The Exhibition of Botocudos at Piccadilly Hall

In 1883 five Brazilian Botocudos were exhibited at Piccadilly Hall, London's popular theatre. This exhibition aimed to replicate in Europe the success achieved by the display of seven Botocudos, held the previous year by the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro at the Brazilian Anthropological Exhibition. Measured and studied by scientists from the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the Botocudos performed daily for the public in London, Manchester, and Sheffield, until they were sold to P.T. Barnum, joining the US tour of the Grand Ethnological Congress of the Bailey and Barnum Circus. This article emphasises the ambivalent trajectory between science and spectacle in these three different exhibition formats and versions. Illustrations, posters, photographs and newspaper reports are relied on as research sources.