Spotted swimming in tandem in a Siam river in 1824, Chang and Eng Bunker were brothers joined at the chest whose worldwide fame literally coined the phrase Siamese twins. This episode moves past the sideshow caricature to trace their journey from exhibited teenagers billed as exotic property to independent showmen who seized control of their own lives, money, and image.

After breaking free from their managers around their 21st birthday, they settled in Wilkes County, North Carolina, took the surname Bunker, married sisters Adelaide and Sarah Yates, and fathered 21 children between them. Their life is a study in agency and contradiction: men who fought fiercely for their own autonomy while becoming slaveholding Southern squires, bound to one another until the very end.

• Born in 1811 to a family of Chinese descent, they helped their ...