The Baby Who Was Traded for a Horse

When Moses Carver got word that the infant had been sold across the state line in Kentucky, he went to look for him. Carver traded a horse worth $300 for a cold, naked baby in a burlap bag...

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“He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.”

Dr. George Washington Carver’s Epitaph

1865 – Diamond Grove, Missouri: The slave traders from Arkansas raided Moses Carver’s plantation at night. They burned the fields and the barn. And they kidnapped Mary, a slave who had lived and worked on the Carver farm for a decade, and her one-week-old baby boy.

When Moses got word that Mary and the infant had been sold across the state line in Kentucky, he went to look for them. He traded a horse worth $300 for a cold, naked baby in a burlap bag. The baby’s mother was never found. Moses and his wife, Susan, raised the baby whom they named George Washington. Susan taught George to read and write and to value an education.

George’s job was to help Susan with the cooking and gardening. He became an excellent cook and developed a life-long love for plants and flowers. Because George was not allowed to attend the white school in Diamond Grove, the Carvers sent him 10 miles away to a small African American academy in Neosho, Missouri, for high school.

George successfully applied by mail to Highland College in Kansas, only to have his application rejected when he arrived on campus and administrators realized he was black. Several other colleges rejected his application. Finally in 1891, George became the first African American student to enroll at Iowa State College of Agriculture, now Iowa State University. He worked his way through college by washing and ironing clothes for his classmates.

Carver earned a Bachelor of Science in 1896 and his master’s degree in botany two years later. His professors were so impressed with his intelligence and his passion for his work that they offered him a faculty position, making him the first African American professor at Iowa State.

In 1896, Booker T. Washington, the first president of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, aware of Carver’s success, invited him to join the faculty and start an agriculture department. Carver seized the opportunity to help poor farmers in the South.

In 1910, when the boll weevil devastated Alabama’s cotton crop, Carver introduced farmers to alternative crops like peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes. When imported peanuts from China undercut peanut crop prices in the South, Carver devoted his research to finding alternative uses for peanuts. In 1920, the brilliant scientist exhibited 145 different peanut products at the United Peanut Association of America conference.

During his lifetime, Carver created 285 different products from peanuts including milk, shaving cream, soap, shampoo, and housing insulation from peanut shells.

Carver’s research into alternative uses for sweet potatoes resulted in 118 products, among them flour, molasses, vinegar, shoe polish, dyes\ and rubber compounds. He made rope from okra fibers and fertilizer from swamp muck. A gifted artist, Carver’s paintings were

exhibited at several World Fairs. He made his painting canvas from peanut shells, his picture frames from cornhusks, and his paints from Alabama clays.

Carver’s research received international acclaim. Three U.S. Presidents – Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Franklin D. Roosevelt – met with him. Automobile inventor Henry Ford visited Tuskegee repeatedly trying to convince Carver to go to work for the Ford Motor Company. Inventor Thomas Edison offered Carver a job in his research lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Carver turned them both down.

George Washington Carver remained at Tuskegee Institute for 47 years. He never married. His two loves were his work and helping others. Carver was often seen walking to work in old, patched clothes. It was later learned that he anonymously gave away his meager salary to help pay for the education of poor students, both black and white.

The baby who was once traded for an old horse was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1977 and inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1990. Carver died January 5, 1943, at age 78 and is buried next to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University.

By Pete Black

From: United States

Website: http://petesperspective.com

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