The United States Civil War ended on April 9th, 1865.  The Confederate States were officially dissolved, U.S. territorial integrity had been preserved, the institution of slavery abolished and the beginning of the Reconstruction Era was ushered in. In the subsequent years, the country would see the passage and ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Major political, economic, and social changes for a nation that had just witnessed the death of nearly 620,000 of its sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers. But the question remains for historians and the debate continues today… Did the lives of former slaves really change all that dramatically? We know that racism and discrimination remained in the United States for decades to come and that financial freedom was virtually unobtainable for many liberated slaves looking to start new lives. But for some, the end of the Civil War and the years that followed, ushered in remarkable, unimaginable opportunity and for one young, African American girl, whose parents had been slaves, and who was now living in Oklahoma, it would mean that in a few shorts years she would be one of the wealthiest people in the entire country and that today her story would be recounted on this episode of The Missing Chapter.

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