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William is Louisa’s husband, Andrew’s great-grandfather, Edward’s grandfather, and Clarence’s father. He is responsible for the Bevel family’s vast wealth, as he bought nonperishable goods like cotton during Thomas Jefferson’s 1807 embargo, later selling those goods for a sizeable profit. Ida points out that when Andrew recounts the origins of the family, he never mentions slavery and how William’s scheme, and the Bevel family’s wealth, were founded upon the exploitation of Black enslaved people. Andrew’s elision of that fact becomes a major theme of the novel, as Andrew attempts to distort his family’s history of immorality and accounts of his own wrongdoing to argue that his and his family’s actions have always supported the common good.
William Quotes in Trust
The Trust quotes below are all either spoken by William or refer to William. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 2 Quotes
Rather than tobacco, which he would have been unable to store properly, he purchased non-perishable goods, especially cotton from farther south and sugar from the newly acquired Louisiana. This venture was based on the assumption that he would be able to sell the merchandise in Europe once the embargo was lifted and clear his debt while making a profit.
Producers everywhere were struggling just to keep their estates in the family. William, a mere twenty-six-year-old, was welcomed as a savior. Prices dropped sharply as plantation owners fought one another to secure a deal with him. And for as long as possible he did his best to assist as many of them as he could, bringing much-needed relief to countless families.
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In his autobiography, Andrew details the source of his family’s fortune. The most important part of this quote isn’t what Andrew writes but what he doesn’t. Namely, he leaves out any mention of slavery, even though he directly discusses plantation owners and says that William purchased cotton from states “farther south” than Virginia, a sign that the people who worked on those plantations would have been enslaved Black people. That omission is a conscious attempt on Andrew’s part to rewrite and distort history to avoid portraying the immoral and racist means through which his family gained its fortune. As a Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est.
Self-interest, if properly directed, need not be divorced from the common good, as all the transactions [William] conducted throughout his life eloquently show. These two principles (we make our own weather; personal gain ought to be a public asset) I have always striven to follow.
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Andrew details the principles that animated his great-great-grandfather William’s business practices and says that he has tried to put those principles into practice in his own career. Andrew writes that “all the transactions [William] conducted” prioritized the public good along with self-interest shortly after he details how William profited from the immoral and racist exploitation of enslaved Black people. That contradiction proves that Andrew’s ideology of private gain being a public asset is built on lies and hypocrisy, as William clearly had no regard for the common good of the enslaved Black people who he exploited. Andrew then writes that, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae.
If neither my ancestors nor I had understood that a healthy economy, prosperous for all, had to be safeguarded, our careers would have been very brief indeed. A selfish hand has a short reach.
This is why I find the baseless, libelous accusations directed at my business practice incensing. Should not our very success be convincing enough evidence of everything we have done for this country? Our prosperity is proof of our good deeds.
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In his autobiography, Andrew rails against people who criticize him for the role he played in the 1929 market crash. In this quote, Andrew positions himself and his ancestors as economic heroes, or saviors, in charge of keeping watch over the national economy. In that way, the quote serves as another instance of Andrew’s tendency to self-aggrandize, as he papers over the fact that his ancestors built their fortune on exploitation. He also offers platitudes like “a selfish hand has a short reach” in place of any kind of introspection or analysis that might lead him to confront how his Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam doloremque eum. Animi soluta perspiciatis. Ut minima autem. Modi omnis iure. Sint qui qui. Qui similique praesentium. Ex consequatur magnam. Aliquid iste enim. Sequi aut maxime. Adipisci voluptate et. Voluptas suscipit alias. In et eveniet. Eaque et repellendus. Dolores au
Book 3, Part 3 Quotes
I think of my father. He would always say that every dollar bill had been printed on paper ripped off a slave’s bill of sale. I can still hear him today. “Where does all this wealth here come from? Primitive accumulation. The original theft of land, means of production and human lives. All throughout history, the origin of capital has been slavery. Look at this country and the modern world. Without slaves, no cotton; without cotton, no industry; without industry, no finance capital. The original, unnamable sin.” I keep reading through the draft. Of course, not a single mention of slavery.
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In the mid-1980s, Ida reads through the draft of the autobiography that she helped Andrew write and remarks on the exclusion of any mention of slavery. Ida’s account of the history of the U.S.—or Ida’s father’s account of that history—directly challenges Andrew’s lies of omission in his autobiography and, by doing that, challenges Andrew’s attempts to distort reality. Andrew’s autobiography is directly modeled on the biographies of “Great American Men,” including the “founding fathers” of the U.S. With that in mind, by challenging Andrew’s narrative and revealing the fraudulence at its core, Trust argues that the autobiographies of those “Great Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesci
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William Character Timeline in Trust
The timeline below shows where the character William appears in Trust. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 2
Andrew’s great-grandfather William Trevor Bevel is from Virginia. William’s father grows a modest amount of tobacco, and William...
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William marries a woman from Philadelphia named Louisa Foster. They lose their first two children when...
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Book 3, Part 3
...him. She finds drafts of his autobiography with his annotations. One passage about Andrew’s great-grandfather, William, sticks out to her. The passage describes how William took out loans to buy cotton...
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