The SLWF was a 1,200 acre extravaganza with over 1,500 buildings, connected by 75 miles of roads and walkways. Over 60 countries and 43 states exhibited—among them the newly acquired colonies from the Spanish-American War.
Some of the displays were of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and included the native inhabitants like the Apache and the Igorot, both of which were dubbed as "primitive". According to the Reverend Sequoyah Ade:
To further illustrate the indignities heaped upon the Philippine people following their eventual loss to the Americans, the United States made the Philippine campaign the centrepoint of the 1904 World's Fair held that year in St. Louis, MI [sic]. In what was enthusiastically termed a "parade of evolutionary progress," visitors could inspect the "primitives" that represented the counterbalance to "Civilisation" justifying Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden.” Pygmies from New Guinea and Africa, who were later displayed in the Primate section of the Bronx Zoo, were paraded next to American Indians such as Apache warrior Geronimo, who sold his autograph. But the main draw was the Philippine exhibit complete with full size replicas of Indigenous living quarters erected to exhibit the inherent backwardness of the Philippine people. The purpose was to highlight both the "civilising" influence of American rule and the economic potential of the island chains' natural resources on the heels of the Philippine-America War. It was, reportedly, the largest specific Aboriginal exhibit displayed in the exposition. As one pleased visitor commented, the human zoo exhibit displayed "the race narrative of odd peoples who mark time while the world advances, and of savages made, by American methods, into civilized workers."
One of the exhibited Pygmies was Ota Benga, a Congolese man who was featured in a human zoo exhibit at the Bronx Zoo alongside an orangutan in 1906.
Filipinos were exhibited as uncivilized to garner more support for the taking of the Philippines as a colony. Different groups of Filipinos were separated and put behind fences, each in their own diorama like environment. For added effect, certain paddocks of Filipinos were dressed in western uniforms while neighboring ones wore bahags and other indigenous clothing.
Filipinos and monkeys raced up trees, drawing conclusions that Filipinos were less evolved than their western counterparts and promoting the concepts of human evolution and scientific racism. Filipinos roasted different animals for food and savvy businessmen and marketers took advantage of the intrigue and popularized the “hot dog.”
After the fair was completed, many of the international exhibits were not returned to their country of origin, but were dispersed to museums in the USA. For example, the Philippine exhibits were acquired by the Museum of Natural History, at the University of Iowa.
This was a time before plans flew and electricity was new. Radio and television were not household fixtures. While this event is an appalling blemish on Filipino American history, it is part of the Philippine diaspora nonetheless.
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