Esau, the living missing link

Starting on May 1, 1901 the great Pan-American Exposition delighted visitors for six months in Buffalo, New York. Organized to "promote commercial and social interests among the States and countries of the Western Hemisphere" the show displayed the modern wonders of art, science, and technology. Among the varied exhibits was Esau the chimpanzee.*

*[The infamous "Cardiff Giant" was also on display.]

Featured in the exhibit "The Evolution of Man", Esau was among the first performing apes in America. Others, like the first incarnation of Consul, had come before in Europe, but Esau was the first look many Americans had at a "civilized" ape. The description of the exhibit read;

Here the Darwinian theory of evolution is very completely illustrated. The successive stages of development by which the " genus homo" of the present day was evolved from its primaeval progenitors is shown by numerous well-selected examples, from the lowest type of Simian development to the "missing link " or educated chimpanzee, Esau, who all but talks, and from the lowest savage to the polished gentlemen of today.

Performing primates always had the ability to entertain and unsettle audiences, but they were even more popular after On the Origin of Species was published. They were certainly not humans but their range of expression and skill at numerous tasks made them effective caricatures of humanity. In fact Esau was literally used in this way in a note that appeared in the magazine Life;

As for Mr. Esau, the chimpanzee, nothing but the fact that he was not born in the United States could keep the Democratic party from nominating him for President next year. He would be an ideal Democratic Congressman.

Naturalists, too, were interested in these apes that appeared to be reaching upwards towards a higher evolutionary branch. A short note on Esau from the Buffalo Medical Journal from the time the chimpanzee was at the exhibition noted;

"Esau,"the chimpanzee, exhibited by Frank C. Bostock at the exposition, gave a special reception at the Iroquois Hotel, July 16, to forty or more prominent physicians. After the seance, the physicians examined "Esau," and pronounced him a most wonderful specimen.

Dr. William H. Heath, on invitation, gave a short clinical lecture on the resemblance between "Esau" and a human being. He said that the chimpanzee's head showed remarkable intelligence, and that his anatomical formation resembled closely that of a man of the lower order. Afterward several of the medical men made examinations of the "missing link."

There was a long tradition of associating the "highest" of the apes with the "lowest" of humanity. In the past dark-skinned races had been placed closer to apes than other races on the basis of rumors, a popular one being that male apes raided the villages of "lower" races for sexual conquest. When these myths were dispelled, however, new subjective measures of superiority and inferiority were established. The order of nature and civilization, from lower to higher, had to be maintained. Even though the Great Chain of Being had ceased to be a useful concept in organizing nature was still ingrained in the minds of some naturalists. That non-Darwinian modes of evolution, like orthogenesis, were popular during this time fed into this view of natural progress and order. This sort of scientific racism was not as blatant as it once had been but it was still very much in place.

What became of Esau? I have not been able to find out, but many captive apes met similar fates. Performing apes were always young as they were the most manageable and able to perform. Once they began to mature, however, they became uncontrollable and were often sold to private owners or zoological parks. (Gorillas often perished before they reached maturity as few had any idea of how to properly keep them.) If Esau did not die young he likely wasted away in an iron and concrete box somewhere, a fate all too many animals have met.