In the thick of late 19th and early 20th century colonialism, across Europe and the United States, people — along with animals — could be found in zoos. There, white families could gawk at individuals who had been dragged from foreign countries and placed inside cages, where they acted out a performance of their “daily life” for the onlookers’ entertainment.

Indigenous peoples of Africa, Asia, the Americas — and almost anywhere else that non-white people could be found — served as the exhibits’ subjects.

[See the full gallery at All That Is Interesting.]