The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 471 - William Henry Ellis w/ El Dollop hosts

Episode Date: March 9, 2021

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds are joined by the hosts of El Dollop, Eduardo Espinosa and José Antonio Badía, to discuss William Henry Ellis.SourcesTour DatesRedBubble Merch

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bi-international-international American History podcast where each week I read a story from American history to me amigo. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about Dave your name is Dave Anthony forgot to say that part. I'm Dave Anthony. That's all right I got you. Of the dollop podcast. Yeah we got that part we're good. This is a each week. No no no we've already done this part in its entirety so we don't need to do that anymore. You just kind of messed it up so I was just kind of but you're what you're doing now is what you're doing now is messing it up further. So just it's very complicated

that's the problem is that it's very straightforward and it's been done a lot. It's I've done it like three times. No sir. And it's hard. It's easy to get down if you know what I mean. Hard to get down. Easy to get down. So we're getting down right now. That's what I would call this. I have half a mind to just literally close my computer. Jesus I don't even want to talk to me. I mean yeah like imagine it's terrible. I'm sorry for nightmare. It's every fucking week you do this. It's a prison. It's like talking to someone 70 year old dad. It's not good. It's just some weird dude who shows up with stories he wants to tell me. I mean it's like a

weird circumstance and called it quote is jam-packed. Jam-packed. I'm the fucking hippo guy. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to Tickly Podcast. Okay. This is like an up five-part coefficient. Now hit him with a puppy. You both present sick arguments. No sleep down hippo. That's like down hippo. Action partner. Hi Gary. No. I see it done my friend. No. No. Rhonda. Rhonda in the car. This is our first cross. The first time incorporated. It's an international flavor. Yes. This episode. Yes. Because we have two guests who who in the craziest way I think ever I met I met them. I met a couple of guys in a couple of Mexican dudes, Canadians, when I was talking to another guy at a bar in Wisconsin, you know, natural stuff. Yep. How podcasts start. So these two gentlemen do a podcast in Mexico that is very, very popular. So you can actually listen to it in America because that's how podcasts work.

And it's the, the English translation is legendary legends. And they are very funny. And they also do the Spanish version of the dollop. And big fans, people, I can't, I don't understand what they're saying on a dollop, but the people who do understand both languages tell me it's very good. They're big fans. So I would like to welcome Eduardo Espinosa and Jose Antonio, but yeah. Just imagine a lot of applause. That's, that's fine. We don't even know what that is anymore. Some day, some day when we're all able to travel the earth, which I think will be in like 2030, we'll do a live show together.

Right. That'll be. Yeah. And then we'll go to a bar and we'll meet some people and they'll start the podcast in another country. The next generation. Yeah. Dollops. Dollop Junior. The dollop now in Mandarin.

Finally. That would be amazing. That would be amazing. I'll sit in for that one and just do a Scottish accent every 30 minutes. That work? What are you talking about? It's been very unclear. I've never wanted to learn Spanish more now that you guys do the podcast. It would be hilarious if I, if I finally got around to learning because I had a little bit, but I finally got to learning and I just hear them going, fuck Dave's a fucking piece of shit. Dave, you know what we got to do? We have to learn Spanish fluently and then start the dollop in Spanish.

Just the craziest, but you guys are like, what the fuck is going on there? These are out of their minds. All right. Should we just start the way we usually do? Yeah. If I, you know, I'm, I'm, there's a lot of Spanish words in here. So if I fuck up, please. Special names.

Oh yeah. Well, you should have gotten somebody else because he doesn't know, he doesn't know how to speak Spanish either. That's my problem. I think we're among friends here. I think we'll pair off nicely. Between June 10th and June 24th, 1864. Wait, is that a two week window? Yeah, we don't know.

We don't know the exact date. We don't know. William Henry was born in Texas. His father was Charles. His mother was Margaret. They were slaves. Okay. So that's why we don't know the exact date because people tended not to write that stuff down.

Right. After the civil war in 1865. Good, good, good people, I'd say. Yeah. Yeah. They were just saving on paper. You know, they were, they were earth conscious. It's fine.

That's, that's what the whites have always been like that. You're exactly right. Priorities, you know. Yeah. Yeah. But so a year later, they got to choose their last names because they were freed and they chose Ellis. Now William Henry was now William Henry Ellis and Ellis was probably chosen because there

was a tax white overseer on a previous slave plantation and he clearly had probably been the parent of the kids of the, yeah, the previous kids, his parents, his mom, I think. So William's grandfather, white guy, and William is very, very light skin. So he, he's raised in Victoria County, which is kind of the blurred line at that point in the U.S. and Mexico, as we're calling it. No longer a blurred line, by the way, very. Actually, I think we'll all agree a beautiful wall now exists there. It's gorgeous.

It is. You know, before the wall was there, you just sometimes it would wake up and the, like the border would move on its own. So it's really, it's really nice that, you know, the last guy just really defined it well. You would go for groceries and, oh my God, I'm in another country. Yeah. Maybe if there was a wall, this wouldn't happen to me.

Yes. It's been very safe and clear with the wall. It's gold from what I hear. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. The lovely brown color of gold. It's that beautiful shitty gold hue that we've grown to really embrace here.

I think the French call that color a roast. Yeah. And I would like to right now thank you. You own your country for paying for it. Thank you very much. Yes. Yes. How foolish of us.

No problem. I mean, really cool. Yeah. The next one. Yeah, you get the next one. We insist. So there's obviously there's black people there. There's white people and to Hanos, which for those of you who are like in

Australia, that is a basically a Mexican American, right? An American, but with. Well, actually to Hanos is, you know, you're from Texas. That's just the Spanish way of saying Texan. Yeah. Yeah. So white, white Texians worried about race mixing because they probably still do.

I was going to say your tense, your tense needs to be adjusted. Oh, they don't anymore. I didn't get the memo. Well, after slavery ended, they were really worried about it because they thought if blacks became equal, then whites and blacks would start marrying and making babies. So obviously, you know, you can't have that happen. So they pointed to Mexico, which was at the time in political turmoil and

they said, well, that's also, I mean, what do you mean at the time? Like at what time? Yeah. Yeah. So let me take this back. So this is an era where Mexicans political system was in turmoil and white people in Texas had an aversion to to race relations. It was.

Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, isn't that Mexico is in political turmoil is because it's because they're they're they're not pure. They're not a pure, you know, blood or whatever. Wait, what does that mean? They're saying they're mixed race people.

They didn't. They didn't keep it together. Fucking other people. The mestizos. Yeah. Right. You know, the Spaniards came over and all the natives were like, oh, let's have sex with these guys.

We can't. Yeah. This is going to be fun. And then then and then the whites then the whites showed up to the party. That's right. Whites from every corner of the ocean. Excuse me. It looks like you people are having fun.

Let's just join in. No, no, no, no. We'll be the only ones we're not joining. We will remove it. Oh, it is ours. It's actually it's a commodity, but I brought all these apples. Well, they're my apples. Thank you.

And you get none. Haha. Okay. There it is. Okay, senior. That was. Yeah. That was the response.

Okay, senior. All right. Well, here we go. Yeah. So Senator Bayard of Delaware is an example. He said Mexico was a quote doomed and blasted country, mongrelism, the mixing of bloods of dissent different races has destroyed it and you no longer have a race there fit or worthy or capable of sustaining themselves under a

government of law or protecting themselves in their persons and properties as a civilized nation. We get it. You jerk off. Good Lord. Did it have to be that long? Roodle. Yeah.

So also, by the way, anyone from Delaware shitting on anywhere is a red flag. Oh, yeah. Come on. Delaware. Yeah. Have you heard of Delaware? They've got a Ferris wheel.

All right. Delaware. They got a punch named after them. There's a beverage. I don't think you guys have it in America, but it's called Delaware punch. And it's probably, yeah, it's the shittiest drink ever. It's like just sugar and colors. Yeah.

It's just sugar and purple coloring. And for some reason they make it in Guatemala. It's fucking weird. All right. That's our national drink. That is very fitting of Delaware. I used to drink Delaware punch when I was a kid. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm from California, so you're from Wisconsin. So I was probably a little closer to the Guadalajara drink situation. Sure. That's fair. So William, William ends up going to school.

He also somewhere along the way picked up Spanish and became fluent in Spanish. He probably picked it up because he was in the summer work on crops. Yeah. It's contagious there. Like a Mexican will bite you to start saying, Hey, you know, that goes weird. Honey, something happened at work tonight. And I'm a little, a Mexican bit me. I started like Spanish, I will have turned.

I need some tacos now. I mean, I mean nothing back in cheese will be fine. I mean, quickly give me the tacos. Must fight. So la sienta senior. So he probably came fluent in Spanish because sometimes ex slaves would be mistaken for Mexicans if they had a lighter skin. And he probably realized this was a way to pass a little bit as a,

not being a black guy. Right. So in the 70s and 80s, he, every else in the family, and they were all listed as mulatto on their, on their birth certificate. So in 1884, general proferio Diaz overtook Mexico. So he's in control. He's been in control of Mexico for decades. His rule is known as the porfiriato period.

Yes, our first dictatorship. Yay. Yay, congratulations. So he invites in tons of foreign investment in American corporations, Russian and railroads are built, railroads reach Victoria. So Williams. And he's 18. Railroads open up there and it's a huge deal because now freed slaves. They can not travel the country because of railroads.

Like if they can travel everywhere, it's a huge deal. And we know that William at this point did pass as a Mexican guy on trains, which means sit in the front of the train. Right. So now he's Guillermo. He's no longer William. That's great. My God, you, you can see the future of this episode.

So not the only one. Yeah. To pass to pass as a, as someone who is not black, whether it be Mexican or Cuban or whatever you're going to say you are. No one from your, your life or your past could be there. Right. You had to move yourself away from all the people in your past life. So obviously, Oh, it's like moving to a new high school.

So then you can become popular. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I relate. Yeah. When you go to college and you're like, I'm going by my middle name. Fuck it. It's a new me. Hi, I'm not a dork. I was a dork. That'll work. So I am not a dork. What's everyone having for lunch tomorrow?

Nice. I don't know, but you're paying. For sure. I would never play a wizard on DND. That is dumb. Be a bard. So, uh, so obviously in his home in Victoria County, that's hard. And so, uh, when it gets a job in Victoria, uh, uh,

with hot a high dealer and he learns the trade of high dealing and, and doing that, he goes on business trips to Mexico and probably worked as a translator for this guy. Now, most Americans are Larry of doing business in Mexico at this time, not now. And Ellis Ellis sees an opportunity. So he starts doing business on his own with Mexicans. And pretty soon he's saved like several thousand dollars. Okay. All right.

So then he moves to San Antonio and it opens up his own business as a high dealer, uh, and wool and cotton. And he puts a full, full page announcement in the paper. He tells everyone he was a Mexican American and his name was Guillermo Enrique. Elisio. Of course. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The Guillermo Enrique, you gotta roll the R man. It's Enrique. Oh, I'm here for this.

I've tried to roll my R since high school. Dave, Dave, now is a good opportunity to try for real. Give it a shot. Yeah. Oh boy. That sounded like Roy. Are you okay? Yeah. Guillermo Enrique. Which one are you? Enrique? Is that the one I'm doing? Enrique. Enrique. Enrique. Enrique. Enrique. Yeah. Way better. All right. It's better, but not great. So, uh, every time I get to the R, I have to think about it.

It slows down the whole, the whole word. My name is Enrique. Better. Warmer. So, uh, William Ellis, he said was his translation for, uh, the whites in Texas. So that they would feel more comfortable and understand him. So he, and then he starts hanging out in the exclusive joints. He is at the mangrove hotel, which is the fancy place where all the deals are made. Now, uh, white textings at this point,

they assess race using their, what they consider common sense. So. Oh, okay. Oh good. Oh good. I was worried they had a, like a, like an actual method. I was worried. Swatches would be great. We should, I mean, and we'll get there. But for now we'll just let the old text and race radar do its work. If you are darker than this horse, then you must leave. Excuse me, friend.

Swatch horse. Can you come stand next to the horse? You're free to go inside. I'm sorry, sir. So as one guy said, quote, our Southern high bread people will never tolerate, tolerate on equal terms. Any person who has even remotely tainted with Negro blood, they do not make the same objection to other brown or dark skin people like the Spanish or Cubans. I love that.

He doesn't put Mexicans in there. He's like, you know, like the Spanish Cubans, not the. Yeah, right. That is the thing. Again, the specificity of the racism. It is crazy. Oh no, it's crazy. We'll get into it. So it's basically, it's not just the color skin, but also social standing, reputation, voice, feet, hair, like fucking everything.

They're like a sense of skills. All right, we're going to need to see those feet dancing from the top gentlemen. Two, three, four. And that is not a square. You're out. Yeah, so this, they just look at it. And then they go, okay, yes. So now I don't like you. Like that's how they, they figured out, right? So cool.

And then once a person's race is defined in the town or by the, the, you know, the people in the community or wherever, then it's hard to change it. So if you're like passing as a white guy and then you're accused of being black, well, that's terrible. And then the person being accused can sue the other person for slander. So it really can't be proven in court. So once you're sort of labeled, then everyone's leery to accuse you of being black.

So it's like everyone makes this decision and then no one wants to go back on it. Wait, and then how do they prove it? I mean, do they drop you in the river and if you float your black, how does that work? Yeah. The idea of taking the Russian dash cam movement and turning that into how you judge race is. Well, yeah. And I'm sure it happened the other way too, where people who weren't black were then judges being black, but there's not really record keeping like we would want.

And also this is why you don't fucking want record keeping on top of that. Right. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, so it's this weird way of obviously doing it. So, uh, yeah, like I said, it can't be proven in court. Like you said, and people are leery to do it. Plus, once you have treated a black guy like a white guy, then you don't want to admit you've been duped. Seriously sounds like cooties in middle school.

I mean, it's just insane. No, it's completely insane. And so, and so you end up with situations where, where white, a guy who's passed and then they realize, oh my God, he's actually black, but then they don't want to admit it because they've been hanging out with them. And so like, oh, he's not black. So it's just the soul. So I mean, you're, I can't like selfish racism is like feels redundant. But that's what it's like. Somehow they found a new wrinkle where they're like,

but we can't admit that we were wrong about his race because you understand, it's a slippery slope. It's like, Hey, I mean, my friend, he's black. I know he's not, he is black. Yeah. I'm the one who defines that. Not you, not him. I do. It's up to me to decide. We're sticking to it. So, so he'll meets and he connects with people. He gets into Republican politics. In 1888 at 24, he gives a big speech promoting the building of a black Baptist schoolhouse and Williams, a really good speaker and he's very charismatic.

He soon moves up in the Texas, Texas Republican Party and he's nominated as a Republican candidate for the 83rd district, which is Victoria. Wow. So newspapers described him as quote, Mexican Ellis. Wow. Cool. I mean, that's what we, that's just how we do it here. Sure. Yep. Editor looked at that and went, Yeah, right. We're good to go. Print it. Print it. Print a bunch of them. That's fine.

And I raised this cartoon next to it. Wait. Yeah. Before you print it quickly. Get it out. Big mustache and a burrito in his head. Yes. You know the usual stuff. Just throw that in the mix. But that starts to wear off as the campaign goes on. And then after a little while, he is called quote, a colored spirit for legislative honors. So now they're starting to be like, so what happened is, is he's running in Victoria. Like he's moved to San Antonio where nobody knows him. But now he's now the people who knew him, he grew up with are like, wait a minute.

So the news is starting to find out. People know who he is in Victoria. But clearly those couldn't, those couldn't be people who had defined his race prior to that as something different, because then they would be associated with a race that they're not, which is bad if you're white. Yeah. We're going to need a diagram. Yeah. Yeah. I have one with yarn on my wall. I'm working with here. I'll take a picture.

So he ends up losing, he ends up losing, right? The race and many, and then he realizes, I can't do this. And he slowly backs away from politics and Republican Party. But then he gets into this new movement, which is this guy, Henry Turner, who is trying to get black people to move out of America and emigrate to Liberia. So it's like black people are never going to get a fair shake in America. I know the sun's crazy now, obviously, but this is a long time ago, but black people are never going to fair shake in America.

So we should get the fuck out and just start, start over again somewhere where we can be treated as equal people. And so Liberia was his choice. And, and William, he gets, he gets in with this guy and he likes the idea of emigrating, but he's like, I would rather wasn't his first choice or to emigrate or. Yeah. Or Liberia. Well, he is, he was Liberia's first.

No. So his, his choice, he thinks a better idea is Mexico. He goes to Mexico City and he's got some letters of introduction that he gets and he meets General Pacheco, who gives him a 10 year contract to colonize up to 20,000 black people in Mexico. What? How does that work? But everyone says that again. Well, because everything was nothing was normal, but then how?

Who? How? What the fuck? You just say it again. All right. So this. So the leader in Mexico, this dictator, Diaz, he's trying to get all this American, you know, infusion of cash and whatever.

And then there's this huge force of laborers in America who are good at farming because they were slaves. Right. And their thinking is, well, these, these people could come down here and turn a section of Mexico into a well farmed, you know, place and sort of create, create that industry in that area. That's what they're thinking. Oh, okay.

So like a reverse now. Yeah. That's right. It's called the one. So he's going to, he's obviously going to get some money from doing this. And, and he, and the contract is to bring what 2000 people a year down and colonize them. Now it's, it's not a great place.

I think it's Oaxa. Is that the right? Oh, I didn't write it down. Well, Haka. Well, Haka. So it's a place, it's a place in Mexico where at the time a lot of, you know, diseases and stuff that tropics and to jungle, big jungle in the south and their Jaguars and stuff.

Yeah. And so it couldn't be no one at this point had figured out how to, how to farm it and turn into farmland. So they're like, what about black guys? That's basically what's happening. I'm sure the pitch is so vastly different from the Jaguar jungle pitch. They don't love it. They got a bed, bathroom beyond.

You guys are going to freak out. And so already hundreds of black families just hearing about it or like, yeah, I want to get the fuck out of Texas. Absolutely. Let's go. I guarantee if you're like saying something like, so it's an opportunity for you to move. I don't need to hear anymore. I'll pack right now.

Let's get the fuck out of here. You see what they're doing? Mexico sort of split on it. Slavery is not legal in Mexico at this point. And they're much more accepting of black people than in America. The Mexican legislature fiercely debates it. Senator Jose Maria Cruz quote, we are going to populate them with a contentable abject and degraded race.

The Mexicans in these places will be forced to flee. So there's, you know, okay. Well, I mean, you know, we can do it too. And apparently we'll do it for cheap. So it ends up passing a November 7th, 1889. And then William quickly starts to set up. He sets up a Mexican cotton colony colonization company to sell shares to fund the colony. He puts ads in papers.

He starts traveling around the US to pitch the idea, but he doesn't have any money because there's not a lot of VC money and moving black people to Mexico. Right. It's not like a thing or people like this sounds awesome. So it also puts them back in the public eye and people point out his previous Republican relationships. The Galveston Daily News quote, Mr. Ellis is an attractive mulatto about 30 years of age and is a prominent in political circles in San Antonio.

The Dallas Morning News quote, he is not a Mexican capitalist. He is rather a shrewd Republican politician. So now the papers are back to like, this is a black guy. Okay. No, but I like how the furs were like, oh, well, this is a very attractive mulatto guy. He's not really a businessman. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I would kiss him, but I wouldn't give him my money. You know, it's, it's fantastic. You can't trust him obviously. Good Lord. So by now, thousands of people want to move and then General Pacheco dies and the Mexican government immediately cancels the colony contract. Oh, shit.

So in, yeah, in 1893, America falls into a depression. Colonization clubs become huge. So there's all these clubs forming around the country of people who want to get the fuck out of America. Where, where, where do you think we'll start popping up? We're going to reboot. We're going to reboot that. I was just going to say, I could see him being pretty as popular as Starbucks soon.

So around this time, William was, uh, he was passing, he was refused passage in the white's only sleeper car of a train from Mexico city to Laredo. So he actually takes the train from Mexico city. He rides it in the sleeper car. And as soon as it crosses the border, the conductor's like, get the fuck out of the sleeper car. Hey, you're Mexican now. Right on the top.

You need to get to the top of the chain. This obviously, this is one of the big moments that really affects him. He never forgets being made, made to go back to the colored car as it's called. And he, he often travels to Mexico for business. He says he's an American when he's in Mexico and when he's in America, he says he's Mexican or Cuban. I mean, imagine just one getting confused just one time. Yeah.

What are you talking about? I'm Mexican. Yeah. That's a bad thing. Oh fuck. Thought I was in America. Here it is. Uh, he also told people in Mexico that he was the illegitimate son of a railroad magnet

named, uh, call us Huntington. So I love that he, that's like his best story. Like, you know, I'm, uh, my mom, my dad fucked another lady. Yeah. And, uh, so I'm pretty hot shit. You know, do you know what a bastard is? Well, I'm a lucky one. Uh, so in Mexico city, he completely avoids hanging out with other Americans because

there's a, there's, in Mexico city, there's a place called the American colony. And they're very sort of, I don't know if you know this. I don't know if this is still true, but Americans keep to themselves and they're racist in their little group, much more racist than the rest of Mexico city, which is a little more European-ish at the time. They're, they're sort of, there's a little bit of a European fetish going on. All the rich Mexican elite are wearing Parisian fashion and sort of doing that thing. Oh yeah.

They're still doing that thing. Like you're describing something we call Polanco and interlomas. That's the richest areas of Mexico city and, and the style of Mexico. And that's what they do. They have a European fetish. Yeah. It turns out wherever you are in the world, uh, rich people act the same. So this is where William started.

He adopted a, a Parisian look at the time. He starts wearing a frock coat and a top hat. There we go. Finally. He's found himself. You don't find yourself until the hat is decided on him when you choose top hat. Right. I mean, yeah, the hat defines you now.

It's like, oh, well, yeah. And then I put on a pocket watch and found my cane. And now I am complete. Well, if you like put on a top hat, that's like trying heroin. It's like, you're like, look, I've taken a huge swing. I don't know what the hell else happens here, but it's probably, there's going to be a per chief at some point, like right out of the gate. You know, I think you saw the wrong version of train spotting.

I remember it. That's spotting. Uh, so when he would meet Americans in Mexico, he would tell them he was Cubans. William quote, Mexico has no race prejudice from a social standpoint. The Negro may occupy any position he's able to fill and there's no discriminate discrimination against him either at hotels or at places of amusements or in public conveyances. Oh yeah.

We took care of that. There is now. Congratulations. Yeah. We will not be left behind. Hey, what are the Americans doing? We're not doing that. Oh shit.

Get on that quickly. Uh, so he started hanging out at a British club and that's where he met a Spaniard who owned a very large Hacienda in northern Mexico that needed workers. Hacienda is like a giant plantation type. Yep. So, um, they're there, they were turning a hundred acres. Sorry, a hundred thousand acres.

It's basically. Yeah. It's a little bit more of basically very desert arid land into farmland using this stuff. So it's this big project. Sure. Um, part of a porfirito. Porfirato.

Porfirato. Porfirato. Porfirato. Don't be afraid to roll that R, Dave. It turns me on. I don't know about that. Carradrenos. Oh God.

I need to take a five, Dave. Dave, that's the hottest thing. That's right. My name with ours. Woo. Wet. Woo. Um, the company was called, here we go.

This is the. Tlajolito. Beautiful. Uh, corporation in December 11th, 1894, the company signed a contract with quote. El Señor Guillermo H. Ellis, who would bring a hundred colored families experienced in the cultivation of cotton to the Hacienda. So he signs this deal with this big farming company to bring in

laborers. Okay. And, and I mean, is he like. of America so badly that his job is really just to facilitate that. He doesn't need to do much selling. Yeah, right. Yeah, people want the fuck out of America. Okay. And he's getting a cut. He gets a, it just seems like a weird role for a person to be like, I'm the one who brings, you know what I mean? Like I bring black people to Mexico. That is my job. You know, I mean, it's almost like a legalized coyote in a sense, right? Yeah.

Or a headhunter for laborers in a way. I mean, it's still a reverse now. We do that backwards now. Yeah. Well, if someone approached me right now, I was like, you can go to me. I'd be like, let's go. I'm ready. So he gets a $5,500 advance, which is 150k today. And then he, he, you know, starts working on hiring people. And in January 1895, his hires arrived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. So he hires some guys to go and get people, right? They start holding meetings with black farmers and the communities to discuss this new opportunity. And by January 25th, so it sounds like it's a couple of weeks, hundreds of black people pack the railroad depot to get on the quote, paradise train to Mexico. Oh my God. They

just heard about being able to leave. Yeah. And we're like, yes, 100%. I would like to start a new paradise train to Mexico. All right. On the top, like Teen Wolf, if you run out of room, I'll just get on the roof of it. I don't give a shit. They call it a carnival cruise. Just friendly advice. If you go to Mexico anytime soon, do not ask for a paradise train. You're going to get some very, very weird. Excuse me, gentlemen, I know you're in the middle of a conversation. No habla espanol, but I am after the paradise train. Yeah, you're aiming to, you're aiming to have to get derailed hard.

All right. It's good to see so many of you standing up. It shows me that there's a real will that's all there is. So yeah, there's just all these people and then white people come down to see what's happening because all the black people in town are getting on a train. Why are they happy? Why are they leaving? Wait, excuse me, it seems like we should stop this for some reason. And the black people, you know, it's like a celebration. They're never coming back. And they're acting like it.

Oh, the white people. The whites heard quote, the most open and insulting abuse of the white men of the community. The black people. Can you imagine? I mean, literally, you need to train for your ball bag if you're saying the word abuse and are white in this day. Yeah, I mean, they're just sitting there yelling all kinds of shit. I've never been talked to like that before. So white people get scared that all the black people in the South are going to leave for Mexico. Oh my God, all our black people are going to go. We're going to have to make people

stake in our black people. So one guy, one guy that William hired to do this was named Peg Legg Williams. Sure. That's a great name. Yeah. It's the best name and Peg Legg Williams was already known in the South and North Carolina had passed a law called the Peg Legg Williams Law. It prevented him from taking black workers out of the state. So this is like was his

deal. This is like his thing. Wow. He would try to lure black. You were like, you want to open the law up because other people, we are literally trying to stop Peg Legg for doing that. Seriously. I mean, he's just putting in way so much leg work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just surprised. Let's just hope Hook Arm Johnson doesn't get the same idea because we don't have a

law for him. What we're doing is we're passing laws for people now. It takes forever. But that's how we're doing it. So and then because he was known, William made sure that Peg Legg was out in front and sort of the face of the thing and then he could hide in the shadows and Peg Legg was probably like, you know, it's probably not a great idea for me to be so up front about all this. Now go, buddy. Go. What are they going to? Well, they're like passing laws specifically

about me. Get up there. Just wear pants. Nobody will see the Peg Legg if you wear pants. So they they head to the hot. So they it goes it goes from like Tennessee to Georgia and then through the south and then to the border and then they get on like once they get near the house. The end of the take little carts and so it's a pretty it's a decent journey. Sure.

It had only been two months since the contract was signed before all these workers start showing up and the company's not ready. They didn't think it was going to happen that fast. So the families are expected. Well, the paradise train don't make you turns, Dave, what to tell you. So they're expecting housing, right? They're going to build the dobe's for him and this is already taking on a real like firefest vibe. The workers have to live in tents now. Some of them their own tents and their own sleeping bags and whatever their own padding for for weeks. It's the rainy season.

So that's not great. And I think we got on the wrong train to paradise paradise is fucking shit. Yeah. Well, at least not Texas. So right, that even no matter what you're like, it could be worse. It could be. So William goes back to the US and he's he's wearing a sombrero and he gets off. He gets off the train where the press meets him and he tells him it's awesome. Everybody is super happy in the world. They love their new homes. The weather is amazing. We live in spring break town.

When have they when have I ever lied, you know, besides, besides when I tell you, I'm Cuban, Mexican, American and or black has been on the geography. Guillermo has never lied to anybody. So people this is in the press. Other other people hear it who, you know, are living this nightmare life in the south and now all these other black people want to go. And they it's actually so many want to go that they start hanging out by the railroad tracks just waiting for the paradise trains to come by. Oh, my God.

And it's and it's just a shit situation. There's no like, it's a shit situation. So what is what is the what is the motivation to continue to know what is it with American trains? I mean, there's just you just put all the people you don't want in a place in a train and then hope it doesn't come back. Oh, my God, it's so fucking true. Oh, God, it is like the solutions are just awful. Hey, it works. What? And it is like 2021 and where people are still like, you should probably get a train involved

to help us. I mean, you elected the guy who loves trains. Oh, yeah, he's definitely going to do some crazy train shit at some point. If wait. So what what like why do you could why do you lie if you're it's not the the Hacienda truly is looking to build them houses and actually set them up right. They just weren't ready. So it's not like it is really that bad like the the plan is actually a decent one.

Okay. You know. So in March, William bought brought more people. So there's now 816 workers at the Hacienda. They're they're happy for they're they're happy. Even though they're living the way they are, they're like, this is still fucking much better. Yeah.

One quote. We are free men under a free government. Yeah. Well, that's pretty cool. We'll wait. It's during the porfirieto. That's not no. Well, I mean, to them, yeah, they don't have like, I think it's a difference between being

scared someone's going to lynch you at any time for doing anything and then not having that feeling because it's definitely not. It's a it's a dictatorship. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So then then things start to go south after the 860 people work there, the further self what they think it's like, what?

So they don't know about irrigation. That's not how they did crops in America. They also they thought they were going to manage their own time. There's the Hacien is like, no, you're going to work in gangs. So, you know, they had been sharecroppers and now so it's a whole it's a different way of working. Right. And when their living spaces are built, they are no bueno is what that's my Spanish.

Yeah. They built they're built in a square and then it's a plaza situation where all of the all of the buildings are facing inward and and then there's no windows on the outside because Comanche's would attack sometimes. So so the the black people are like, well, this is this is like this is a prison. This feels like a prison. Yeah, you're just like looking at other people living. Yeah.

They're like this. And then rumors start and they all start to think they're going to be re-enslaved. Oh, shit. Okay. Fuck. I mean, that just that shows you how great a relationship with a white person in America could be that that trauma truly, though, I mean, to think like, I mean, you have to be like, oh, fuck, of course, you know,

Yeah, you're immediately like this looks like a jail. But it's so funny because it's just a simple like, I don't even know if it's a cultural thing as much as a geographic thing. Like there's Comanche's that attack. Well, they didn't have Comanche's attacking them in Tennessee, but No, they had white people to take care of that. They don't outsource that. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the one part they enjoy. Nobody, but nobody in Mexico was like, by the way, we're going to build it this way because you know, it's for your own safety. It just, no one thought of that. So it starts a whole problem. Some people just leave and they start walking on the railroad tracks back north, 300 miles back to America, small groups of quote, half starved and scantily clad people start arriving

in Texas begging for supplies to find their way back to Alabama and Tennessee. Now back at the Hacienda summer comes and the workers start to get sick. They have shooting pain, swollen joints, fever and diarrhea. And then some start dying. So they send for an American doctor and he comes down and he prescribes mercury and quinine. Oh yeah. We still do that. Yeah.

It's called Sunday. Yeah. Yeah. Mercury is always good to hear a doctor say, oh, you always want to put poison in your body. You know what? We're going to give you a little poison to help you out. That ought to do it.

It doesn't work. They keep dying. 40 have died by July. More people leave. Some go north, follow the railroad tracks. Others go to the closest town and then they get there and they're sick. And so the Mexican authorities, you know, lock them away and test them and they have smallpox.

Oh, shit. Which is bad. I don't know if you know, it's not great. Well, it's better than bigpox, but it's not good. So now this has become an international incident and now US papers are following it and it's turning up in a thing because they're like the Mexican authorities like, why are you sending us people smallpox? Like it's a whole fucking shit.

Like you're not sending us your best. Come on, guys. We said workers without smallpox. It was right there in the writing. It was a bad connection on the letter. We didn't see that part. The American president Cleveland getting all this shit and he has the military send rations to these workers.

Okay. Mexico stops the rations at the border. That's a rational. And says no, because they want, they want them out of it. They want the US to ship them out. So the US is like, all right, look, we got some bananas and some sandwiches and some potato chips and milks that are, uh, yeah, there you go. Fixed it.

Enjoy. We get a bunch of bananas were farmed by their brothers. It's a reunion story. So the US agrees to bring them back on trains and they come back. They're quarantined, uh, near the Rio Grande outside of the Eagle Pass. It's 411 people. Okay. And, and then they, after they, after they quarantine and put him in this like camp situation,

which is just like, yeah, fences, the fences, there's nothing else. Well, by the way, I mean, like to what you were saying about their fear earlier, like they're going, I mean, this is at this point, like not really much of an existence either. You know, no, it's not great. This isn't the paradise train. Yes. No, it's not where the paradise train is supposed to go. So, so they're just trapped in this place and then the US government, after doing all

this goes, all right, Texas, you take care of them. Now we all know about Texas. They're not big on, uh, spending, uh, social, uh, sort of programs. No, I actually, I think they're still using the same tents in Eagle Pass to keep children there now. Oh, no, well, they go to Cancun. So, uh, so they basically, so Texas, they just send four guys to look over them. And those guys end up not doing anything because they don't give a shit.

So great. Dave, so far it feels like this is being handled really capable in August, the Marine Hospital Service comes to take over. They have more experience with quarantining. And then, and instead of just doing that, they experiment on them with new serums that have never been tested. This is called the mercury. This is hot mercury.

This is mercury that I slept under for three weeks under a blue moon. We will test all of them. This is Delaware Punch. Uh, so 178 get smallpox, 51 die. They would be in that camp until, um, October. So William is still at the Hacienda with 60 colonists who stayed. Oh, okay. And he heads back to the U S and tells the press that the U S government was the one

who fucked everything up. If the government had not paid to put them on trains and bring them back to the U S, they each one of them could have made between $500 and $1,000 each, but they were the harvest dying. Right. Uh, did, did, did, did, did, did, did. Well, yeah, if somebody dies, you're getting more money. Like, you know, it's, oh right.

That's right. Of course. Simple math. Yeah. This. Yeah. Someone's a capitalist. Yeah.

I keep forgetting. I don't put my capitalist top hat on. I don't know. Uh, yeah. But then what an amazing, what an amazing claim to be able to make like they would have survived if it weren't for the train. Of course it's bad press. I mean, he, whatever he says, people aren't buying at this point.

And in the South, the press jumps at the chance to say Mexico is actually the late, the land of slavery for black people while in the U S they have tons of opportunity. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And we just have continued to replicate that way of speaking in every facet where we just say, no, no, we're better than you don't ignore the reality of America. The Victorian advocate wrote the Hacienda was quote, prison like in a thousand times

more barbarous than slavery. The Alabama courier wrote quote, this is the home of the Negro. He should better accept the Southern sun and cotton fields and make of himself a more useful citizen. Oh my God. Fuck. Oh, good. All right.

Can we, can we, can there be a time travel thing that happens where we can go back and just kill those people? I was expecting to find the guy who wrote that and just let us throw it and then, and then you come back. Like that's your whole time travel job. You just go kill that guy. It's really funny because in my head, I thought you were going to say like how we could change the culture and stuff, but you just want to kill people.

Yes. Well, how else does a white guy know how to change the culture? Very on brand. Very on brand. Oh God. I mean, that really is what we're just waiting for is that level where it's like white people were the problem. Now white people have to kill them.

It's almost coming from inside the house. It was them all along. Yeah. So obviously during all this discussion in the press, no one asked the black workers what they thought. Why wouldn't they Dave? The white reporters know what's going on. But the 60 colonists who remained became part of the community and their, their ancestors

there to this day. So William would have made a fortune because his contract was to get a cut of the harvest. So he ends up nod. So opportunity loss. So he looks for another way to make money. He still has money. So he buys the largest furniture factory in all of Mexico. I thought that's where this was headed.

Right. No. Yeah. I had a feeling it was going to be up. And he invented the lazy boy and that was the story of the most comfortable chair in the world. So the, the store, it makes furniture for Americans. And then he also became the Mexican representative for a French weapons manufacturer that supplied

Mexico with weapons. Wow. Okay. So he's working. He's, he's supplying the dictator with weapons. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's a good gig.

Well, it also shows you that he's still America. You can take the boy out of America, but it's like, I don't know, it's in my blood. It's just to make my blood. I will give you guns. What am I seeing? I will sell them illegally to you. What the hell are you going to use these to kill poor people because I'm in. So that's the hotchkiss arms company is working for.

And then after he sets these up, he moves to New York city under the name Guillermo de Elisio. There's less than 300 Mexicans living there and less than 2000 Cubans. So very few people have bumped into a, no, a Mexican dude or a Mexican lady, right? It's just not something they're familiar with. So he could easily pass there by saying he's Mexican. People thought Latin America was like the land of riches at this point. Like they just saw it as like, this is this vast land of riches.

So he fits the mold, right? He's this rich guy says he's from Latin America. He has a waxed mustache. He's wearing the top hat. The frog. He has amazing clothes. He wears tons of jewelry and he gives out Cuban cigars and he gives top hat is the gateway. It's all just because of the top hat.

He jumped once. The top hat was always, always for rich guys until slash. And then everyone was like, that's the downfall. Yeah. Ruin it for everyone. Yeah. That's the end of that. He also would give out jewelry to other rich guys' wives.

Like here's like, he's just acting like he's filthy rich from Latin America. He's like, I'm a super, I'm just like an American dude. So. What? Oh yeah. That's an ice cream truck. Sorry guys. That's amazing.

You guys want to take an ice cream break? I'm good. What time is it there? It's 2 p.m. And how hot is it? Right now it's like 22, 24 Celsius, which is about 60, I guess. I don't know. So not.

So it's kind of ice cream. Ice cream. Yeah. Ish. They started early. You know, you need to get into game early. If this is Scotland, that's a, that's a drug truck. Is that a drug truck?

So right, so he's trying to pass himself off as a super rich upper class Latin American dude. So Cuba has been fighting Spain for independence for a while and Americans follow the action because they're, they, some of them want to make Cuba a state. Some just, you know, love the fighting. They hate Spain. Cuban revolutionaries are super respected. Everyone loves them.

And in 1897, William has an article published in a paper stating he was the leader of a Mexican group who went to Cuba and joined with the Cuban insurgents and fought with them. Sure. Well, there you go. Okay. It's in the paper. Yep.

Now it happened. Now it happened. Basically fact. Quote, Ellis has the rank of captain in the insurgent army. He will return to Mexico in a short time to plot another expedition to Cuba. So he's like a soldier. So things have taken, well, in his mind, he's a soldier, but things have now taken a delusional turn.

Right? Yeah. Well, no, it's, it's still just all the deception. In interviews, he says Cuba will be free. He's always like Cuba libre. Like he's just always on, he's on point with all this stuff. Oh my God. He, he hangs the, the Cuban insurrection leaders portrait in his office.

Like you get to be. Oh, come on. This is like Alaria. This is fake until you make it to Cuba. That's right. You know? Yeah. The Cuban press is now just calling him a successful businessman in Cuba and Mexico and an insurrecto.

So he's, he's, he's done it like everyone else on board. Now Cubans are considered the whitest of the Latin Americans. So William is trying to up his white status by now being Cuban, right? He's like, I'm going up the ladder. Right. So, Mexicans are legally white. Congratulations gentlemen. Thank you.

All right. Yeah. No idea. I had no idea. So a judge. Yeah. A judge, a judge actually ruled that Mexicans were white legally to be white. There we are.

That's the end of that. All right. Next case. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to race court. This is race horse. He'll stand next to him, please. And then we may begin. Is this like a thing like, you know, that show The Voice where you just stand there,

you talk and then like somebody from each race just turns their chair and like, no, you're ours. And it's called the race. The fuck you said I'm Chinese. So, so what had happened was a, a dude who immigrated from Mexico had been living in the States forever and he, and he wanted to become a citizen. And then it, and then someone was like, well, you're not white and it turned into this whole thing.

And the judge legally says, no, you're legally white. So he can become. Legally white is a great name for a TV. It's a rom-com, it turned into legally wronged eventually, didn't it? Left and his mom went right, but this guy, he's legally white. He's legally white. Oh, fuck. This is what the judge, the judge also said, quote, if the strict scientific classification

of an anthropologist should be adopted, he would probably not be classified as white. But legally. Well, this judge, so if he gets stopped in the street, like, if, you know, just because he's, let's assume he's driving. Yeah, I know there's no cars, but then, but let's, he just gets pulled over for not being white. And he's like, no, wait, I got license registration and prove that I'm white. Look, scientifically, I'm not white.

But legally, here's my card. And that's what counts. Yes. We don't believe in science. This is America. You're lucky we hate science, because you are now legally white. All right, well, you have a good rest of your day there, legally white fellow. So William meets this super gorgeous white actress named Fane Strahan, and he's really

into her. Now she's actually conning him in what was known as the Badger game, where she would after a little while get him in a very compromising position in a hotel or whatever. And then her and then reveal she was a badger. Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm using your clothes to build my own. Oh, I'm going to take it.

Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I didn't think about that. I don't know why it was, but it was basically, it doesn't make sense at all. Anyway, so the husband, the husband bus in and is like, Hey, and it catches him in this position, his wife. And because adultery is such a big deal, like it could legitimately ruin a rich dude. He would, they would say, like, give us money and we won't talk about it. And then they know if they just hang out in the bar, he would have given you a bunch

of rings anyway. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Why not? So after she worked William for months, she apparently realized that he was a black dude. She couldn't say she'd been hanging with a black guy, right?

So she just moved on to another guy. She didn't, it would cause too much trouble for her. So for him, this was just a real relationship that ended. Right. I mean, basically, yeah. It was a bit of a con the whole time. Like he was like, we broke up. No idea.

She's a good girl though. She really is. Top notch. Trustworthy she is. Not like those badgers, you know, they do my buddy got screwed by a badger couple the other day. I'll tell you, probably. Oh my God.

Those claws took his balls off. If the husband badger came in, he clawed the shit out of him and some lady married a badger. I don't know. Anyway, take it easy. Have a right. So they move on to another mark, but that dude is the rare dude who doesn't pay them off and has them arrested.

Oh, okay. So now there's a trial and he has to testify, but he testifies, you know, looking like he'd top hat. He does this whole fucking thing and no one thinks anything of it. But then later in the trial, they, someone says that the husband guy called him a Negro at some point and now there's now everyone's worried, but she said the word, but because they think he's actually black, they, they, everyone thinks he's Cuban. And then, and then it comes up in testimony that someone called them black.

And now, and now it's a concern. That is now what is more important than the grifting couple. Fuck yeah. And for her too, because the actress is like, he absolutely is not back because she doesn't want people knowing. I guess she doesn't want people to know that she went back. Yeah. I can't have my race grade drop.

You know the world we live in. And then her mother comes down to talk to the press to say he's definitely Cuban. Trust me, I don't need, I believe me, he's Cuban. There will be no questions as to how I know, but trust me. And somehow he manages to get away with it. Now around this time he goes into business with a guy who was buying up water companies all over New York called the wet chest, Westchester water company. So it's a great idea.

We're still doing today, but you buy water and then you charge people for something that the earth makes. Yeah, yeah. And they make million millions and William is now rich. He's a fucking super rich guy living on Central Park West. He still keeps in contact with his family, which is the more money he makes, the top hat gets bigger, right? Always gets larger.

Each, each, each hundred thousand. It goes up and up and up. So he's got a very tall hat. Yeah. So he stays in contact with his family, which is super rare for a black person passing in these days. Usually you cut them off because you don't want anything coming up that can ruin the old gig.

But he stays in contact. It's actually at this time it was called going to the other side. That's a black people called it. So they'd be like, what happened to Frank? I haven't seen him anywhere. Well, Frank went to the other side. Meeting. Oh, he's wearing a top hat now.

I get it. Good old Frank. Happens to the best of them. Yeah. So he is, he's now passing as a white guy. That's what that means. And basically departed their life. That's why he went to the other side.

He's gone. Right. But Williams, the rare exception who still writes letters and sends money and stays in contact. He's like a ghost. That's right. He meets Maude Sherwood in 1903 and they get married. The announcement says that they met in England and she's from nobility.

Sure. She's actually from Jersey City. Nobility Jersey. Right next door to Hoboken. You got to go to the nobility mall. Oh my God. Her dad, her dad was actually a dock worker and she's white. While it's not illegal to marry someone of another race in New York, it's also not smiled

upon cops at this time would raid clubs that were known as black and tan clubs because that's where white women and black men would hang out. I mean, like, have cops ever really like had a lot to do, like, you know what I mean? So many things going on and then they always have time for the non useful side shit. Oh, there's a white woman to get around here. You stop talking to each other, human beings, fake is being robbed over there. Don't worry about that. No, no, no, I got to stop that guy from smoking that plant.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. They're doing what they want. Good. Good for them. So Mott has to have known his sister would visit.

They had a niece that would stay with him for the summers and Mott doesn't seem to have any family at all. Her dad died three weeks before the marriage. She had no family at the wedding. So I think easy, easy for her to get away with it too. So after the wedding, William goes to England to attend the coronation of Edward V seven. Sure. And now we know when now we know Edward's incredibly racist, that whole family is.

So you mean because right, the news, I love that people are shocked that the royals are racist. Like, oh, my God, I can't believe this. The people that believe that the people who would rather fuck their own cousins, the people who fucked around cousins and who collected heads from from indigenous people over the world. It turns out they're racist. Yeah.

Chocker. He's tough. Leave it to Oprah to figure it out. Got him. That's right. So he's there and he meets an Ethiopian general who has been sent by the emperor of Ethiopia and quickly becomes super focused on going to Ethiopia. And he starts, he starts conversations with me at Ethiopia, so it's great.

Well, it's like, oh, there, Ethiopia is like the only place that hasn't been conquered. The emperor is a super strong leader, like it's a legit thing. So he starts cozying up to this guy, Francis Loomis, who's a U.S. Secretary of State. He wants to get a diplomatic purpose for going. So he wants to make it like official so he can get more press for doing it. And then he finds out that there's already an official department trip planned. So he wants to make sure he gets there first. So he leaves like three weeks before it's supposed to go.

And you have to go like on camel for three weeks across the desert. Like it's a fucking hell, hell trip. The press, right, of course, like he wanted that William is paving the way for establishing relations between U.S. and Ethiopia. Sure. Right. Like, if there was Twitter back then, he would have like 15 million followers. Yes.

100%. Like he's just getting it done by any means necessary. Yeah. So he's looking at looking to modernize and he sees another opportunity and he he's talking about colonization again, bringing black people to Ethiopia. Oh boy. Wait, what? And.

Oh boy. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Black Americans. Yeah.

He goes to the opening. He's like, I got a great idea. I'm going to bring black people here. Like, dude, I got. Oh, just you wait, buddy. Just you. Wait. No, they're not like yours.

So he also pitches the idea of Ethiopia having a national bank, which William would run for them. Sure. And also how are you going to say no to the top hat guy? Can't. I'd like to run your bank. We would just think of the same goddamn thing. Nobody makes sense, but you.

So, and this is the first time that bling being black is an asset. Right. So I couldn't find that he what, what he called himself, but I imagining he would just be like, I'm William Ellis. And then just everyone assume he's a black dude, right? I don't think he'd be there like, I'm Mexican here. It doesn't make any sense. So he, he brings his nephew, Charles, who has just moved to New York to work in

William's office and is now calling himself Carlos, Alicio, or Stanis. All right. Sure. So another Mexican or Cuban dude. Oh, no, he's born in Monterey, Mexico. So he's, he's a Mexican gentleman. Oh, we've been burned. We're like, he's not real.

Another fraudulent Mexican. Probably not even his nephew. He's probably just some random kid. Yeah. Yeah. So William comes back from Ethiopia in early 1904 and again, meets reporters at the dock and he says he's made agreements for the Americans to take over the diamond mines, 200,000 acres of land and quote,

I shall establish the Royal Bank of Visenia and control the financial fares of the country. Now, none of this is agreed upon. He's just that this is hope. Yeah. The secret. Yeah. He's just manifesting, right?

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And he says, you know, he's going to establish a colony. Mexico's going to pay for it. I mean, he probably learned to manifest from the white people. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. What is this thing of bullshitting? We're not bullshitting. This is called. Okay. Interesting white. And he tells him he's going to establish a colony for American black people to move there.

So he tries to get this Loomis guy from the state department to send him back with the treaty that has been agreed upon. But Loomis instead picks his brother Kent to bring the treaty. So then William starts trying to buddy up to Kent as much as possible. Okay. And pretty soon they're two pieces of pod. They're always hanging out together.

They stay together in white, white only hotels where William would say he's Hawaiian. Why add another one into the mix? You already have like six. Yeah. I have no idea. You have like six dental passports already. Where are you going to keep the other one?

It's like when Mike Myers or like Eddie Murphy play a bunch of parts. That's what he's doing with us. He's like, I'm everything. I play everything. Yeah. That's what we need a movie about this guy, you know, portrayed by Eddie Murphy.

That's what we need now. Yeah. And the fart jokes would be hilarious. You didn't roll your arm on fart there. I did. Yeah. That's so in June, Kent and William head for Ethiopia together on a steamer and they get along great.

Right. On the final night, not on the final night, they're in England and they're, they dine together and when goes back to the room and the next morning Kent is missing. Oh. And it's. Check under your hat. Body is found four weeks later with a circular, a circular wound

behind his ear. Now he could have been hit over the head with something or he could have fallen and hit his head on a boat fitting. Okay. That's unfortunate. I don't know if you guys know anything about the United States of America, but we really love conspiracies. Oh, do you know?

Yeah. So people. Yeah. So people are running with William killed Kent. Part of that is also because of William Pacific month monthly quote, what greatly increases the mystery of the affair was the presence on the vessel of one W H Ellis, a Hawaiian or Negro. Of a fabulous fortune.

Why should a messenger bearing a treaty paper from this government to another choose for his companion and assist a man of queer and descendants and off color as to his skin. Whoa. Jesus. So of course, right, it's titillating to the American public. Oh, this guy might be black. This is so fun.

Like everyone's running with the story. It's also no, is this going to end up with somebody from that paper inventing red or where's this going? So they also know to that William and Kent were always together intimate friends and shared a state room on the steamer. Right. The only thing steaming harder than the boat was their bromance.

As usual, people hang out with William. Back him, right? Because they can't. It's the same thing. Crazy. I mean, this is so ridiculous. Okay, right. Same thing.

No, don't you see he has to stay that race or our race changes too. That's like in a movie preview. If his race shifts, all of our races shift. He's from Machu Picchu now. You know what that's going to do to us. Guys, our rating, our race rating is going to drop. So Loomis comes out and defends William dismissing the conspiracy. Of course, Texas is Texas.

The Fort Worth telegram quote. It seems that Loomis's companion. W H Ellis was formerly a Negro politician and promoter in this section of Texas and was born and reared in Victoria in these write ups. He is generally credited with being a Cuban, but here he is known as a Negro. He is in fact quite dark.

So they're really reporting on the important shit. Right. Yeah. That was from last week's paper, right? Yeah, that's from the New York Times. Right. Yeah. So after Kent's death, he continues on the trip and he delivers

the treaty to the emperor and the emperor gives him back a bunch of animals to give to President Roosevelt, the zebra baboons, sausages, the lion, you know, just usual stuff. We accept the treaty. Go take your president some baboons. They're over there by the corner. They bite. Beware.

I'm trying like, is there any way I could take back a less vicious killing animal? No, no, you'll just take this cage of baboons. You love them. How attached are you to your face? Because, you know, they might take it off. Look at the red button. They hate water.

Have a good trip back. Baboons. Mr. President, I have a bunch of rabid baboons to give you. Here you are. Is that a euphemism? I wish it were, sir. Damn it. No, this is the real deal.

So he gets back to the U.S. in October 1904. So it should be this huge successful trip, right? He delivered the treaty for the U.S. But it's all about Kent's death and his racial status. Right. A black playwright around this time writes a musical about a black comedian who gets caught up in a colony scam.

And during the play, he throws a con man overboard a ship. Very poignant. What a creative mind. So part of their culture is like, you know, catching on. In 1905, the census is taken and census takers only recorded one black person living in Williams house, a maid. He's now officially white. He got both.

He got both. Sorry. He got birth certificates and other documents to establish that he's white for his kids and him. And and then they'd later have three kids who were alive. A couple that didn't do that. And so they had. So now he's officially on like recorded as white.

Like they took a picture of him and he was wearing cockies and they're like, oh yeah, definitely. No, you had so many pairs of cockies. Oh, he's playing hacky sack. All right. Legally white. So yeah, he's a. So this is a really big deal.

And I think that even though the word is out, though, that he's black, he's made so many connections now with rich people that no one's going to want to say that he's a black guy. Like he's now, he's living in that thing where no one wants to be ashamed for having been duped. Right. It's the most beautiful racist loophole ever. Like, oh, you're fucked, man.

Cause if you say that I'm black, then you're fucked. It is amazing. It's an amazing racetrack of your black friends. Shut up, William. Shut up. You know, I'm black. Stop saying that, William. Come on now.

We're friends. You know, it's the version of the badger game. So now he moves to Mount Vernon, which a very white suburb of New York. His boys names are changed. Guillermo, Jr. becomes Irmo. That like why the what? That is the craziest.

I'm guessing at the time Irmo wasn't as popular as it is today. Yeah. Don't worry, son. I got you back. Your name's now Irmo. Okay. Who's next? I'm naming my children Muppets.

I'm inventing Muppet names on there. Does your tickle be Irmo? Carlos becomes Sherwood. You're Sherwood and you're in charge of the forest. But now William starts having money problems. He's not happy with the plans with Ethiopia come through. Then in 1905, he gets sued by two neighbors living next door to the Mexico, Mexico City factory.

Because it turns out the factory has been closed for a while and they want the factory windows facing their houses. Bricked up because it's abandoned. Right. Okay. Is that something you guys do in Mexico? Break up windows? I don't know.

I've never done it. So maybe I'm not Mexican now. This is a weird way to find out. No, you have to stay Mexican. Otherwise that affects Dave and I. Do not change your goddamn race. I've already told people. My whole reputation is on the line.

Oh my God. So, so they want that and so that goes, that goes to, that goes to court. He loses the case. And then another Mexican businessman sues him over a mortgage and a US guy sues him over a mine. Another guy sues him because he hasn't paid rent in his Mexico office for a while.

Then the Mexican government comes after him for not paying taxes on the factory. The court orders the factory to be auctioned to pay debt. So he's just, it's followed apart. And in 1909, he got into a fight with a bill collector in his Wall Street office, like a fist fight. And the collectors, I was injured and he sued William for assault.

That's another bill. An eye for an eye. That's how it works. It's normal. And then, and then he had a daughter because this is a good time to have a kid. I want to bring someone into this nightmare with me. Yes.

His daughter's name is Victoria. And so it's 1909. So 19, this is when Mexico goes into, it's just a shit show. Yeah. Remember that guy Porfirio? Yeah. Yeah. So all of William's fortunes are tied to Porfirio Diaz staying in

power. And this is when he doesn't stay in power. Right. So just before Diaz is ousted, William signs a 10 year contract to produce rubber and makes a deal to build a hydro power dam. He also goes and buys the debt the Mexican government owes to two British guys. So he's everything's fucking tied up in Mexico and he transfers

the debt to a company he owns and sells shares and then uses that money to hire lawyers to go after the Mexican government to pay the debt. What? So he's just deep in. He's deep in all this shit. It's a shell game. He could be super crazy rich.

Right. With these three things. Right. If Diaz wasn't ousted, Diaz is ousted. And that's when, and that's when the, it's called the Mexican Revolution, right? But it's like 10 years of just fucking, just madness and all. We started it.

It hasn't ended. We definitely started it. I can tell you that and there's more bullets and revolution. And then we just, we forgot to say, like, are we like finished the whole shit? Yeah. Joe always says that, you know, as Mexicans, when we celebrate like the start of things, like we celebrate Mexican independence

and the date started and the Mexican Revolution on the date started because we don't really know when they ended. And if they did, there's the going. I don't think they ever end. I think that's one of the, I think they, they're very careful to be like, everything's different. We still live here. Slowly, you fuckers.

I think we've, I think we've learned America's has not ended. Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. So, so a brief summary. And everything, and William, during all of this is trying to shift with each new government, each new person in power. He's trying to sidling up again. Yeah.

So this is over 10 years. Diaz is overthrown. Madero elected president where to overthrow Madero. There's a bunch of fighting. Carranza defeats Pancho via in the battle of 1915. Same time, Pancho via gets mad at the U.S. for not backing him anymore. And he's attacking America.

And then America's sending troops in to attack Pancho via. There's a new constitution in 1917. Then a rebellion by Sonoran generals. Then Zapata is killed. And during all this, William is trying to make allegiances to keep his deal. Yeah, good luck buddy. He's like a sitcom character at a restaurant with three days.

He's just. All right, Zapata is finally on my side. He just died. Yeah, I'm gonna kill him. So the Hyderpower contract was killed in 1913. There were times where different leaders, like two guys are vying for control and they're both telling him to pay taxes on for the same property to both of them.

Like it's just completely, it's a shit show. Right. In 1916, the Bureau of Investigation, which eventually becomes the FBI, starts investigating William for quote, Mexican revolutionary matters. So the U.S. is not happy with what's happening in Mexico because it's not going the way that we want.

And so now they're like, what's this guy doing down there? He's connected to all these people. So agents survey his offices. They're like, okay, we're looking for a black guy, a Hawaiian guy, a Cuban guy, a Mexican guy, and an American. They're all working together. Excuse me, man.

If you've seen a white, a Mayan, Mexican black man who's Cuban. He's wearing a top hat. He's got a top hat and he's handing rings out. The sketch artist is like, this is really not easy to do. They're like, struggling so hard here. So they break into his offices and they search them. They can't find anything to connect him to radicals,

but agents said he was quote, apparently a Negro married to a white woman or maybe a Mexican. Or the illegitimate son of some white woman in Texas. So they're going through this office. They're like, what the fuck? Hey, he surfs. He surfs. Is that me?

I think he's Hawaiian. I don't know. Sir, I know you just established he was black, but I'm establishing he's white over here. So I don't know what we're doing. Hey, I got to have some notes that said he was with a badger. What the fuck is this guy doing, man? Everyone relax.

We're looking for a Cuban badger with a white mom. Very simple. Hey, I got a picture of a guy in khakis and a sombrero right here. Jesus Christ. All right. He's a white Mexican badger boy Cuban white mom. Okay. Let's just go by the top hat.

I think that'll be fast. So in Mexico, as Obra gone, took over. Coranza fled Mexico city on a train in 1920. So I'm going to have to stop you there because Coranza actually has two hours. So you have to roll them harder. That's a double R. Coranza.

Yeah. This is a nightmare. Dave, hit him. I think you meant nightmare. So anyway, you were saying about Coranza, Dave? Coranza. Yeah. Oh my God.

That was sexy. Yeah. So William is on the train as it flees Mexico city, right? So Coranza is making a fucking run for it. Probably to the U.S. I would assume. Thank you. He's he's fleeing Mexico city.

Abra gone has taken over. And on the train, they're fleeing the country. William gets Coranza to sign a deal for a port agreement. What the fuck? Wow. Come on. What is he doing? You know, what would be great is if I could get that port deal.

He's like, what, what? I want to kill me. Yeah. I know if you could just and there's two more pages to sign them when you got initial. Yeah. So he fuck, he does it. I mean, it's just amazing.

So the deal is he's going to build a port and he'll be one of five guys controlling it. The train is then stopped by Abra gone's forces and Coranza runs off into the fucking hills, wherever he gets caught. It is escaped and executed. William makes a white flag out of sheets, bed sheets on the train. Somehow that gets him out of getting killed or captured.

And then he takes the train. Because the train was a loot train. They were just taking all of their loot, money and fucking fancy cars and shit. They're trying to escape with all this good. And so he takes this fancy fucking car and steals it and drives off to the United States. Wow.

You have got to be kidding me. That is those cops like, all right, cool. The only thing we're missing is William and one of the cars. And then outside of that, we've got everything we came here to get, gentlemen. Does anyone have eyes on that car, William? If you see a car with the top hat, just stop it. This is any car with the top hat.

So all right, great. Well, we killed Coranza. What color is the car? Oh, fuck, we don't know. Well, it's a white beige coupe that is a midsize that is also got a lot of tint on it and is playing Mexican music with a white man singing. And the license plate is obviously from Cuba.

Okay. And we will find him. So the US bands all loans from US banks to Mexico. So the US doesn't like that. Abragan has taken over there against him. So now William goes out and he pushes very publicly for the US to help Mexico. He's doing like a PR campaign.

He gives an interview to the New York Times, which said he quote knows Mexicans. All right. Yeah. Sure. I've seen them. It's a lot of them down there. I've been one for three summers.

I'm telling you, it takes one to know one and I know one and I am one. In 1923, William somehow convinces Abragan that the Mexican port plan will work. And so Abragan is now on board. There's going to be four ports built with lower custom duties to attract business. So again, he's got a new fucking,

somehow after all of this revolution and all these fucking guys leaving the country. And he stole a car and left the country. And now that guy's like, that's a good deal. Yeah. He's on a fucking money escape train. And now he's back in business. Wow.

He's he's now in his late fifties. And he goes at one point he goes back to Mexico on a train, but he has to get off in Monterey because he's not feeling well. And he gets treatment for two, for two days for a bladder issue. And then he goes to Mexico city. It gets worse in Mexico city. He writes his sister quote, please do not let anyone know that I had a fainting spell the other night.

The doctor says that I am worked down and that if I do not get out of this climate within two or three days, my heart will stop. So now he's, he's, he's taking trips. He feels bad in Mexico city and he'll take a trip to the coast, which is a much lower altitude, which is supposed to make him feel better. And then it'll come back, but it's not. It turns out that's not actually a medical.

Oh, it's not. Damn. You suffer from Equator Titus. So he writes his sister, he'd quote, wake up and find the bed covered with blood. Now that. Oh, he got his period so leading life. That's, that's going to be the ultimate twist in this story.

Oh yeah. He's a Cuban man who has period is a white boy. You understand? He said in the letter that he feared the worst, which is pretty reasonable if you're waking up in a blood covered bed. This is not the worst. I fear they're going to find out I'm black. That's right.

So like I said, he's, he's making all these ships to Veracruz. And after years of avoiding the American colony, he checks into the American hospital. That's how fucking scary it is. And then he dies on. Wait till he gets built. What? A thousand dollars for two grams of mercury.

The fuck is this? What's a mercury distribution system? It's a. That's a spoon and that's $2,000. So he just died. He died on September 24th, 1923. Most papers wrote flattering tributes. Sorry obituaries.

The black press, however, so there's, there's in America, there's white papers and black papers. And the black press, which is long avoided discussing his passing because they were just like, Hey, fucking got away with it. Good for him. They start writing the truth now that he's dead. The New York age obit headline, William Henry Ellis, a colored man. So the black papers like, All right, now let's show you guys how fucking

stupid you are. And you all thought. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That was a main. On page. Yeah. The Chicago defender praised him for both becoming a very successful passer and also staying connected to his family.

And then white papers now started writing. So the first white papers were like, Oh, this, this white guy or Cuban guy, whatever died. And now they're like, Oh, okay. So time says he claimed to be Cuban, even though he was born in Texas, the AP, and this was in tons of papers, the AP quote. Ellis was either a Cuban or of mixed parentage, but he preferred to be known as a Cuban.

So everyone's just kind of going, yeah, this guy's not who he was. He's buried in an unmarked grave in Mexico city in the Spanish cemetery. And that, and the reason he was buried there is because he had no money and they couldn't ship his body home. He died broke. He left mod $5,000, which is about $75,000 today, but also tons of debt.

He hadn't paid property taxes on the house since 1919. He had taken out a second mortgage. So Irmo goes down to Mexico city to try to salvage. Sorry, Irmo. I love Irmo. I will break up those windows, father. Hi, Mexico. I'm here to make a deal.

Irmo goes to Mexico to try to find the rest of his name. Anyone seen it? Oh, it's Irmolito. Yeah, a year later, Irmo dies of typhus in the exact same hospital as dad at 22. Now with zero money, mod is just looking for anything and she takes her three kids and she goes to Mexico. It's just supposed to be a temporary trip to try to take a deal

with his Mexican estate and they never leave. His daughter Victoria becomes one of the premier dancers in Mexico appearing in films and on stage. And then goes to do choreography and tons of movies. Sherman becomes a newspaper editor in Mexico city. He also dies young at typhus. And then his other son, Fernando, works in a medical lab and raises a family and now, you know, they just live the Mexican life

from there on out. The American dream. Leave America. Oh my God. This is one of the I just reading this. I was just like, God, it just the race shit in America is just so fucking not just dumb, but it's so complicated. What it does, what it does to like really, it does show the

impact on the psyche of what like races. I mean, it just, I mean, if, if you want fairness, which is to be expected and you live in this country where the amount of racism is so in your face and overwhelming, you know, you are almost, you make it, you can make a good argument for doing what someone does like that, where you just are trying constantly to just not experience racism. Christ stresses.

I mean, I can't imagine how stressed out he was. Like imagine if you ran, if you're him and you ran into someone at a bar and you didn't remember, you know what I mean? You're like, who am I? But it's done because like this country just drives people fucking crazy. I just thought that he threw in Hawaiian.

I love that he threw in Hawaiian after a while. Yeah. He got a little cocky there. Right. Yeah. He was really, if he had lived like a full life, who knows how many more he had left? Like so many more races he could have been.

But dude knew, dude knew how to fucking pull the, the capitalist grift game, right? He was just constantly fucking working shit. Yeah. I mean, completely, you know, so that makes him white man. Wait a minute. That makes it legally white.

Yeah. The whole circle. You know, at the end of the day, he conned a lot of people successfully. He was white. This was based, this was based on the strange career of William Ellis, the Texas slave who became a Mexican millionaire by Carl Jacoby.

Fucking crazy story, man. Crazy. Yeah. And I mean, just to do the research on it, and then you, you know, you were seeing all these papers claiming, oh, no, he's Cuban. I know he's Mexican. Like that must be confusing as fuck.

It's really, it was, it was, I had to go by, this is one of the only books about go back and try and figure out stuff because I was getting so confused. Like what the fuck is happening right now? It's just, it's just the fucking God. I mean, and also just like being in Texas at that time and trying to walk that line of black, white, white, white Texan, Mexican American, like it's just like this fucking

it's a shit show. It's a fucking shit show. And then like, no Cubans are better. You're like, what is happening? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the other thing too. Like for it is what we were saying for it is the amazing

white person predicament when you've befriended someone of another race under false pretenses, but now I have to stick with your befriending because it affects your race. Yeah. It's like, I mean, at no point is anyone like, Hey, isn't this fucking bonkers? Yeah. They're not like, Oh, wait, what's a racist?

This guy's great. Yeah. We can be friends. Isn't it? No, they're like, Oh, no, I've been hoodwinked. You lied to me. You told me you were French. You lied to me, you non-white.

I gave you from my sandwich. Yeah. And now I gave you from my sandwich. I gave you from my sandwich. That's how I imagine white people. I think that's pretty fair. I respect you, white man. I picture it real clearly.

I gave you from my sandwich. Have some of the meat that's hanging off the end. Now, do you guys, when you're, when you're going to school as kids, do you learn about American history? No. I mean, what we learn is we learn about the Alamo a little bit. And then we learn about the 13 colonies. We do learn and we learn.

Yeah. We'll learn a bit about, you know, the early colonies. And then we learn also about like when, you know, we have these things here in Mexico called, uh, los niños héroes, like the héroe children, the boy heroes, the boy heroes. And, uh, basically when, uh, the U.S. invaded Mexico right around the revolution, there were supposedly, they stormed the Chapultepec castle in Mexico city.

And these kids that were, you know, just, you know, in the military, they just stood up and fought and they all died. But that's made up. Yeah. Totally. There's the most famous one. His name is Juan Escutia and the legend goes that he wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and jumped to his own death.

Because he said the battle is over, but they will never take our flag. And so he jumped and killed, but that didn't happen. Once you get older, you'll find out, like, oh, that's just patriotic bullshit that they teach us in school. He fell. He tripped. He was trying to, he was trying to spelunk.

Yeah. That's probably what happened. But yeah, you know, yeah, that's about as much American history as work. Yeah, but we don't get like the whole racial issues and everything. You learn that. Well, we learn it because we live in Juarez and El Paso and

we get all the media and everything. But as in history class, you do not see that. Same here. Same in this. Yeah. Like, I find. I've never been like, don't worry about that part. And now 1909.

Yeah. I mean, for us, the only thing you know about Mexico is, it's like, well, they had to leave California. And then that's ours. And then we took, we took some other parts down there. And also they killed us at the Alamo and we're not going to forget. Yeah.

They weren't using this part. So we took it. And yeah, but it's the same over here. Right. We're like, I just, we just talked about Santana a few episodes back in Legendary Legends. It's the same bullshit. I mean, Mexico is like, we need money.

Hey, Texas, it's full of Mexicans and they're not paying taxes. So let's go over there and ask them for taxes. And the Mexicans and the Tejanos are like, dude, we've been surviving in the desert. Now you want money? Fuck you. And then that started a whole war and Mexico lost it.

But it was because of taxes. I mean, same bullshit all the time from every government always. It's fascinating because your guy's history is really fucking fascinating. And it's sad that we don't learn it because it's really, like you start, I started reading this and I was like, I really like to fucking spend like a year just reading

about Mexican history because it's fucking crazy and cool and interesting and terrible. And, you know, it's like us. It's like just madness. Yeah, totally. And what is that sort of the revolution kind of ended when we were signed right here where we're standing. And that whole story, you're going to love it.

It's just hilarious. Crazy. Crazy. Well, this is fucking great. Yeah, it really was. Yeah. Thank you for having us. I had a blast.

That was a great story, by the way. Let's start a new podcast called Legally White. Oh, I'm in. This was really fun. It really was. We should do this again. Yeah, for sure. We will.

Really great. I'm going to stop recording. Eduardo Espinosa and Jose Antonio Badia of legendary legends and L dollop. Please check out their podcast. If you understand Spanish, obviously, even if you don't give it a shot. You can learn it that way.