Wasn't limited to Leopold, though his Stalinesque reputation means his is probably one of the better known. Many of the "developed" nations of the late 1800s and early 1900s had ethic villages or exhibitions - with live exhibits. London, Paris, New York, etc. St Louis made a point of adding newly acquired native Philippinos to the native American display at the World Fair and 1904 Olympics. Developed nations carried on with those exhibitions far longer than you might expect or hope. Though they were in decline by WW2, there's been a fair selection of basically racist exhibits post war.
King Leopold II was a bit special, even by the standards of the height of colonialism. His privately owned Congo Free State - it really was his, founded and owned by him personally was excessively bad at everything. It started public and government campaigns in Britain, America and I believe France and others too, ultimately culminating in multiple nations taking stand and signing treaties against Leopold's vanity project. The atrocities were far in excess of any other colonial power for the few years he owned it. Millions died, millions more, including children, had hands or feet hacked off. The state stepped in and it became the Belgian Congo after 15 or 20 years of Stalin ^W Leopold. (Edit: In that time, the 1919 Belgian Government Commission estimated half the population had died).
Belgium has been surprisingly reluctant to even acknowledge this black spot in their history, and you will still find plenty of statues, squares and streets in his honour.
Should you want to read more, and it's not an easy read, I'd recommend King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild.
Assuming the people on display did not especially object to it (and I assume they didn’t because if they did they’d be a lousy and dangerous exhibit) does this sound so bad?
You have to remember that people in these days didn’t have national geographic documentaries — if you wanted to learn how people in other cultures lived, you’d have to do it from an exhibit like this. Meanwhile the people got to live in relative peace and safety compared to their home countries.
> I assume they didn’t because if they did they’d be a lousy and dangerous exhibit
This is an absurd assumption. Slaves can be convinced to do anything, based on threat of force to them or their families. Even returning to the Congo might be threat enough, considering how they were treated there[1]. And of course, the few they couldn't be convinced (maybe they didn't have a five-year old daughter whose hands and feet could be cut off as punishment), could simply be replaced.
I'm assuming that few to none of them got much choice in the matter, or at best a bait and switch promoting an opportunity to see St Louis, London or wherever. It wasn't so much to learn of these people but a self-justification of colonial superiority. This was the era of paternalistic colonialism in most of the developed nations, when the US still openly spoke of empire and their civilising mission, whilst gaining Guam, Philippines etc, and Jim Crow segregation was endemic. It's also the era that saw the rise of the fashion of eugenics and enforced sterilisation etc. I'll just quote from Wikipedia talking of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, though it is only part of the full quote on Wikipedia:
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". ... "But the main draw was the Philippine exhibition 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–American War.
That, to me, is far more "set them up to fail" reality TV than National Geographic. Delivering an artificial message to prove the inherent superiority of the racist colonial master and for them to feel smug. I think I might resent being that "less evolved" exhibit, even if it was sold to me as a great opportunity...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo
King Leopold II was a bit special, even by the standards of the height of colonialism. His privately owned Congo Free State - it really was his, founded and owned by him personally was excessively bad at everything. It started public and government campaigns in Britain, America and I believe France and others too, ultimately culminating in multiple nations taking stand and signing treaties against Leopold's vanity project. The atrocities were far in excess of any other colonial power for the few years he owned it. Millions died, millions more, including children, had hands or feet hacked off. The state stepped in and it became the Belgian Congo after 15 or 20 years of Stalin ^W Leopold. (Edit: In that time, the 1919 Belgian Government Commission estimated half the population had died).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State
Belgium has been surprisingly reluctant to even acknowledge this black spot in their history, and you will still find plenty of statues, squares and streets in his honour.
Should you want to read more, and it's not an easy read, I'd recommend King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild.