Since he could not sell the land, Joseph Rector decided to lease it out to a Pittsburgh oil company. In March, 1912, oil driller B.B. Kansas City They had to petition a court to obtain it or otherwise request a white guardian. This ended up not being true entirely but Sarah and her siblings were soon sent to school in Taft. She was the owner of stocks and bonds, a boarding house, a restaurant in Oklahoma, a bakery, and around 2,000 acres of land. Brown assumes so. Even as tens of thousands of Native Americans were forcibly relocated northwest to Indian Territory from 1831 to 1850 in the genocidal journey known as The Trail of Tears, the tribes largely sided with the Confederate states during the Civil War. Sarah Rector was 11 when oil was discovered on her land in Oklahoma in 1913. By 1920, the Rector family was living in a beautiful brick mansion at 2000 E. 12th St. that was purchased by Mama Rose for $20,000 from Henry S. Ferguson, president of the U.S. Water & Steam Supply Company. Part of the trick also included an annual payment of property tax of about 30 dollars; money Sarahs family didnt have to spare. Each member of the Rector family received a 160-acre allotment of rocky, unproductive land deemed unsuitable for farming. Had the U.S. government known at the time what flowed beneath Sarahs rocky acres, they likely would have reconsidered. The family didnt leave Kansas City as some like to report; five generations of Rector descendants still call this place home. The town belonged to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and was one of several all-Black towns set up specifically for descendants of Africans enslaved by the Nation prior to the Civil War. Sarah was born on March 3, 1902. At this point, her lawyers claimed that she owned $750,000 in oil properties along with other assets that pushed her worth to over $1 million. Some of these statements are partially true, but the true story of Sarah should be told through her family. Sarah Rector was born in 1902 in what is today Taft, Oklahoma. Quickly, this oil gusher produced 2,500 barrels of oil per day. When Rector died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, her wealth was diminished, but she still had some working oil wells and Sarah Rector became a millionaire at the age of 11. The federal government required the appointment of financial guardians, usually White men, to manage the oil wealth of Native Americans and Freedmen. Rectors life story did not need embellishment. Sarah Rector, Kansas Citys First Black Millionairess, was known in Kansas City for her fairy tale ascension to money and fame, fine living at Rector Mansion, and reported entertaining of African American celebrities such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Joe Louis, and Jack Johnson. Please be sure to open and click your first newsletter so we can confirm your subscription. The petition was denied, and he was forced to keep paying the property tax, still without knowing that land was literally a fortune fountain. Before her wealth and fame, Following the Civil War, Rectors parents, who were formerly enslaved by Creek Tribe members, were entitled to land allotments under the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887. Nicks herself had an affair with Mick Fleetwood in early 1978 while he was married to Jenny Boyd. Sara Recor is an American personality. She is Mick Fleetwood's ex-wife. They got married in 1988 in Malibu, California and separated after 4 years in 1992. When Mick Fleetwood married Sara Recor on April 24, 1988 in a lavish ceremony at their Malibu home, it was an affair to remember. By Sydney Trent Her issues with disputed guardianship continued in Kansas City, This was a burden that became so great that Joseph attempted to sell Sarahs land, but was blocked from doing so by state law, which forbade the sale of lands belonging to minors. She purchased a house on 12th Street, known as the Rector House, which is currently owned by a local nonprofit, with the intention of restoration and historical and cultural preservation. The Muskogee Cimeter, a black Oklahoma newspaper declared, It takes an awful big man to give the Negro a square deal and Muskogees judge is such a man.. Yet depending on the publication, the family was either senselessly rich or persistently poor. Her parents were African American members of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Her story spread throughout the national news, with both Black and white papers dubbing her The Richest Negro Girl in the World.. She divorced Campbell and married restaurant owner William Crawford, who she remained with until she died. She was declared as a white person so she could fit in the socialit circles of her time. Moreover, Sarahs parents, Joseph and Rose, were also forced to pay a land tax of $30 per year on their daughters property. Porter, an individual known to the family. [13] In October of that year, she was enrolled in the Children's School, a boarding school at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, headed by Washington. The granddaughter of the LOral founder, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers was the wealthiest woman in the world as of March 2021. Through sheer chance Sarah Rector became one of the richest children in America. She married her second husband, William Crawford, and lived a relatively quiet life. But, as we mentioned at the beginning, the hypocrisy of racism would soon make its appearance. The NAACP was able to convince the Rectors to send Sarah to the Tuskegee Institutes elementary school called the Childrens Home. That same year, Sarah was making over $300 a day, which has been estimated to be around $8,000 today. Waters had been corresponding with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the United States Children's Bureau over concerns regarding the mismanagement of Rector's estate. He wrote of her white financial guardian: Is it not possible to have her cared for in a decent manner and by people of her own race, instead of by a member of a race which would deny her and her kind the treatment accorded a good yard dog? Rectors lost most of her wealth during The Great Depression. We would like to see the house restored and have it become a historic landmark and museum, the Rector descendants told me around the kitchen table covered with photos, records and family papers. Deborah Brown grew up calling her Aunt Sister, and she remembers her storied life through the haze of childhood in segregated Kansas City, Mo., more than a half a century ago. Her sudden wealth became the object of racist news coverage. With all the attention surrounding her wealth, eventually Sarah Rector attracted the attention of another type of man: one who did not see black or white so much as green. Some Native Americans had owned slaves and Sarahs family lived Born on March 3, 1902 in the small town of Twine, Okla., Rectors family were descendants of slaves and Creek Indians. Several speeding tickets were issued to both of themespecially to Sarah. Spain 's SistersInc. When a change to Oklahoma law raised the legal age from 18 to 21, a local white man attempted to make himself the young millionaires legal guardian. Many stores, including Emery, Bird, Thayer & Co., would close down and allow the Rector women to shop freely. . Lands given to former slaves were typically not fit for farming. Additionally, Joe and Rose now had a daughter who was transformed as a little black girl from Taft to a millionaire headline overnight. Masthead. 1902) and Joe, Jr. (b. Thats not going to happen.. Sarah and Kenneth had three sons, but in 1930 the marriage ended in divorce. Her siblings all took on jobs- her mother even for a time went back to working as a maid. It's a site that collects all the most frequently asked questions and answers, so you don't have to spend hours on searching anywhere else. [16], Rector died on July 22, 1967, at the age of 65. Concerned with her wellbeing and her white financial guardian, early NAACP leaders fought to protect her and her fortune. Sarahs experiences encouraged officials in Oklahoma to provide badly needed protection for children caught up in the oil boom, especially Black and indigenous children who became targets of unscrupulous men attempting to snatch their money. It went on to claim that her parents were ignorant.. One of the greatest examples of this hypocrisy and nonsensical laws is the case of Sarah Rector, a young black girl deemed by the press and society as the Richest Colored Girl in the World, " and who was eventually declared white so she could be a member of society. A trillionaire is an individual with a net worth equal to at least one trillion in U.S. dollars or a similarly valued currency, such as the euro or the British pound. With Dave Stewart, Hall produced one of his albums titled 'Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine,' which has a #5 solo single named 'Dreamtime. Claim #2: China is a Good Faith Peacemaker . This home-place was a stately stone house. Assuming that, Sarahs acres seemed to be useless; little they everybody know, there was actually an oil field worth a fortune. But things didnt work out for them In 1930, they divorced, and four years later Sarah got married for a second time. There, the Rectors eventually moved into a home that was a far cry from that weather-whipped two-room cabin in which Sarah began life. Her descendants never knew. All Rights Reserved. The Rector Mansion in Kansas City still stands though, and her descendants hope to buy it back from the city and turn it into a museum about her life. Browns mother insisted, too. Sarah is buried in a peaceful parcel of land known as Blackjack Cemetery back home in Oklahoma where she was born. I have some important news to share with all of America: those images are not Sarah Rector. At the time, a lawrequired Native Americans, black adults, and children who were citizens of Indian Territory with significant property and money were to be assigned well-respected white guardians. Sarahs land, totaling 160 acres, was valued at a mere $556.50, roughly $15,000 today. To be clear, Sarah still had quite a bit of money, but she didnt have the ability to throw money around like she had once. Kerford Funeral Home. She would start receiving gifts, requests from loans, and even marriage proposals, some of them by german men, according to the tabloid press. Back then, it was known as Twine, Indian Territory, since Oklahoma had not yet been incorporated as a state. The richest kid in the world is Prince George Alexander Louis who is worth approximately $1 billion dollars as of today. This raised all sorts of concerns among the Black community who believed this man would rip Sarah off her fortune. Many turned out to be thieves. Thank you for subscribing! She sued her enslaver for reparations and won. The most important part of this saga is the simple fact that her family got lost within the tabloids tabloids worldwide that painted a picture of a poor little black girl from Oklahoma who slept on dirt floors, struck it rich, was taken advantage of and lived frivolously. In 1913, however, her fortunes changed when wildcat oil driller B. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. The Creeks called them Estelvstethe Black People. Mama Rose died in 1957, and Sarah passed in 1967 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Rector became instantly wealthy. Your Money, Your Life, LATEST LISTS When she died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, she only You might like this: Mansa Musa I: The Richest Man In History Was An African King, Not Jeff Bezos. When she turned 18 on March 3, 1920, Rector left Tuskegee and her family relocated to Kansas City, Missouri. She owned stocks, bonds, a boarding house, businesses, and a 2,000-acre (810ha) piece of prime river bottomland. More intriguing, what happened to this young African American woman who was part of the Creek [Indian] freedmen? She owned stocks, bonds, a boarding house, businesses, and a 2,000-acre piece of prime river bottomland. A typical cabin for Creek Freedmen on Muscogee (Creek) Nation land in Oklahoma, similar to where Sarah Rector would have been born. Jones produced a gusher on the land. Eventually, Sarah married William Crawford, a restaurateur whom she helped to open a second restaurant in Tulsa. (Bolden said she found the disputed book cover photo in The American magazine. Rector married the first of her two husbands at the age of 20 and bore three sons, all now deceased. Headlines such as Girls $112,000 a Year, Negro Girl Will Pay Largest Tax, and Negro Girl Rich From Oil- Has Income of $475 Daily More Soon sensationalized the story of a small girl and her familys reality. The Creek Freedmen settled in an area known as Blackjack near Muskogee, OK. Joe Rector (b. WebIn the 1920s, the Rector family moved to Kansas City where Sarah graduated from Lincoln High School. Sarah and her siblings were perfectly content staying in Taft and living a somewhat normal life, but that didnt seem to be the idea of those outsiders looking in. Cover photo: These photos are commonly used when telling the story of Sarah Rector, however her descendants claim these are not her. To raise enough money to pay the $30 annual tax bill, Sarahs father, Joseph Rector, leased her allotment to the Devonian Oil Company of Pittsburg in 1911. At that point, she left Tuskegee and, with her entire family, moved to Kansas City, Missouri. I purchased the book of The Richest Colored Girl. Im not going to leave them so they can sit on someones desk, Brown said. Of course, Brown has no memory of Rector spending anything. Although historical accounts clash, Sarah Rector is believed to be Americas second black millionaire after Madam C.J. (Museum officials did not respond to a request for comment for this story.). Like most other dealings the government had with Indigenous Americans, it was not entirely honest. [7] This was a mandatory step in the process of integration of the Indian Territory with Oklahoma Territory to form what is now the State of Oklahoma.[8][9]. Did Joe and Rose Rector move the family to Kansas City to escape the violent fate that befell too many oil-rich Natives and Freedmen? Her fortune took a hit during the Great Depression, but she still owned properties in Kansas City and Oklahoma until her death from a stroke in 1967. After finding out there was oil in the parcel, and trying to make some money out of it, Joseph decided to lease the parcel to an oil company in 1911. As a result, hundreds of black children, or Creek Freedmen minors, were each granted 160 acres of land as Indian Territory integrated with Oklahoma Territory to form the State of Oklahoma in 1907. Now, Forbes has released its 2021 list of the top 10 richest women in the world and in first place is LOreal heiress Franoise Bettencourt Meyers, with a staggering net worth of US$92.9 billion. Sarah and her mother were known for their fancy Cadillacs, Lincolns and a Rolls Royce limo they raced around town. Soon, the NAACP and W.E.B. The fallacies kept cropping up and, worst of all, that pesky photo. There were the fancy limos and Cadillacs that ferried young relatives to school and out for barbecue, the White-owned department store that opened its doors just so Sarah Rector could shop; the rolling farmland where Rector would invite Browns mother and the children for family gatherings. The courts again sided with Rector, ruling that since she had managed her property with such astuteness that she needs no guardian.. Born as the daughter of freedmen in 1902, Sarah Rector rose from humble beginnings to reportedly become the wealthiest black girl in the nation at the age of 11. Du Bois himself got involved, hoping to verify this story and rectify any injustice done to Sarah. Beckys land was in Okfuskee County, and Sarah and Joe, Jr. ended up with parcels 50 miles northwest of Taft. But instead of hearing that Porter was taking advantage of Sarah in the manner described, Du Bois was reassured. 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