Karl Jacoby, “The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Millionaire” (Norton, 2016)

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...