Thomas Wiggins - An Enslaved Prodigy

This is a post I have been putting off writing for two reasons. First, it hurts my heart. I am a helper, a nurturer, an empath. Knowing this man's story and how he was exploited for his entire life is difficult to sit with. Second, it opens the floodgates. Many of the stories of disability in the nineteenth century take place in "freak shows" and on vaudeville circuits. There are many of these on my post ideas list. This was merely the first.

However, we can't sugarcoat the past. These people truly lived and their stories deserve to be told in their entirety. Yes, Thomas Wiggins was an incredibly talented musician and yes, he and his family was taken advantage of through the system of slavery, institutional racism, and abusing the legal system. All of the aspects of his story are important and I hope you enjoy learning more about "Blind Tom."

Tom as an adult

Thomas Greene (reported variously throughout his life as Thomas Greene Bethune, Thomas Wiggins, Thomas Bethune, or Thomas Greene Wiggins) was born in Columbus, Georgia on Wiley Edward Jones's plantation. He, like his parents, was enslaved. He was blind from his birth on May 25, 1849 (or 1848). Reportedly, Jones did not want the financial burden of the "worthless runt" and wanted him dead. It was only because of Tom's mother's vigilance that he survived. At the age of nine months, Tom, his two sisters, and his parents, Charity and Domingo "Mingo" Wiggins, were auctioned up individually. This almost ensured that no one would purchase the blind baby. Again, his mother fought for her son's survival. She begged a neighbor, General James Neal Bethune, to save her family from auction. He initially refused, but on the day of the sale, he appeared and purchased the entire family. Bethune was a lawyer and newspaper editor. He has the distinction of being the first Southern newspaper editor to openly advocate for secession. 

Around the age of one, Tom's family began noting his unusual behaviors. He echoed all the sounds around them with uncanny accuracy. He crowed the same as a rooster and attacked his siblings just to hear them scream. He seemed to crave noise: if left alone in their cabin, he dragged chairs across the floor or banged pots and pans together. Tom, at age four, could even repeat up to ten minutes of a conversation at a time, though he used grunts and gestures to communicate his own needs. (He later, in 1860, attended a Stephen Douglas rally and for years after was able to uncannily recreate Douglas's speech and mannerisms along with the crowd's cheers and heckles.) He required constant supervision to prevent escaping to the chicken coop or the woods.

The diagnosis "Savant Syndrome" is appropriate to describe Tom's abilities. Given what we know about him, he had intellectual disability and probably Autism Spectrum Disorder, as well as exceptional memory and musical skills. Many have heard of savants (formerly referred to as "idiot savants" or "autistic savants"), often because of the 1988 movie Rain Man starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. This condition is incredibly rare and can co-occur with autism, intellectual disability, or traumatic brain injury. Tom had a mixture of incredible skill as well as deficits: though able to repeat long conversations, he had difficulty communicating independently. He spoke in the third-person and displayed hyperactivity. In the parlance of the time, he was referred to as an idiot, meaning someone with profound intellectual disability. 

Tom, ever drawn to noise, was attracted to the Bethune daughters practicing the piano. He trembled in delight listening to the notes. No matter how many times the Bethunes removed him from the music room, he would find his way back. Tom began picking up skills by ear. Eventually, General Bethune recognized that this enslaved 4-year-old was a musical prodigy (and potential gold mine) and finally allowed him regular access to the instrument.  He allowed Tom to live in a room attached to the Big House, complete with its own piano. A neighbor later said, "Tom seemed to have but two motives in life: the gratification of his appetite and his passion for music. I don't think I exaggerate when I state that he made the piano go for twelve hours out of twenty-four." The next year, he composed his first tune The Rain Storm (available on YouTube), inspired by hearing rain on a tin roof - he said that he played "something that the wind and rain said to me." His fellow enslaved people theorized that he was blessed with "second sight" and could communicate with spirits. 

General Bethune held concerts at Georgian homes featuring Tom; by the age of six, he was consistently performing to sold-out audiences. At the age of eight, Tom was hired out to Perry Oliver, a concert promoter. He was billed as "Blind Tom" and often called a "gorgon with angel wings," bear, baboon, or mastiff. Oliver marketed him as a "Barnum-style freak" and remarked that he had transformed from an animal into an artist. The pair toured extensively throughout the entire United States, performing up to four concerts a day. To many who saw him, it appeared that he genuinely enjoyed performing. He stopped twitching and rocking; the blank open-mouthed expression on his face disappeared. He created beautiful, emotional music on the piano. Music appeared to be an escape from his world filled with sensory overload and communication difficulties.

Some enslaved people admired him for his lack of fear of white authority and speaking whatever came to mind. He once yelled, "You cheat me!" at a white girl who, during a performance had skipped a page of sheet music during their duet to test him. Tom would push white women off of piano stools or directed commands at them. He even had pummeled a music teacher for asking too many questions. A biographer wrote, "Sure, Blind Tom understood some people were black and others white, but this meant no more to him than the different colored keys on the piano."

Bethune hired professional musicians to play for Tom so he could fully reproduce their performances, usually after only listening once (though if it was a complex concerto, it would take Tom an afternoon to reproduce it completely). It is said that he knew over 7,000 pieces of music, ranging from hymns to waltzes to classical pieces. He composed pieces throughout his life, several of which have sheet music available online.

The newspaper reviewers loved him. Oliver and Bethune, who received all of the money, earned up to $100,000 a year (over $3 million in today's money). It is estimated that, over Tom's lifetime, the Bethune family made a total of $750,000 (over $24 million today) off of Tom's performing. He was a superstar and most likely the century's highest-compensated pianist. However, Tom did not receive any of this money nor have any agency in his performing; at the end of the day, he was still just an enslaved child separated from his family and forced to earn money for someone else. 

General Bethune & Tom

In June 1860, when Tom was eleven, he performed for President James Buchanan at the White House, becoming the first Black person to do so. He also visited the House of Congress to listen to the vitriolic speeches, later reproducing them to his audiences. He continued to tour the country with Bethune or other managers, focusing in the South once the Civil War began. His manager claimed Tom "enlisted his heart to the Confederate cause." In reality, Tom was drawn to the drums, fifes, marching, and cannons that accompanied soldier life. 

Tom played for Confederate soldiers and impressed him with his insane musical skills, such as performing three different pieces of music simultaneously  - "One of his most remarkable feats was the performance of three pieces of music at once. He played 'Fisher's Hornpipe' with one hand and 'Yankee Doodle' with the other and sang 'Dixie' all at once," wrote a North Carolina soldier in 1862; at an 1865 concert, he played one song with his right hand in C Major, one with his left in D Major, and sang another in C# Major. He could also play with his back to the piano and hands inverted. Audiences regularly challenged his mimicry skills, playing for him two new, unknown compositions for him to recreate. He always did so perfectly. Tom also composed a song called The Battle of Manassas (available on YouTube), leading some Black newspapers to refuse to report on him, since they felt he was only serving to reinforce negative stereotypes and profit slaveholders. The teenager was really just another propaganda tool, swept up in a country drowning in its own blood.

Sheet music cover advertising Tom, 1860
(Now housed at the Smithsonian)

Tom, 1861

The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 freed all enslaved people in the rebelling states of the Confederacy (the Thirteenth Amendment, passed in December 1865, freed all enslaved people in the United States). These changes did not affect Bethune's control over young Tom's life: after the war, Tom's parents signed a five-year indenture to Bethune. After this was up, a doctor declared him non campos mentis, a legal phrase meaning "of unsound mind." This meant that Bethune would have guardianship over him, since Tom was "an idiot." For the rest of his life, Tom remained under legal and financial control of others, leading one documentarian to call him "the last legal slave in America." He continued his demanding tour schedule after the war. In fact, as the war ended, Bethune and Tom took a blockade runner to Cuba then boarded a ship for Europe, beginning his first international tour. A booklet, "The Marvelous Musical Prodigy Blind Tom," was printed with testimonials from well-known musicians Ignaz Moscheles and Charles Hallé to further promote his international reputation (a similar 1876 pamphlet is now at the Smithsonian).

In 1868, General Bethune left Georgia, moving his immediate family and Tom to Warrenton, Virginia. Two years later, Tom's indenture to Bethune had expired. His father, Mingo, was now dead and his mother, Charity, was still in Georgia. It was then that Bethune had Tom ruled legally incompetent and named his son, John, as Tom's legal guardian. John was transferred management of Tom's career in 1875 and toured the United States with him for the next eight years. John Bethune also brought Tom to New York City every summer, living in a boarding house on the Lower East Side. When not performing, he was kept locked up alone in their rooms. Over the years of isolation, Tom became sullen and suspicious of people. 

John hired Joseph Poznanski to teach Tom more pieces and transcribe pieces he composed. Tom preferred that these be published under pseudonyms, such as Professor W.F. Raymond, J.C. Beckel, C.T. Messengale, and Francois Sexalise. Poznanski told the Washington Post in 1886 about the eccentricities of Tom: "We had two pianos in one room. I would play for him and he would get up, walk around, stand on one foot, pull his hair, knock his head against the wall, then sit down and play a very good imitation of what I had played with additions to it. His memory was something prodigious. He never forgot anything." John also had Tom play other instruments, even buying him a high-end flute (now housed in the Smithsonian). All of his earnings were used to fund John's extravagant lifestyle.

Being declared non campos mentis appeared to be a matter of pride to Tom, at least on stage. He would introduce himself in the third person, imitating announcers from his many tours, and discussed his abilities with a seeming lack of self-awareness. He was written about wherever he went. One critic called him merely "a human parrot," while author Willa Cather described him as "a human phonograph, a sort of animated memory, with sound producing power." She wrote about one of his concerts as such: "It was a strange sight to see him walk out on stage with his own lips—another man's words—introduce himself and talk quietly about his own idiocy. There was insanity, a grotesque horribleness about it that was interestingly unpleasant. One laughs at the man's queer actions, and yet, after all, the sight is not laughable. It brings us too near to the things that we sane people do not like to think of." Mark Twain referred to him as an "inspired idiot." Others saw him as a medium, channeling the talents of past great musicians.

Tom, 1880

This custody arrangement between John and Tom was complicated in 1882 when John married his landlady, Eliza Stutzbach. She was gifted in helping calm Tom when he became angry or upset. However, right after they married, John took Tom on an eight-month tour of the country without his wife. When he finally returned home, Eliza filed for divorce. A bitter legal battle over finances ensued. John died in a railway accident in 1884 and Tom was returned to John's father, General Bethune. Eliza protested this and, furious that she had been written out of John's will, sued for custody. She even convinced Tom's now-elderly mother, Charity, to join her side in the lawsuit. After a long battle through several courts, Eliza won custody of Tom in August 1887. At this time, he was 38 years old. She moved he and his mother to New York City, telling Charity that she would receive some of Tom's earnings. When it became clear that Eliza did not intend to actually do this, Charity moved back to Georgia alone, either sent home by Tom's new guardian or of her own accord. 

Eliza and her attorney (later husband) Albrecht Lerche managed Tom's musical tours for several more years. His life was spent in one of three places: touring North America, in a New York apartment, or in Eliza's country hideaway in Navesink Highlands, New Jersey (purchased with Tom's earnings). Legal challenges to Eliza's custody of Tom continued to the point that she stopped concert tours in the mid-1890s. He continued to be a ward of Eliza and Lerche. In 1903, Eliza set Tom up to perform vaudeville, which he did for a year. He suffered a stroke in 1904, resulting in partial paralysis and ending his performing career. 

Lerche soon died and Eliza and Tom moved to Hoboken, New Jersey. He continued playing his piano constantly during the day and night, though the two remained out of public view. Tom had a major stroke in April 1908 and died on June 14, 1908. He was about 60 years old. He was originally buried in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, New York in an unmarked grave. It turns out that the people who had exploited him for his entire life did not feel the need to properly honor him in death. Twenty years later, Fanny Bethune, General Bethune's daughter, fought to have his remains reburied in the Bethune family plot in Georgia. Jim Crow laws forced them to re-bury Tom at a nearby plantation instead. However, there is debate whether he was actually removed from the New Jersey cemetery, as later documentation seemed to prove his body was never actually moved. Today, there are two plaques marking his burial place, one in Columbus, Georgia and the other in Brooklyn.

In 2002, the descendants of his half-sister Matilda gathered for a funeral ceremony in Brooklyn accompanied by the pianist John Davis, who had previously recorded an album of Tom's work. His great-great niece, 86 at the time, said, "I am glad that I lived long enough to see recognition given to my uncle."

Tom in his later years

Since his death, Tom has been often forgotten, intentionally or not. Many critics chose to dismiss him as merely an "autistic savant" with no real creative talent. In more recent decades, however, many are trying to make his name and story known once more. Tom is remembered through the arts: a short film from 1981 called Blind Tom: The Story of Thomas Bethune, a 2000 album called John Davis Plays Blind Tom: The Eighth Wonder, the 2002 stage play HUSH: Composing Blind Tom Wiggins, a 2006 documentary The Last Legal Slave in America (streaming free on Vimeo), the 2014 novel Song of the Shank, poems in 2016's Olio, and in a 2019 mural in New Braunfels, Texas. Perhaps most famously, Elton John's 2013 album The Diving Board features a song called "The Ballad of Blind Tom." Tom's original sheet music collection is housed at the Columbus State University Archives. 

Most sincerely,

Christina

Further Reading

• The Ballad of Blind Tom, Slave Pianist: America's Lost Musical Genius by Deirdre O'Connell

• Blind Tom, the Black Pianist Composer: Continually Enslaved by Geneva Handy Southall

• Song in a Rainstorm: The Story of Musical Prodigy Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins by Glenda Armand (ages 4-8)

• The Adventures of Blind Tom by Obiora N. Anekwe (ages 6-12)

Works Consulted

Davis, J. (2021). John Davis Plays Blind Tom. John Davis. https://johndavispianist.com/music-and-books/blind-tom/.

Knowles, K. (2019, July 5). The Marvelous Musical Prodigy. National Museum of African American History and Culture. https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/collection/marvelous-musical-prodigy.

Kolbert, E. (2002, July 7). Blind Tom's Tombstone. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/07/15/blind-toms-tombstone.

O'Connell, D. (2020). The Ballad of Blind Tom. http://www.blindtom.org/.

Last Updated: 22 Sept. 2023