The Igorrote Tribe Traveled the World for Show And Made These Two Men Rich

A group of tribespeople danced with jerky movements as a man, barefoot and wearing only a g-string, dragged a dog by a rope. The mutt snapped and snarled. Then with one deft stroke, the man slit the animal’s throat before chopping its lifeless body into pieces and throwing it into a pot. This was the Igorrote Village at Coney Island, and in 1905, it was the talk of America.

The Igorrotes, or Bontoc Igorrotes to use their full tribal name, were from a remote region in the far north of the Philippines named Bontoc. Truman Hunt, an opportunistic former medical doctor turned showman, came up with the idea of transporting 50 Igorrotes to America and putting them on display in a mocked-up tribal village at Coney Island.

Hunt was a Spanish-American War veteran and former lieutenant governor of Bontoc, where he had become a trusted friend of the Igorrotes. The United States took control of the Philippines from Spain as part of the terms of the 1898 Treaty of Paris ending the war between the two nations. The U.S. also received stewardship of Puerto Rico and Guam and ceded its claim to Cuba. In the following years, however, Filipino nationalists uninterested in becoming the subjects of yet another colonial power, fought a prolonged three-year war with the United States, leading to the deaths of 4,200 Americans and casualties on the Filipino side that numbered in the hundreds of thousands, including combatants and civilians.

The assumption of American control over the overseas territory prompted deep soul-searching at home. Was it right for America to acquire an overseas empire? When, if ever, would the Filipinos be ready to take over the responsibility of governing themselves? Faced with growing public opposition at home, the U.S. launched a pacification process lead by future president William Howard Taft that provided for Filipino self-governance and eventual independence.

In early 1905, Truman Hunt traveled to Bontoc and made the Bontoc Igorrotes an audacious offer: if they agreed to leave their family and friends behind for a year and journey with him to United States to put on a show of their native customs, he would pay them each $15 a month in wages...