George Washington Carver was born into slavery in the early 1860's in Diamond, Missouri, in a one-room cabin. Soon after birth, he and his mother were kidnapped by bushwhackers. He was found in Arkansas but his mother was never seen again, and Carver and his brother Jim were reared by Moses and Susan Carver, a white farming family. At age 12 he left home with the perceptions of a naturalist and the inquiring spirit of a scientist. Carver first received national attention because of his work in extracting an array of products from peanut and sweet potato plants, which he hoped would improve the lot of "the man further down," the poor, one-horse farmer. His achievements deeply influenced both black and white people, and they began in the shade of the George Washington Carver Green Ash at his humble birthplace in Diamond, Missouri.