana and her child were embalmed with the intention to
display them in the anatomical museum of the University of Moscow. This represented a
morbidly fitting end for Pastrana, who had been sold to a circus by the family, and performed
in delicate South American costumes and jewellery to highlight the contrast with her
‘primitive' appearance. A photograph of Pastrana is included in H. N. Hutchinson’s The
Living Races of Mankind, a text with allegedly anthropometric motivations that presents
Pastrana as a primitive parody of popular Spanish dancer Lola Montez.40 This photograph
(included below) conforms to the rise in voyeuristic photography of colonial subjects, with
37 Charles Mathews, Memoirs of Charles Mathews, (1839) 4:137.
38 M. Trettenbacher in ‘Julia Pastranaand her Child’, Lancet (May, 1862).
39 Ibid.
40 Maxwell,Colonial Photography, p. 55-58.

26. 26
the contrast of the extravagant costume and inelegant pose appearing to ridicule Pastrana.
Hutchinson’s book further detracts from the humanity attributed to indigenous peoples,
claiming ‘it is quite probable that they are really a distinct species’.41 The Lancet quotes a Mr.
Tomes as using Pastrana to compare the relationship between missing teeth and abnormal
hair in humans and monkeys, stating that ‘in the human subject all it was possible to state was
that abnormality of hair is apt to be accompanied by abnormality of teeth. In the
monkey…abnormality of teeth was quite independent.’42 Whilst this appears to confirm that
Pastrana was ‘scientifically’ proven to not be of the monkey species, it still proposes that
there was doubt cast over her belonging entirely to the race of man. Pastrana’s body was
displayed in fairs in America until 1972, showing that for such a valued colonial curiosity,
death did not mean the end of exploitation.
Julia Pastrana, FromHutchinson’s TheLivingRaces of Mankind, 1900
41 H. N. Hutchinson, The Living Races of Mankind, (1900).
42 Lancet 150 (1897).

27. 27
The third and final case examined here is that of the ‘last Aztecs’ Máximo Váldez Núñez
and Bartola Velásquez, thought to be a brother and sister from South America.43 The siblings
were taken from their parents by Ramón Selva, a Spanish trader who claimed that he wished
to take them to the United States where they could be cured of their learning difficulties.
Instead, they were brought to London in 1853 where they performed as ‘Aztec Lillputians’.
Whilst it must be taken into account that their lowly birth and learning difficulties meant that
performing was one of the few ways in which they could make a living, their staged,
incestuous marriage in 1867, saving their waning popularity as an exhibit and generating
profitable merchandise akin to a modern royal wedding, suggests that they had little control
over the content of their performances and were manipulated by those exhibiting them.
These case studies show the extent of exploitation involved in the exhibitions of the
nineteenth century, resultant in part of the desire by the general public to view colonial
‘natives’ as obviously ‘other’ to themselves. Whilst it cannot be denied that for some
performers, being exhibited gave them security that their status in society or abnormalities
may otherwise have denied them, the exploitation they faced and fascination with their bodies
even after death presents the voyeuristic undertones to contemporary ethnographic focus on
them. In his 2003 publication Photography and Surrealism: Sexuality, Colonialism and
Social Dissent, David Bate examines the end of the colonial period, and the growing
discontent with conventional exhibitions.44 He describes The Truth of the Colonies exhibition
in Paris, founded in 1931 by members of the Communist Party, Anti-Imperialist League and
Surrealists. The dual focus on revealing the more macabre aspects of colonialism, such as
massacres and repression, alongside caricaturing the organiser of the Colonial Exposition,
Marshal Lyautey, to undermine his efforts to justify colonialism, show that the rising political
43 Qureshi,Peoples on Parade, p. 128.
44 David Bate, Photography and Surrealism: Sexuality, Colonialism and Social Dissent, (London, 2003) pp. 214-
217.

28. 28
conflicts of the twentieth century put colonialism at the centre of the issues dividing society.
This supports the idea that the decline of voyeurism in relation to indigenous peoples was
directly correlated with the decline of pseudoscience originally used to justify the treatment
of colonised people as uncivilised and in some cases subhuman. Despite initially appearing as
opposing motivations, it is apparent that in terms of photography and the exhibitions,
scientific curiosity and perverse voyeurism were not mutually exclusive, and there was no
platform for scientific research unless facilitated with revenue generated from entertaining
the public.

29. 29
Conclusion
In her 2012 essay ‘Objects of Affect: Photography Beyond the Image’, Elizabeth Edwards
states that ‘photographs have divergent, non-linear, social biographies spread over divergent
multiple material originals and multiple, dispersed, atomized performances.’45 I draw a
similar conclusion here. The nature of photography in the colonial period was such that,
despite its initial attempts to appear objective and scientific, the entrenched values and
preconceptions of individual photographers are apparent in the presentation of colonial
subjects. Furthermore, the changing public perceptions of colonialism as an enterprise
affected the way in which photographs were interpreted. As a process, colonial photography
developed significantly through the imperial age, from the early attempts of the East India
Company to document the cultural traits of the nations they visited, to the anthropometric
period of Agassiz aiming to analyse and compare the physical characteristics of races. Finally
there were the voyeuristic and staged photographs of Mallitte et al which served a
propaganda purpose, highlighting the perceived primitiveness of non-occidental races and
then using costume to show their increased civilisation under colonial rule.
Whilst to contemporary audiences, photography may have been seen as a vital tool of
anthropological research, the discrediting of anthropometrics as a legitimate means of
examining and comparing the characteristics of various races in the early twentieth century
renders the physical comparisons of these photographs inadequate as a means of assessing
their worth and levels of development. This is why it is pertinent that they are re-examined
today. Allan Sekula describes photography as a form of currency, quantifying and placing the
subject within the circulating system of values of the contemporary zeitgeist.46 This is
relevant here, confirming that whilst anthropometric photographs were apposite in
45 Elizabeth Edwards, ‘Objects of Affect: Photography Beyond the Image’, Annual Review of Anthropology 41
(2012) p. 223.
46 Wallace,‘Black Bodies’,p. 46.

30. 30
confirming the polygenic beliefs and ideas of Western superiority at the time, the system they
circulated in was an orientalist one, seeking to physically legitimise the ideology of
colonialism. They represent not the true culture of features of the race portrayed, but a
westernised construction of them.
The colonial exhibitions were similarly motivated. Claiming to offer a touristic experience
of a the colonies for those who were unable to facilitate foreign travel for themselves, they
mirrored photography in developing from pseudoscientific displays of colonial subjects to
circuslike extravaganzas featuring exploited people and cultural performances derived from
western assumptions about foreign cultures. Akin to photography, the decreasing of funding
from scientific communities drove the exhibitions to conform to the public desire to ‘have
practical experience’47 of the culture and traditions of the colonies opposed to simply being
fed pseudoscientific facts about their inhabitants, in order to generate revenue. This confirms
that the presentation of indigenous bodies the colonial period was inherently orientalist and
voyeuristic: photographers and the organisers of exhibitions were forced to increase the
exploitative and theatrical elements of their displays in order to make them relevant to the
general public. The cultural inaccuracies of acts such as the ‘Exotic Boomerang Throwers’
and the exploitation of the ‘Last Aztec’ siblings collude with the use of staging in Mallitte’s
reluctantly naked and then deliberately costumed photographs of ‘Jack’. This attests to the
lack of agency granted to colonial subjects, rendering their contribution to western ideas of
foreign culture that of tools of their own oppression. This need for colonial propaganda using
coerced subjects to attest to the value of the colonial enterprise was subsequent of both the
increasing public inquisitiveness in the legitimacy of the colonies, and the need to satisfy
their curiosity about foreign cultures in order to generate fund the exhibitions and garner
circulation for photographers. Furthermore, in the racist climate of the contemporary zeitgeist,
47 McCarthy, ‘Reminisces’

31. 31
the preconceived ideas of western superiority posed an influence which cannot be separated
from presentations of colonial subjects at the time: no academic value can be drawn from
works that are not solely objective.
Word count: 7,337

32. 32
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