Although this event commemorates the end of slavery, emancipation for the remaining enslaved in two Union border states, Delaware and Kentucky, would not come until December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified; furthermore, thousands of black slaves were not freed until after the Reconstruction Treaties of late 1866, when tribes such as the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, and others were forced to sign new treaties that required them to free their slaves.
Although this event commemorates the end of slavery, emancipation for the remaining enslaved in two Union border states, Delaware and Kentucky, would not come until December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified; furthermore, thousands of black slaves were not freed until after the Reconstruction Treaties of late 1866, when tribes such as the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, and others were forced to sign new treaties that required them to free their slaves.