William Henry Ellis was born a slave in Victoria, Texas, in 1864 — a year before slavery was abolished in the state. Ellis was able to take advantage of his proximity to the border — and his light complexion — to reinvent himself as Mexican businessman, Guillermo Enrique Eliseo. Karl Jacoby , author of “ The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave who became a Mexican Millionaire ,” said plantation owners in Kentucky, where Ellis’ parents and grandparents were born, saw opportunity in