Jardin d’Acclimatation is a 20-hectare children’s amusement park, which offers such attractions as an archery range, house of mirrors, miniature-golf course, narrow-gauge train, pony ride, puppet theater, shooting galleries, and a science museum. In the past however, the park used to be a human zoo and ‘exhibited’ native Africans.
Jardin d’Acclimatation de Paris was originally called Jardin Zoologique d’Aclimatation, because it was a zoo. It was opened on the 6th of October 1860 by Napoléon III and Empress Eugénie. During the siege of Paris (1870-1871) many of the animals in the menagerie were cooked and served in one of Paris’ finest restaurants.
An interesting fact is that from 1877 to 1912 the zoo was converted into a human zoo and ‘exhibited’ Nubians, Bushmen, Zulus and many other African peoples. In mid-colonialism, the curiosity of Parisians was attracted to the customs and lifestyles of foreign peoples and the exhibitions turned out to be very successful.