** CORRECTION TO INFO IN VIDEO: GEORGE DIED FIRST, THEN WILLIE **
This is the tragic story of two young brothers who were kidnapped from a farm in the early 1900s and forced to be on display in traveling circuses. Two albino African-American men named George and Willie Muse became famous across the United States as Eko and Iko, the sheep headed cannibals from Ecuador. But the Muse brothers weren’t from Ecuador.
Willie and George Muse were born with albinism into a African-American sharecropping family in Franklin County, Virginia. Their milky white skin, white hair and blue eyes made them targets for sideshow proprietors at a time when circuses were abundant and very lucrative. It was common for bounty hunters to look for new freak show performers. The circus was the most dominant form of entertainment between 1840 and 1940, and the sideshow was a big part of that. Snatched from their parents as children, they were displayed as Eko and Iko.
In the tobacco farming town of Truevine, Virginia, George and Willie Muse were born into an impoverished, sharecropping family.
The brothers were born with albinism, a genetic disorder characterized by a lack of pigmentation, health issues, and pale eyes. Not only did they suffer from albinism but George and Willie also had a condition that would, slowly and gradually, make them blind. Their pale skin was sensitive to sunlight and prevented them from spending too much time in the punishing Virginia sun so they weren’t much help in the fields.
There are two different stories as to how Willie and George landed in the circus. The first account goes that in 1899, a man in the circus industry had caught sight of the peculiar looking boys and lured them away with candy into a wagon, kidnapping them. He was known as James “Candy” Shelton. The story asserts that one day, when the boys were out in the fields alone, Shelton lured them away from safety with candy. Instead of returning the Muse Brothers safely home, it seems that Shelton simply drove off with them, effectively abducting the boys. Some accounts state that Harriet allowed Shelton to promote her sons as an attraction while his circus was in town, and that she may have accepted payment. She may have let her sons go with the carnival because she could not see a future for them. With their albino skin, working in the hot sun was dangerous, and the family had little money to support them.Harriet Muse expected them to be returned home but became increasingly worried as time passed without her sons. Either story implies that George and Willie were kidnapped from their homes by Shelton. #MUSEBROTHERS #GEORGEANDWILLIEMUSE #IKOANDEKO
SOURCES:
TRUEVINE, author Beth Macy
THE NEW YORK TIMES, How Two Black Albino Brothers Became Unwilling Stars
FACTINATE: Twisted Facts About the Muse Brothers
NPR (October, 2018): Kidnapped, Then Forced Into the Sideshow
19 сен 2024
