Joe Hughes
Wilson Chinn appears here with Charley, Rebecca and Rosa, each holding a book in their hands while learning to read.
Wilson Chinn
Joe Hughes, born a slave in Madison County, TN in 1844, CH Hughes master - freed in 1863).
"Blind Tom" Wiggins
Rebecca, a slave girl from New Orleans: Oh, how I love the old flag!
Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence, age 5, “redeemed by Catherine Lawrence, baptized at Plymouth Church by Henry Ward Beecher, May 1863”
Telegraph Boy with Urgent Cap
Nicholas Biddle is often referred to as “the first man wounded in the Great American Rebellion.” Biddle is born a slave in Delaware before escaping to Pottsville, Pa., where he becomes a member of the community, and is active in the local Washington Artillery militia unit. Biddle is 65 years old when Ft. Sumter falls, but immediately volunteers to defend his country. He embarks with the Washington Artillery, one of five Pa. units christened the “First Defenders.” But his journey takes him through Baltimore, Md. where angry Southern mobs spot and attack him, shouting “nigger in a uniform.” Biddle suffers a bloody head wound “which exposes bone.” Upon arriving in D.C. the unit is greeted by Lincoln, who immortalizes Biddle by urging him to seek medical help for his injury. While forbidden from mustering into the army because of his race, Biddle serves for three months as an orderly to a Captain Wren, then returns home to Pottsville to nurse his prior wound. Before his death at 86, he poses for several photographs taken at W.R. Mortimer’s studio and citing his “first man wounded” story.
And Rosa again
Rosa arm in arm alongside Isaac
James Wilkinson
William Thompson
Rescued from Spanish slave ship by Royal Navy and freed in Sierra Leone, raised by Anglican Church, learns English, education in UK, missionary work in Nigeria, teacher, ordained, became first African Bishop in Anglican Church.
Fannie as drummer
Freed Slaves of New Orleans
Rebecca, Charley and Rosa stand side by side
Bishop Samuel Crowther (1809-1891)
The iconic image of freed slave, Wilson Chinn, showing off a range of torture devices used on plantations to enforce discipline and punish offenses. This photo is one in a series shot in 1863 by Myron Kimball to raise money for educating ex-slaves in New Orleans. A total of eight former slaves comprising Chinn and seven children appear in the series. For complete story, click here:
African-Americans
Identified Free Black Men
“Blind Tom’s” parents are Domingo Wiggins, a field hand, and Charity Greene, slaves who are purchased in 1849 by James Bethune of Columbus, Georgia. As an infant he is dismissed as severely retarded until, amazingly, he demonstrates an uncanny capacity to imitate sounds. He hears rain falling and mimics it so accurately that people take notice. After accompanying his mother into the master’s house, he discovers the piano, listening first and then, despite his blindness, beginning to play. Bethune is astonished, and ponders the “commercial possibilities” inherent in the musical prodigy he own. In 1857 he rents a hall in Columbus and launches the youth on what will become a fifty-year performance career . In 1858 he is “rented out” for $15,000 to Percy Oliver, a showman, who sends him on a cross-country four –shows-a- day tour , under the banner of “Blind Tom, the Eighth Wonder of the World.” His skills are jaw-dropping. He plays a Beethoven concerto and then, facing away from the piano on his knees and with hands around his neck, repeats it precisely. He hears any piece one time and immediately plays it back. In 1859, at age ten, he performs at the White House for James Buchanan.
From childhood forward he also composes his own works, from his earliest, “Raining,” to the wildly popular civil war tune, “Battle of Manassas.” During the conflict, Bethune, whose sons serve in the Confederate army, confines Tom’s concerts to the South. When emancipation comes, his parents sign a one-sided contract giving Bethune the right to manage his career and take the lion’s share of the profits. The famous author Mark Twain becomes intrigued with the prodigy and writes several reviews, referring to Tom as “some Archangel cast out of heaven (who) makes his prison beautiful with memories (and sounds) of another time.”
In 1870 the original contract runs out and Bethune convinces a court to declare Tom legally insane and to become his legal guardian. From there Tom completes a world-wide tour where he plays some 7,000 pieces from memory, including his own compositions, and also exhibits his mastery of the French horn, flute and coronet. When in the U.S. he lives with the Bethune’s on their 400 acre estate in Virginia. He loves the simple life and routine of the farm and is increasingly distraught when force to resume his tours.
In 1887, at age 37, and having amassed some $750,000 for the Bethune family, he again becomes a pawn in a renewed court battle over his custody. The winner this time is his mother Charity Greene and Eliza Bethune. They move him off the farm and to New York city where he resumes his stage duties as Thomas Green Wiggins, the “last slave set free by the Supreme Court.” His last public performance occurs in 1904, and he dies of a stroke in 1908.In modern terms, Blind Tom would be classified as a “prodigious savant,” born with severe birth defects, accompanied by development in other regions of the brain permitting unheard of feats of memory, mathematics, music and the like.
Photography Book
Nicholas Biddle
Rosa again
T. Hepworth
Fannie posing in another outfit
James Wilkinson “who befriended the Union prisoners in the city of Charleston.” This photo was taken on Morris Island, South Carolina.