{"id":48379,"date":"2016-07-22T18:41:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T18:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48379"},"modified":"2016-07-22T18:41:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T18:41:00","slug":"biography-the-strange-career-of-william-ellis-the-texas-slave-who-became-a-mexican-millionaire-by-karl-jacoby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48379","title":{"rendered":"Biography: \u2018The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire,\u2019 by Karl Jacoby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biography: \u2018The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire,\u2019 by Karl Jacoby<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Dallas Morning News<\/a>
\n2016-06-24<\/p>\n

Karen M. Thomas<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of Journalism
\nSouthern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas<\/em><\/p>\n

From all accounts, Guillermo Enrique Eliseo commanded attention. The elegantly dressed Mexican-born Wall Street<\/a> baron in Gilded Age<\/a> Manhattan<\/a> was known for his gold watch, fine taste and ability to strike business deals on both sides of the border. He also had a huge secret.<\/p>\n

Eliseo began life not on a Mexican hacienda but across the border on a Texas<\/a> plantation where he was born into slavery as William Henry Ellis. How he transformed himself into Eliseo is the topic of The Strange Career of William Ellis<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Karl Jacoby<\/a> is a stellar researcher, and the topic is fascinating. He ferrets out Ellis\u2019 tale of reinvention from historical documents, news accounts and Ellis\u2019 personal material, including letters to his family. Where records are scarce, such as for the years Ellis was a slave on a Victoria<\/a> plantation, Jacoby instead turns to what is known about American slavery itself. He describes Texas\u2019 role in trying to keep cotton as king and what life was like in Victoria, a town close to the U.S. and Mexican borders, in the 1800s. By doing so, Jacoby is able to extrapolate Ellis\u2019 experience, motivation and preparation for ultimately redefining his personal racial boundaries<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Biography: \u2018The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire,\u2019 by Karl Jacoby The Dallas Morning News 2016-06-24 Karen M. Thomas, Professor of Journalism Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas From all accounts, Guillermo Enrique Eliseo commanded attention. The elegantly dressed Mexican-born Wall Street baron in Gilded Age Manhattan was known […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,21,459,8,103,6462,1249,20],"tags":[11761,19292,22157,24561,24562,19293,11760,19294,22158,22156],"class_list":["post-48379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-latincarib","category-history","category-media-archive","category-mexico","category-passing-2","category-texas","category-usa","tag-dallas-morning-news","tag-guillermo-eliseo","tag-guillermo-enrique-eliseo","tag-karen-m-thomas","tag-karen-thomas","tag-karl-jacoby","tag-the-dallas-morning-news","tag-william-ellis","tag-william-h-ellis","tag-william-henry-ellis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48380,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48379\/revisions\/48380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}