1 Orphaned

Chapter 1 Orphaned George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Diamond Grove, Missouri, near the end of the American Civil War, which was fought from 1861 to 1865. George was black; his owners, Moses and Susan Carver, were white.

Moses and Susan were German immigrants. They didn't like slavery, but they had a 240-acre farm that needed much work, and Missouri had entered the Union in 1820 as a slave state. In 1855, the Carvers purchased a thirteen-year-old slave girl named Mary. They treated Mary well and were happy for her when she gave birth to a son named Jim in 1859. Several years later, George was born.

No one knows exactly when George was born, because most records among slave owners were poorly kept. Most likely George was born in 1864. His father, Giles, was a slave who was owned by a neighbor of the Carvers. He was killed in a farming accident not long after George's birth. No one knows exactly how many brothers or sisters George had. George lived with Mary and Jim in a small cabin on the Carver farm. The cabin was the original house on the farm. Moses and Susan had since built a larger house, and they lived in that one. One night when George was still an infant,

he was asleep in the cabin. Suddenly, there was the sound of men on horseback. Moses knew what that meant. Twice before, his farm had been attacked by raiders —called bushwhackers —who were fighting on the Confederate (Southern) side in the Civil War.

Missouri's role in the Civil War was complicated. Even though Missouri was a slave state, many of the people who lived there were against slavery. So some men on the Union (Northern) side fought for Missouri to remain as one of the United States and to free the slaves. But some of Missouri's men fought to create a separate nation that would keep slavery legal. They were on the Confederate side.

Moses was caught in the middle. He had slaves, but since he also wanted slavery to be illegal, he upset people on both sides.