- In the early 20th century, Sarah Rector was given 160 acres of land as part of a government deal.
- An 11-year-old pastor becomes incredibly wealthy when oil is discovered on his land.
- The rector's newfound wealth made her the target of marriage proposals and suspicions of intrigue.
When Sarah Rector was given 160 acres of land, she and her family thought it had little value. The soil was barren and the land was considered undesirable. But they did not know the great source of wealth hidden beneath.
According to Tonya Bolden, author of Looking for Sarah Rector: America's Richest Black Girl, Rector was born in 1902 in a modest cabin near the all-black town of Taft, Oklahoma, then in Indian Territory. I grew up in
Rector's parents were descendants of black people from the Muscogee Creek Nation, who were entitled to land allotments under the 1866 treaty that abolished slavery on tribal lands.
As part of the treaty, hundreds of freed black children were each given a plot of land. However, the land they were given was generally poor quality, rocky and unsuitable for farming.
Bolden said the college president's father didn't think it was worth paying the $30 annual property tax on his daughter's land, making it the family's secret source of incredible wealth. It is said that he tried to sell the land that he was unaware of.
striking oil
Fortunately for the university presidents, the petition to sell the land was denied. To cover the costs, Rector's father leased his 1911 Sara's parcel of land to Standard Oil and his Company.
In 1913, oil speculators drilled a well on the property and built a blower that spouted 2,500 barrels of oil daily. This equates to about $300 a day for Rector and more than $7,000 for him today.
Soon, news of the 11-year-old schoolmaster and her newfound wealth spread, attracting both curiosity and attention. The newspaper called the dean “the richest black girl in the world.”
In 1914, a Washington Post headline read, “Oil Makes Piccaninny Rich,” calling the school dean “an orphan, rough, black, and uneducated, but worth more than $4 million.” ' was inaccurately described.
Marriage proposal and alleged plans
Even though the university president was not yet a teenager, he received requests for loans and marriage proposals. Like the Osage tribe who inherited oil interests around the same time, some children of freed slaves whose allotments were found to contain oil were murdered in their sleep, according to Washington. The Post reported.
Under the laws of the time, Native Americans and freedmen who owned significant wealth had to be assigned white guardians. The president's parents chose T. J. Porter, a long-time patron of the family, to be their daughter's guardian.
When news of the conservatorship spread, some suspected Porter was mismanaging his money. Prominent figures like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and W.E.B. DuBois also stepped in to investigate the claims.
“Is it not possible to have her cared for in a decent manner by people of her own kind, and not by those of her race who refuse to treat her and her kind as proper yard dogs?” Affiliated with the NAACP James C. Waters, Jr., a lawyer, wrote a letter to Du Bois in 1914.
However, an investigation ultimately revealed that the suspicions were unfounded.
Lecter continued to live a comfortable life, hosting lavish parties and entertaining celebrities such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie. She died in 1967 at the age of 65.
