William Ellison

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William Ellison Jr. (April 1790 – December 5, 1861), born April Ellison, was an African-American cotton gin maker, blacksmith and slave owner in South Carolina, and former slave who achieved considerable success as a slaveowner before the American Civil War. He eventually became a major planter and one of the wealthiest property owners in the state. According to the 1860 census (in which his surname was listed as "Ellerson"), throughout his life he owned up to 63 black slaves in South Carolina and Georgia making him one of the most significant slave owners in the region. He held 63 slaves at his death and more than 900 acres (360 ha) of land. From 1830 to 1865 he and his sons were the only free blacks in Sumter County, South Carolina to own slaves. The county was largely devoted to cotton plantations, and the majority population were slaves. Ellison and his sons were among a number of successful free people of color in the antebellum years, but Ellison's master had passed on social capital by apprenticing him to learn a valuable artisan trade as a cotton-gin maker, at which Ellison made a success. He took a wife at the age of 21. After buying his own freedom when he was 26, a few years later Ellison purchased his wife and their children, to protect them from sales as slaves. The Act of 1820 made it more difficult for slaveholders to make personal manumissions, but Ellison gained freedom for his sons and a quasi-freedom for his surviving daughter. During the American Civil War, Ellison and his sons supported the Confederate States of America and gave the government substantial donations and aid. A grandson fought in the regular Confederate Army and survived the war.