Blind Tom Wiggins - Early Life

Early Life

Wiggins was born on the Wiley Edward Jones Plantation in Harris County, Georgia. Blind at birth, he was sold in 1850 along with his enslaved parents, Charity and Mingo Wiggins, to a Columbus, Georgia lawyer, General James Neil Bethune. Bethune was "almost the pioneer free trader" in the United States and "the first editor in the south to openly advocate secession". The new owner renamed the child Thomas Greene Bethune or Thomas Wiggins Bethune (according to different sources).

Because the blind lad could not perform work normally demanded of enslaved Africans, Tom was left to play and explore the Bethune plantation. At an early age, he evinced an interest in the piano after hearing the instrument played by Bethune's daughters. By age four he reportedly had acquired intuitive, if rudimentary—and imitative—piano skills based solely on hearing. He continually intruded upon the Bethune family residence to gain access to the piano, with Bethune's daughters abetting these intrusions. By age five Tom reportedly had composed his first tune, The Rain Storm, based on his aural impressions of a torrential downpour. After his extraordinary music skills were recognized by General Bethune, Tom was permitted to live in a room attached to the family house, away from the enslaved quarters. The small room was equipped with a piano. Neighbor Otto Spahr, reminiscing about Tom in the Atlanta Constitution in 1908 (as reproduced in The Ballad of Blind Tom, by Deirdre O'Connell), observed: "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."

As a child, Tom began to echo the sounds around him, repeating accurately the crow of a rooster or the singing of a bird. If he was left alone in the cabin, Tom was known to begin beating on pots and pans or dragging chairs across the floor in an attempt to make any kind of noise. By the age of four, Tom was able to repeat conversations up to ten minutes in length but was barely able to adequately communicate his own needs, resorting to grunts and gestures.

Bethune, Thomas' owner, then hired out "Blind Tom" at the age of eight years to concert promoter Perry Oliver, who toured him extensively in the US, performing as often as four times a day and earning Oliver and Bethune up to $100,000 a year, an enormous sum for the time, "equivalent to $1.5 million/year, making Blind Tom undoubtedly the nineteenth century's most highly compensated pianist". General Bethune's family eventually made a fortune estimated at $750,000 at the hands of Blind Tom. Oliver marketed Tom as a “Barnum-style freak” advertising the transformation from animal to artist. In the media, Tom was frequently compared to a bear, baboon, or mastiff.

Bethune hired professional musicians to play for Tom, who could faithfully reproduce their performances, often after a single listening. Eventually he learned a reported 7,000 pieces of music, including hymns, popular songs, waltzes, and classical repertoire.