Thomas 'Blind Tom' Wiggins

Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins (May 25, 1849 – June 14, 1908) was an African American musical prodigy on the piano. He had numerous original compositions published and had a lengthy and largely successful performing career throughout the United States. During the 19th century, he was one of the best-known American performing pianists. Although he lived and died before autism was described, he is now regarded as an autistic savant.

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 Domingo "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 [newspaper] editor in the south to openly advocate secession". General Bethune renamed the child Thomas Greene Bethune or Thomas Wiggins Bethune (according to different sources).