Summary
Summary
To his contemporaries in Gilded Age Manhattan, Guillermo Eliseo was a fantastically wealthy Mexican, the proud owner of a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, a busy Wall Street office, and scores of mines and haciendas in Mexico. But for all his obvious riches and his elegant appearance, Eliseo was also the possessor of a devastating secret: he was not, in fact, from Mexico at all. Rather, he had begun life as a slave named William Ellis, born on a cotton plantation in Texas during the waning years of King Cotton.After emancipation, Ellis, capitalizing on the Spanish he learned during his childhood along the Mexican border and his ambivalent appearance, engaged in a virtuoso act of reinvention. He crafted an alter ego, the Mexican Guillermo Eliseo, who was able to access many of the privileges denied to African Americans at the time.The Strange Career of William Ellis offers fresh insights on the history of the Reconstruction era, the U.S.-Mexico border, and the abiding riddle of race. At a time when the United States is deepening its connections with Latin America and recognizing that race is more than simply black or white, Ellis's story could not be more timely or important.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In vivid and lyrical prose, Jacoby (Crimes Against Nature), a professor of history at Columbia University, recounts the extraordinary life of 19th-century African-American entrepreneur William Henry Ellis, a man born into slavery who became a figure of great wealth and influence in both the U.S. and Mexico. Jacoby emphasizes Ellis's individual achievements as well as his adroit manipulation of Gilded Age America's confused and contradictory ideas about race. While many African-Americans hoped to escape American racial prejudices by passing as white, Ellis shrewdly took advantage of his countrymen's racial ignorance beyond the black-white binary by presenting himself as a Mexican, a Cuban, and even an indigenous Hawaiian. These racial masquerades served him well on Wall Street, where he built his vast fortune, but should not be seen as a repudiation of his heritage, Jacoby argues. Throughout his life, Ellis maintained contact with his black-identified relatives and attempted to improve the options for Americans of color at the onset of the Jim Crow era by encouraging Southern black men and women to migrate to Mexico. Jacoby deftly analyzes the divergent ways in which racial identities developed on both sides of the Mexican-American border and reminds his readers that "we all inhabit a mestizo, mulatto America." Illus. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
William Ellis was born into slavery in Victoria, Texas, near the U.S.-Mexico border. During his relatively short life, he rubbed elbows with the most powerful men of his generation, including those within Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz's inner circle and men within President Theodore Roosevelt's coterie. He also traveled from Mexico City to Wall Street to Alabama to Ethiopia. Ellis found it useful to create an alter-ego, Guillermo Eliseo, a persona with a life story that shifted according to circumstances, as he passed as Mexican, Cuban, even Hawaiian. Through this trickster's story, historian Jacoby (Shadows at Dawn, 2008) brings a welcome and nuanced perspective to the racial history of the U.S. as well as a textured examination of the legacy of distrust between the United States and Mexico. He demonstrates that we inhabit a mestizo, mulatto America, and shines light on the feeble construct of race and the inadequacy of facile analyses that continue to plague this country. Ellis' life is also a cracking good story, illustrated with intriguing photos and helpful maps topped off by an emotionally satisfying epilogue.--Martinez, Sara Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Jacoby (history, Columbia Univ.; Crimes Against Nature) relates the fascinating tale of William Ellis, who was born into slavery on a cotton plantation in rural Texas just before the end of America's Civil War, and his fascinating transition into Guillermo Eliseo, a wealthy broker, statesman, and politician from Mexico. How this strange account of reinvention came to be makes for an important book because of Jacoby's discussion of racial fluidity and Ellis's flouting of racial codes during Reconstruction and the years after. Ellis/Eliseo's crossing of the color line in an era of racial tension is deftly contrasted with Mexico's post-Independence acceptance of the mixing of ethnic groups. Ellis/Eliseo's business acumen and gift with languages comes into focus as the narrative traces his involvement in statesmanship, plans for colonizing African Americans in Mexico, and business dealings with powerful investors. VERDICT Jacoby's masterly -writing places race and its meaning at the center of this essential work. Readers will gain fresh insight into life during Reconstruction as well as the riddle of racial identities.-Amy Lewontin, Northeastern Univ. Lib., Boston © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.