Ota helped Verner convince other Africans, who lived in and around the village of Chief Ndombe to come to St. Louis and build a representative and "authentic" native African village for the World's Fair visitors to see, alongside thousands of other native tribesmen from all over the World.
After they returned to Africa, Verner and Ota spent 18 months exploring and collecting artifacts in Central Africa. Once Verner was ready to return to America, Ota asked to join him on his trip to New York in the summer of 1906. Once in New York City, Verner was bankrupt and the Guardian Trust Company seized his collections, which Verner had hoped could be sold to the American Museum of Natural History. Verner left Ota in the care of the Museum while he went back to South Carolina seeking family support. Motivated by good intentions, Ota's caretakers transferred him to the Bronx Zoo where he was made into a sensation as an exhibit of evolution, residing in the primate house with an Orangutan as a roommate.
The letter, shown above, was written to Ota (Otabenga) in an a phonetic transliteration of Ota's language by Verner (known to Ota as "Fwela"), while Ota was at the Museum. The letter begins with the greeting "Moiyo"
Extricated by well-intended ministers of religion, Ota was transferred through several eleemosynary institutions of learning, while Verner was kept busy with new plans for African empire building with backing from New York millionaires.
Ota Benga died in Lynchburg, VA, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on the vernal equinox of 1916, apparently despondant that he could not return to Africa.