by Lizza Littlewort
'I collect wildly expensive and gruesome photographs of starving Africans, but it has nothing to do with ethnological show business. That is a daft suggestion,' said a UK art buyer, weeping with sadness that her motives could be so crudely insulted.
Charlotte Dickenson, who is in Africa buying for the permanent collection of The Photographer's Gallery, London, explained that the photographs were of great value because they raised awareness about the plight of so many African people, while simultaneously providing proof that Africa's problems were clearly of its own making. Responding to a question whether awareness could not be raised by printing the pictures in a magazine, she said that awareness could most effectively be raised by huge pictures that facilitated the lengthy study of gruesome detail. Also, the high prices they fetched were an indication that Africa was being taken seriously. She added that pictures of African people looking as though they were normal intelligent people in control of their lives were not of interest to anyone.
A regular British collector of these photographs corroborated Dickenson's views. He said he could see no connection between the roaring trade in this kind of photography and the roaring trade in ethnological show business in Britain dating back to 1501, when live Eskimos were exhibited in Bristol. 'Those were different times,' he explained. 'Britons were not conscious of the ills of their racist urges. Now, they are conscious that they should rephrase their descriptions of these urges.'
Ethnological show business escalated in Britain during the Victorian era, when explorative expeditions in Africa brought home the most profitable live acts. The happy coincidence of this being the Age of Darwinism allowed the acts the added allure of being presented as 'The Missing Link'. Pygmies, Zulus, Bushmen and Hottentots were showing everywhere from Clapham Junction to Hyde Park Corner to Buckingham Palace.
Not all these shows were authentic. When demand exceeded supply, show business entrepreneurs did not hesitate to recruit non-African blacks. Showmen sought to satisfy an ever-increasing public craving for authenticity. The audiences turned out to see the shows expecting them to corroborate what they had heard, and thus black people were represented as brutish and barely human. They were denigrated, humiliated, dehumanised and exploited. A powerful voice adding to the rain of insults was that of Charles Dickens, the great humanitarian, who had never been to Africa in his life and garnered his emphatic opinions third hand from unreliable travellers.
'As I've already said, I don't see any connection,' said Charlotte Dickinson, blowing her nose vigorously. 'The British are no longer racist. Nor are the Germans or the Americans or the Israelis. You can't stick labels like that onto them. They're too wealthy.'

Much of this text is pillaged from Africans on Stage, edited by Bernth Lindfors.