Chang and Eng Bunker — ‘The Siamese Twins’
Public Domain/Wellcome CollectionSideshow performers Chang and Eng Bunker.
In the 1820s, a Scottish merchant named Robert Hunter saw an unusual sight in the water while visiting the Kingdom of Siam (present-day Thailand): two boys, conjoined at the sternum, taking a swim in the river.
The boys, Chang and Eng Bunker, had been born in 1811 in a small town near Bangkok. They were considered medical marvels, as they had completely separate bodies save for the four-inch bridge of flesh that connected them.
Hunter saw an opportunity to make a profit. Though it took the merchant five years to convince the King of Siam, he was ultimately allowed to take the twins out of the country. After paying their mother $500, he began to exhibit Chang and Eng Bunker as “The Siamese Twins.”
The brothers toured for three years, doing backflips and playing badminton for enthusiastic audiences. While they were a popular act, they barely saw any money from their performances and were often treated like property rather than people. When they turned 21, they broke out on their own.
Wellcome CollectionA poster advertising Chang and Eng Bunker, sideshow performers who were also conjoined twins.
Though they continue to tour for years, the Bunker twins ultimately retired as sideshow performers in 1839. They become American citizens, bought a plantation in North Carolina, and married a pair of sisters — with whom they’d ultimately have 21 children. Eng and Chang Bunker also owned 18 slaves, many of whom had been bought as children.
But things began to go downhill for the twins after the Civil War. They had invested a fortune into the Confederate States of America, but ended up bankrupt. Chang began drinking heavily and suffered a stroke in 1870.
In 1874, he caught bronchitis and died in his sleep from a blood clot. Eng awoke to find his brother dead and, within hours, Eng passed away as well.
