num_pages: 352
description: Winner of the Ray Allen Billington Prize and the Phillis Wheatley Book AwardAn American 'Odyssey' the larger-than-life story of a man who travels far in the wake of war and gets by on his adaptability and gift for gab.  Wall Street Journal A black child born on the US-Mexico border in the twilight of slavery William Ellis inhabited a world divided along ambiguous racial lines. Adopting the name Guillermo Eliseo he passed as Mexican transcending racial lines to become fabulously wealthy as a Wall Street banker diplomat and owner of scores of mines and haciendas south of the border. In The Strange Career of William Ellis  prize-winning historian Karl Jacoby weaves an astonishing tale of cunning and scandal offering fresh insights on the history of the Reconstruction era the US-Mexico border and the abiding riddle of race in America. 8 pages of illustrations
language: English
title: The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company