Examining Millie and Christine McKoy: Where Enslavement and Enfreakment Meet

Abstract

Millie and Christine McKoy were African American conjoined twins born into slavery in North Carolina in 1851. Physically joined at the pelvis, they were objects of curiosity, inspection, and invasion from the moment of their birth. Medical and lay interest in their unique pelvic anatomy can be understood within the larger contexts of the nineteenth-century freak show, the pathologization of black female sexuality, and the complex dynamics of American enslavement and emancipation. This article calls for a revisionary understanding of the McKoys that reveals imperatives of agency and triumphs of subjectivity largely overlooked or misunderstood by historians to date. By examining two key representations of the McKoy sisters in light of newly discovered historical evidence, I seek not only to enrich our understanding of their remarkable lives but also to signally expand current conversations within disability, feminist, and African American studies regarding individuals who possess what Rosemarie Garland Thomson has termed “extraordinary bodies.” Utilizing a critical feminist disability praxis, I advocate a more rigorous ethics of representation with regard to narratives and images of the McKoys, particularly in relation to certain distorted or exploitative images that continue to circulate into the present day.

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