Who didn’t love the circus as a kid? The atmosphere, the animals, all the cool acts and tricks and the peanuts. The circus was always an event I looked forward to attending. Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey were the biggest Circus act around and the one with the largest attractions. What I didn’t know as a kid were the many issues of animal cruelty and abuse that circuses accrued over the years. I also didn’t know how the circus came to gain many of its freak show acts in its early years. One act in particular shows how low Ringling Brothers stooped with its cruelty and exploitation of performers, all in the name of profits and entertainment of the masses. This act was known as the Men from Mars.
George and Wilie Muse were the grandsons of former slaves. They were born to Sharecroppers in True vine, Virginia. The brothers were African American albinos with blue eyes and blonde hair. They were a spectacle to people in the early 1900s.
Circus bounty hunters scoured cities and backwood towns searching for people they could transform into freak show attractions. Somehow, Ringling Brothers had heard about the Muse brothers. When the brothers were six and nine, a circus promoter crept into the sharecropping fields where they were working, and enticed them to leave the fields and join him. The promoter enticed them with candy, and the boys left with him.
From 1914 to 1927, the circus managers transformed the scared little boys into Eko and Iko, world famous freak show entertainers. The boys weren’t allowed to go to school nor able to learn how to read. Ringling Brothers also did not pay them for their work. George and Willie begged to go home constantly, to the point they were lied to by Ringling Brothers and told their mother was dead.
Though George and Willie did not know how to read, they possessed the innate ability to teach themselves how to play or mimic any tune. The boys had a popular song named “It’s a long way to Tipperary,” a song about missing home.
The circus operators dressed them in outlandish costumes and put their hair into dreadlocks. Circus operators also constructed banners that proclaimed George and Willie as “Barnum’s Original Monkey Man,” “the Ambassadors from Mars,” “the Sheep Headed men,” and finally the “Men from Mars.”
Crazy stories comprised how the brothers came to be. One was that they found the brothers in the Mojave desert near the remains of a Martian spaceship.
13 years after they stole the boys from their home, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus came to Roanoke Virginia. Roanoke was the closest largest city to True vine. As the brothers performed at the circus, Harriet Muse, the boy’s mother, makes her way to the front of the crowd. The boys eye their mom and rush to hug her. Ringling Brothers executives come to see why the show had stopped. They insist the boys are their property and that Harriet must leave immediately! Harriet refuses to leave without her sons and eventually she is allowed to leave with them.
In 1828 the brothers returned to the circus, but this time on their own terms and now they were being paid. Though Ringling Brothers were now paying the brothers, there were many future lawsuits filed against Ringling Brothers on behalf of the brothers to get them to pay the brothers their correct pay.
The brothers went on the become world famous circus performers and even performed at Buckingham Palace before the Queen of England. A then record of 10,000 spectators came to see them perform at Madison Square Garden. in 1971, George passed away due to unknown circumstances. Willie lived to be 108 years old and passed away in 2001.
Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus remained in business until 2017, when because of weak attendance, many animal rights protests and high operating costs, the circus was forced to close after 146 years of business.
