149-526: Dred Scott ( c. 1799 – September 17, 1858) was an enslaved African American man who, along with his wife, Harriet , unsuccessfully sued for the freedom of themselves and their two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott decision". The Scotts claimed that they should be granted freedom because Dred had lived in Illinois and
298-522: A slave catcher during the war, and at its end he pressed the British to return the slaves to their masters. With the British certificates of freedom in their belongings, the black loyalists, including Washington's slave Harry, sailed with their white counterparts out of New York harbor to Nova Scotia . More than 3,000 were resettled in Nova Scotia, where they were eventually granted land and formed
447-471: A wedding dowry when they married in 1828. Known as "Eliza", Taliaferro's wife was the daughter of Humphrey Dillon, an innkeeper in Bedford, Pennsylvania . Her father had registered three children as slaves in the 1820s, including two daughters and one son of an enslaved female servant named Eliza Diggs. Although Pennsylvania law freed all slaves' children born within the state and any enslaved person kept in
596-604: A case that he appealed to the US Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that African descendants were not U.S. citizens and had no standing to sue for freedom. It also ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. This was the last in a series of freedom suits from 1846 to 1857, that began in Missouri courts, and were heard by lower federal district courts. The US Supreme Court overturned
745-678: A committee, of which he was chair, to investigate "the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race". Their report, first delivered to the Medical Association in an address, was published in their journal in 1851, and then reprinted in part in the widely circulated DeBow's Review . Whether slavery was to be limited to the Southern states that already had it, or whether it was to be permitted in new states made from
894-686: A daughter, Lizzie. They also had two sons, but neither survived past infancy. The Emersons and Scotts returned to Missouri, a slave state, in 1840. In 1842, Emerson left the Army. After he died in the Iowa Territory in 1843, his widow Irene inherited his estate, including the Scotts. For three years after Emerson's death, she continued to lease out the Scotts as hired slaves. In 1846, Scott attempted to purchase his and his family's freedom, offering $ 300 ($ 10,173 adjusted for inflation). Irene Emerson refused
1043-604: A duel. Emerson was briefly arrested but not reprimanded, and appears to have prevailed, as the sutler's records show that Emerson was charged for two stoves. VanderVelde notes that stoves were generally only available to officers and enlisted men with wives, and that the fact that Dr. Emerson fought for a stove for the Scott family suggests that he did try to protect and provide for them. On May 29, 1840, Harriet, Dred and eighteen-month-old baby Eliza left Fort Snelling by steamboat, together with John and Irene Emerson. Dr. Emerson left
1192-534: A famous speech in the Senate in 1837, declared that slavery was "instead of an evil, a good – a positive good". Calhoun supported his view with the following reasoning: in every civilized society one portion of the community must live on the labor of another; learning, science, and the arts are built upon leisure; the African slave, kindly treated by his master and mistress and looked after in his old age,
1341-543: A few enslaved men. They traveled from western Pennsylvania to St. Louis, Missouri, where they took the steamboat Warrior up the Upper Mississippi River to St. Peter's Agency. Taliaferro had taken black servants to Minnesota country as slaves starting in 1825. Over the years, he became the largest slaveholder in the area. He enslaved at least 21 black servants over his lifetime. Taliaferro hired many of them out to officers at Fort Snelling, and kept
1490-623: A few servants in the agency house, which was located about half a mile outside the walls of the fort. Although Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 had banned slavery north of the Ohio River , it continued in the region for decades. Furthermore, slave labor on United States military installations was often tolerated or even encouraged prior to the Civil War. At Fort Snelling, United States Army officers received
1639-636: A foreign power such as children of foreign ambassadors). Shelia P. Moses and Bonnie Christensen wrote I, Dred Scott: A Fictional Slave Narrative Based on the Life and Legal Precedent of Dred Scott (2005). Mary E. Neighbour, wrote Speak Right On: Dred Scott: A Novel (2006). Gregory J. Wallance published the novel Two Men Before the Storm: Arba Crane's Recollection of Dred Scott and the Supreme Court Case That Started
SECTION 10
#17327651214541788-464: A frequent visitor to the Indian agency; Taliaferro soon came to view Sibley as his "nemesis." On May 8, 1836, Dred Scott arrived at Fort Snelling by steamboat. He was one of at least five enslaved men who arrived that day with 140 members of the 5th Infantry Regiment . At the time, he was known simply as "Etheldred." He was a personal servant to John Emerson, a military surgeon who had acquired him as
1937-480: A handful, freed their slaves by personal decision, often providing for manumission in wills but sometimes filing deeds or court papers to free individuals. Numerous slaveholders who freed their slaves cited revolutionary ideals in their documents; others freed slaves as a promised reward for service. From 1790 to 1810, the proportion of blacks free in the United States increased from 8 to 13.5 percent, and in
2086-572: A hundred thousand (nearly one in five black slaves) left their homes ... betting on British victory", but Cassandra Pybus states that between 20,000 and 30,000 is a more realistic number of slaves who defected to the British side during the war. Many slaves took advantage of the disruption of war to escape from their plantations to British lines or to fade into the general population. Upon their first sight of British vessels, thousands of slaves in Maryland and Virginia fled from their owners. Throughout
2235-729: A janitor at LaBeaume's law office, which was shared with lawyer Roswell Field . After the Missouri Supreme Court decision ruled against the Scotts, the Blow family concluded that the case was hopeless and decided that they could no longer pay Scott's legal fees. Roswell Field agreed to represent Scott pro bono before the federal courts. Scott was represented before the U.S. Supreme Court by Montgomery Blair . (Blair later served in President Abraham Lincoln 's cabinet as Postmaster General .) Assisting Blair
2384-528: A more comfortable lifestyle compared to many of the poorer settlement families living nearby in cabins and shanties. Historian Lea VanderVelde writes, "If any kitchen in the area had a cookstove, butterchurns, a mangle for squeezing the water from laundry, and even a complete set of kitchen utensils it would have been the Taliaferro household." At the time, the Dakota and Ojibwe population vastly outnumbered
2533-428: A name given as Sam, who may be the same person as Scott. After Scott learned of this sale, he attempted to run away. His decision to do so was spurred by a distaste he had developed for Emerson. Scott was temporarily successful in his escape as he, much like many other runaway slaves during this time period, "never tried to distance his pursuers, but dodged around among his fellow slaves as long as possible". Eventually, he
2682-569: A population of 2.17 million in what would soon become the United States. The slaves of the colonial era were unevenly distributed: 14,867 lived in New England , where they were three percent of the population; 34,679 lived in the mid-Atlantic colonies , where they were six percent of the population; and 347,378 in the five Southern Colonies , where they were 31 percent of the population. The South developed an agricultural economy dependent on commodity crops . Its planters rapidly acquired
2831-422: A public question from there forward". After the new country's independence was secure, slavery was a topic of contention at the 1787 Constitutional Convention . Many of Founding Fathers of the United States were plantation owners who owned large numbers of enslaved laborers; the original Constitution preserved their right to own slaves, and they further gained a political advantage in owning slaves. Although
2980-577: A reassignment to St. Louis – a move he had requested – but was required to wait until the arrival of his replacement. He was unable to leave until October 20, 1837, when freezing conditions on the Mississippi meant that he had to make the journey by canoe rather than by steamboat, and leave most of his personal property behind. Emerson left Harriet and Dred behind at Fort Snelling for the winter, hiring them out to other officers while collecting payment for their services. After reaching St. Louis, Emerson
3129-481: A significantly higher number and proportion of enslaved people in the population overall, as its commodity crops were labor-intensive. Early on, enslaved people in the South worked primarily on farms and plantations growing indigo , rice and tobacco ( cotton did not become a major crop until after the 1790s). In 1720, about 65 percent of South Carolina's population was enslaved. Planters (defined by historians in
SECTION 20
#17327651214543278-569: A slave escaped to another state, the other state could not prevent the return of the slave to the person claiming to be his or her owner. All Northern states had abolished slavery to some degree by 1805, sometimes with completion at a future date, sometimes with an intermediary status of unpaid indentured servant. Abolition was in many cases a gradual process. Some slaveowners, primarily in the Upper South , freed their slaves, and charitable groups bought and freed others. The Atlantic slave trade
3427-495: A slave in St. Louis, Missouri before taking up his first official post at Fort Armstrong in the supposedly free state of Illinois . In the months that followed, Dr. Emerson and Agent Taliaferro established a collegial working relationship. In late June 1836, they worked together to vaccinate nearly 1,000 Dakota men, women and children against smallpox , and were probably assisted by Etheldred. Emerson finally called on Taliaferro at
3576-415: A slave owned by Lawrence Taliaferro . The marriage was formalized in a civil ceremony presided over by Taliaferro, who was a justice of the peace . Since slave marriages had no legal sanction, supporters of Scott later noted that this ceremony was evidence that Scott was being treated as a free man. But Taliaferro transferred ownership of Harriet to Emerson, who treated the Scotts as his slaves. Dr. Emerson
3725-424: A stipend to pay for servants, but often used enslaved labor instead, keeping the extra money for themselves. Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, there were an estimated 15 to 30 enslaved men and women working at Fort Snelling at any given time. While living at the Indian agency house, Harriet Robinson and Eliza were expected to keep Mrs. Taliaferro living comfortably and to cushion her from the harsh living conditions of
3874-405: A stronger. 4. The happiness of the governed is in no sense its object. 5. The temporal improvement or the eternal well-being of the governed is in no sense its object. The object of it has been distinctly stated in one sentence by Judge Ruffin ,— "The end is the profit of the master, his security, and the public safety." Slavery, then, is absolute despotism, of the most unmitigated form. In
4023-565: A witness. Methodist missionary Reverend Alfred Brunson , who was also on board the Gipsey , would later mention Eliza's birth in his autobiography. The trip was very slow due to low water levels on the Mississippi River. The Gipsey finally reached Fort Snelling on October 21, 1838. Although many have assumed that Eliza Scott was named after Eliza Irene Sanford Emerson, in fact, Mrs. Emerson went by her middle name, Irene. Eliza
4172-560: A year later. Dred Scott was born into slavery c. 1799 in Southampton County, Virginia . It is not clear whether Dred was his given name or a shortened form of Etheldred. In 1818, Dred was taken by Peter Blow and his family, with their five other slaves, to Alabama, where the family ran an unsuccessful farm in a location near Huntsville . This site is now occupied by Oakwood University . The Blows gave up farming in 1830 and moved to St. Louis, Missouri . Dred Scott
4321-454: Is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing
4470-473: Is better off than the free laborers of Europe; and under the slave system conflicts between capital and labor are avoided. The advantages of slavery in this respect, he concluded, "will become more and more manifest, if left undisturbed by interference from without, as the country advances in wealth and numbers". South Carolina army officer, planter , and railroad executive James Gadsden called slavery "a social blessing" and abolitionists "the greatest curse of
4619-650: Is dedicated to her memory. The Dred and Harriet Scott Statue at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis commemorates where their quest for freedom began. Harriet Robinson was born into slavery around 1820 in Virginia, after which she lived briefly in Pennsylvania. Details of her early life are largely unknown. Her first-known slaveholder was Major Lawrence Taliaferro , who was originally from Virginia. Taliaferro
Dred Scott - Misplaced Pages Continue
4768-455: Is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. However, as the abolitionist movement's agitation increased and the area developed for plantations expanded, apologies for slavery became more faint in the South. Leaders then described slavery as a beneficial scheme of labor management. John C. Calhoun , in
4917-496: Is no record of an actual lawsuit at this time, but VanderVelde suggests that once they reached St. Louis, the Scotts may have had second thoughts about continuing on to Louisiana and somehow conveyed their hesitation to Dr. Emerson. After months of complaining, Dr. Emerson managed to secure a transfer back to Fort Snelling. On September 26, 1838, Harriet and Dred Scott were on board the steamboat Gipsey , together with Dr. and Mrs. Emerson, as it departed St. Louis. By then, Harriet
5066-722: The 1860 election on a platform of halting the expansion of slavery, slave states seceded to form the Confederacy . Shortly afterward, the Civil War began when Confederate forces attacked the U.S. Army's Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. During the war some jurisdictions abolished slavery and, due to Union measures such as the Confiscation Acts and the Emancipation Proclamation ,
5215-619: The American Civil War , the emancipation of enslaved African Americans , and the Thirteenth , Fourteenth , and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution . Dred Scott died in 1858, but Harriet survived the Civil War and lived out her days in the company of their two daughters, as well as their grandchildren who had been born into freedom. The Harriet Scott Memorial Pavilion at Greenwood Cemetery in Hillsdale, Missouri
5364-620: The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 gave effect to the Fugitive Slave Clause. Salmon P. Chase considered the Fugitive Slave Acts unconstitutional because "The Fugitive Slave Clause was a compact among the states, not a grant of power to the federal government". In a section negotiated by James Madison of Virginia, Section 2 of Article I designated "other persons" (slaves) to be added to
5513-653: The Indian agent to the Dakota as well as the Ojibwe , and had been reappointed for another term by President Andrew Jackson . Fourteen-year-old Harriet was taken along as a servant to work at the Taliaferros' agency house. Harriet likely made the six-week journey from Bedford, Pennsylvania , along with Lawrence and Eliza Taliaferro, Taliaferro's brother-in-law Horatio Dillon, an 18-year-old servant also named Eliza, and
5662-676: The Mexican Cession were the subject of major political crises and compromises. Slavery was defended in the South as a "positive good" , and the largest religious denominations split over the slavery issue into regional organizations of the North and South. By 1850, the newly rich, cotton-growing South threatened to secede from the Union . Bloody fighting broke out over slavery in the Kansas Territory . When Abraham Lincoln won
5811-487: The Missouri Compromise , which made that territory free by prohibiting slavery north of the 36°30′ parallel , was unconstitutional because it "deprives citizens of their [slave] property without due process of law". Although Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had hoped to settle issues related to slavery and congressional authority by this decision, it aroused public outrage, deepened sectional tensions between
5960-531: The Northwest Territory by Indian agent and slaveholder Lawrence Taliaferro . In 1836 or 1837, Harriet married Etheldred, an enslaved man who had been brought to Fort Snelling in present-day Minnesota by Dr. John Emerson, a military surgeon. Their civil wedding ceremony was officiated by justice of the peace Taliaferro, who never actually sold Harriet to Dr. Emerson, since slavery was illegal there. In 1838, she gave birth to their first child on
6109-680: The United States Congress acted on President Thomas Jefferson 's advice and, without controversy, made importing slaves from abroad a federal crime, effective the first day that the United States Constitution permitted this prohibition: January 1, 1808. During the Revolution and in the following years, all states north of Maryland ( the Mason–Dixon line ) took steps towards abolishing slavery. In 1777,
Dred Scott - Misplaced Pages Continue
6258-473: The Upper South from less than one to nearly ten percent as a result of these actions. Starting in 1777, the rebels outlawed the importation of slaves state by state. They all acted to end the international trade, but, after the war, it was reopened in North Carolina (opened until 1794) and Georgia (opened until 1798) and South Carolina (opened until 1787, and then reopened again in 1803.) In 1807,
6407-660: The Vermont Republic , which was still unrecognized by the United States, passed a state constitution prohibiting slavery . The Pennsylvania Abolition Society , led in part by Benjamin Franklin , was founded in 1775, and Pennsylvania began gradual abolition in 1780. In 1783, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled in Commonwealth v. Jennison that slavery was unconstitutional under
6556-747: The Wisconsin Territory for four years, where slavery was illegal, and laws in those jurisdictions said that slave holders gave up their rights to slaves if they stayed for an extended period. In a landmark case, the United States Supreme Court decided 7–2 against Scott, finding that neither he nor any other person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. Scott's temporary residence in free territory outside Missouri did not bring about his emancipation, because
6705-471: The "union of Dred Scott with Harriet Robinson – my servant girl which I gave him." Taliaferro, however, was possibly uncertain about Harriet's actual status when he officiated her wedding to Dred. Around the same time that his autobiography was published, Taliaferro gave a newspaper interview in which he referred to "marrying the two and giving the girl her freedom ." Even if that had been his intention, he did not document her manumission , and in practice,
6854-468: The 19th century, proponents of slavery often defended the institution as a "necessary evil". At that time, it was feared that emancipation of black slaves would have more harmful social and economic consequences than the continuation of slavery. On April 22, 1820, Thomas Jefferson , one of the Founding Fathers of the United States , wrote in a letter to John Holmes , that with slavery, We have
7003-546: The 20th century) at some time in their lives, were owners of slaves. The rapid expansion of the cotton industry in the Deep South after the invention of the cotton gin greatly increased demand for slave labor, and the Southern states continued as slave societies. The U.S., divided into slave and free states , became ever more polarized over the issue of slavery. Driven by labor demands from new cotton plantations in
7152-840: The American Continental Army . Rhode Island started enlisting slaves in 1778, and promised compensation to owners whose slaves enlisted and survived to gain freedom. During the course of the war, about one-fifth of the Northern army was black. In 1781, Baron Closen, a German officer in the French Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment at the Battle of Yorktown , estimated the American army to be about one-quarter black. These men included both former slaves and free-born blacks. Thousands of free blacks in
7301-868: The British forces. Historians agree that the proclamation was chiefly designed for practical rather than moral reasons, and slaves owned by American Loyalists were unaffected by the proclamation. About 1,500 slaves owned by patriots escaped and joined Dunmore's forces. A total of 18 slaves fled George Washington 's plantation, one of whom, Harry, served in Dunmore's all-black loyalist regiment called "the Black Pioneers". Escapees who joined Dunmore had "Liberty to Slaves" stitched on to their jackets. Most died of disease before they could do any fighting, but three hundred of these freed slaves made it to freedom in Britain. Historian Jill Lepore writes that "between eighty and
7450-434: The British war effort. Such proclamations were repeatedly issued over the course of the conflict, which resulted in up to 100,000 American slaves fleeing to British lines. Self-emancipated slaves who reached British lines were organized into a variety of military units, which served in all theaters of the war. Formerly enslaved women and children, in lieu of military service, worked instead as laborers and domestic servants. At
7599-639: The Civil War (2006). Slavery in the United States The legal institution of human chattel slavery , comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans , was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South . Slavery was established throughout European colonization in the Americas . From 1526, during
SECTION 50
#17327651214547748-643: The Deep South , the Upper South sold more than a million slaves who were taken to the Deep South. The total slave population in the South eventually reached four million. As the U.S. expanded, the Southern states attempted to extend slavery into the new Western territories to allow proslavery forces to maintain power in Congress. The new territories acquired by the Louisiana Purchase and
7897-749: The District of Missouri, and the Supreme Court of the United States, it became clear that the courts would no longer uphold legal precedent. On March 6, 1857, the United States Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that the Scotts were not American citizens due to their race, and therefore had no legal rights. It also declared the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. Although they failed to win their freedom through
8046-498: The Minnesota "frontier." Lawrence Taliaferro had a young part-Dakota daughter named Mary who had been born in 1828, shortly before his marriage to Elizabeth Dillon, but it is unclear whether Mary Taliaferro ever lived with them. The agency house was in poor repair and small compared to the Taliaferros' grand home in Pennsylvania. The stone house offered inadequate protection from the cold winter climate, contributing to Mrs. Taliaferro's frequent illnesses. Nevertheless, Harriet enjoyed
8195-406: The North had to search for employment. George Fitzhugh used assumptions about white superiority to justify slavery, writing that, "the Negro is but a grown up child, and must be governed as a child." In The Universal Law of Slavery , Fitzhugh argues that slavery provides everything necessary for life and that the slave is unable to survive in a free world because he is lazy, and cannot compete with
8344-434: The North might well have lost. Slavery was a contentious issue in the writing and approval of the Constitution of the United States . The words "slave" and "slavery" did not appear in the Constitution as originally adopted, although several provisions clearly referred to slaves and slavery. Until the adoption of the 13th Amendment in 1865, the Constitution did not prohibit slavery. Section 9 of Article I forbade
8493-483: The Northern states fought in the state militias and Continental Army. In the South, both sides offered freedom to slaves who would perform military service. Roughly 20,000 slaves fought in the American Revolution. After the Revolutionary War broke out, the British realized they lacked the manpower necessary to prosecute the war. In response, British commanders began issuing proclamations to Patriot-owned slaves, offering freedom if they fled to British lines and assisted
8642-524: The Northern states had passed laws outlawing slavery, either immediately or over time. In New York, the last slaves were freed in 1827 (celebrated with a big July 5 parade). Indentured servitude , which had been widespread in the colonies (half the population of Philadelphia had once been indentured servants ), dropped dramatically, and disappeared by 1800. However, there were still forcibly indentured servants in New Jersey in 1860. No Southern state abolished slavery, but some individual owners, more than
8791-421: The Revolution, abolitionist laws were passed in most Northern states and a movement developed to abolish slavery. The role of slavery under the United States Constitution (1789) was the most contentious issue during its drafting. The Three-Fifths Clause of the Constitution gave slave states disproportionate political power, while the Fugitive Slave Clause ( Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 ) provided that, if
8940-481: The Scotts had a strong case and should have won easily. After losing their first trial in 1847 on a technicality, the Scotts were granted a new trial, but were taken into custody by the sheriff on the orders of Mrs. Emerson, to be hired out by him while their cases were still pending. Dred Scott won his second trial in the state court in 1850, briefly winning freedom for his family, but Mrs. Emerson appealed. Lawyers for both sides then agreed to advance only Dred's case with
9089-512: The Scotts remained enslaved by Emerson. In June 1836, before Harriet and Dred married, an important freedom suit , Rachel v. Walker , had been decided in the Missouri Supreme Court . Rachel was an enslaved woman who had been acquired by Colonel J. B. W. Stockton in St. Louis and taken to Fort Snelling, where she lived from 1830 to 1831. Stockton then took Rachel to Fort Crawford in Michigan. The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously upheld Rachel's claim to freedom, ruling that she had become free when
SECTION 60
#17327651214549238-416: The Scotts to join him and his new wife in Louisiana, a slave state . Harriet and Dred left Fort Snelling in April 1838, most likely on the first steamboat after the spring thaw. Harriet was in the early stages of pregnancy. Little is known about Harriet and Dred's journey south. In the summer of 1838, Emerson wrote in a letter that "Even one of my negroes in St. Louis has sued me for his freedom." There
9387-438: The South, losses of slaves were high, with many due to escapes. Slaves also escaped throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic, with many joining the British who had occupied New York. In the closing months of the war, the British evacuated freedmen and also removed slaves owned by loyalists. Around 15,000 black loyalists left with the British, most of them ending up as free people in England or its colonies. Washington hired
9536-400: The St. Peter's Agency house. Among the Taliaferros' dinner guests between 1835 and 1836 were "mixed-blood" fur trader Joseph Renville of Lac qui Parle ; painter George Catlin , who stayed at Fort Snelling with his wife Clara while completing his Indian portraits; and British geologist George William Featherstonhaugh . Explorer Joseph Nicollet stayed with the Taliaferros for a while during
9685-507: The Union address), went into effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date on which the importation of slaves could be prohibited under the Constitution. The delegates approved the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution ( Article IV, section 2, clause 3 ), which prohibited states from freeing those "held to Service or Labour" (meaning slaves, indentures, and apprentices) who fled to them from another state and required that they be returned to their owners. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and
9834-430: The United States was a variable thing, in "constant flux, driven by the violent pursuit of ever-larger profits." According to demographic calculations by J. David Hacker of the University of Minnesota, approximately four out of five of all of the slaves who ever lived in the United States or the territory that became the United States (beginning in 1619 and including all colonies that were eventually acquired or conquered by
9983-426: The United States) were born in or imported to the United States in the 19th century. Slaves were the labor force of the South, but slave ownership was also the foundation upon which American white supremacy was constructed. Historian Walter Johnson argues that "one of the many miraculous things a slave could do was make a household white...", meaning that the value of whiteness in America was in some ways measured by
10132-402: The Upper South as those who held 20 or more slaves) used enslaved workers to cultivate commodity crops. They also worked in the artisanal trades on large plantations and in many Southern port cities. The later wave of settlers in the 18th century who settled along the Appalachian Mountains and backcountry were backwoods subsistence farmers , and they seldom held enslaved people. Beginning in
10281-399: The ability to purchase and maintain black slaves. Harriet Beecher Stowe described slavery in the United States in 1853: What, then, is American slavery, as we have seen it exhibited by law, and by the decision of Courts? Let us begin by stating what it is not: 1. It is not apprenticeship. 2. It is not guardianship. 3. It is in no sense a system for the education of a weaker race by
10430-422: The agency house for the first time on July 3. Historian Lea VanderVelde suggests that Harriet and Dred became acquainted with each other prior to this, perhaps while Harriet was tending the agency garden and Dred was on the prairie plateau looking after Dr. Emerson's horse. They would have also seen each other and had time to talk when Harriet was ordering and waiting for items at the sutler's store , just inside
10579-453: The air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill." Hammond believed that in every class one group must accomplish all the menial duties, because without them the leaders in society could not progress. He argued that the hired laborers of the North were slaves too: "The difference ... is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment," while those in
10728-732: The army officer had taken her to reside in free territory. In the fall of 1838, Harriet Scott gave birth to her first child, a baby girl named Eliza. She gave birth while on board a steamboat heading north up the Mississippi River from St. Louis back to Fort Snelling. Eliza Scott was born north of Missouri, meaning she had been born in free territory according to the Missouri Compromise . The circumstances surrounding Eliza's birth came about after Dred's enslaver, Dr. John Emerson, kept changing his mind about where he wanted to live. On November 22, 1837, Dr. Emerson had reported to Fort Jesup in Louisiana, and almost immediately began complaining about
10877-424: The assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it – when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell". Our new [Confederate] Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to
11026-611: The attitudes of white Southerners, and the concentration of the black population in the South, were bringing the white and black populations to a state of equilibrium, and were a danger to both races. Because of the racial differences between master and slave, he believed that the latter could not be emancipated. In a letter to his wife dated December 27, 1856, in reaction to a message from President Franklin Pierce , Robert E. Lee wrote, There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution
11175-649: The barrels of cargo and bales of blankets destined for the Indians." In Dred Scott v. Sandford , Eliza Scott's birthplace would be described as "on board the Steamboat Gipsy north of the north line of the State of Missouri & upon the River Mississippi." The geographic location of her birth became a critical point in their freedom suit, and Dred and Harriet would call on the captain of the ship as
11324-410: The basement kitchen on a pallet of rags set out in front of the open fire. At dawn, they tended the fire to warm the house. During the winters, Harriet was likely tasked with building and tending fires all day long. The winters were so cold that laundry "would never dry but simply freeze stiff." For most of the winter, it meant that Harriet was free from the task of doing laundry. During the rest of
11473-420: The basement of the fort hospital. They settled back in to life at the fort, where Harriet and Dred continued to work for Dr. and Mrs. Emerson, as well as other officers. By the time they returned to Fort Snelling, many of Harriet's old friends had left, and there were very few ladies and domestic servants remaining at the fort during baby Eliza's first winter. Life at the fort had also become more difficult, as
11622-526: The community of the black Nova Scotians . In the first two decades after the American Revolution, state legislatures and individuals took actions to free slaves. Northern states passed new constitutions that contained language about equal rights or specifically abolished slavery; some states, such as New York and New Jersey, where slavery was more widespread, passed laws by the end of the 18th century to abolish slavery incrementally. By 1804, all
11771-510: The complicated facts of the Dred Scott case, some observers on both sides raised suspicions of collusion to create a test case . Abolitionist newspapers charged that slaveholders colluded to name a New Yorker as defendant, while pro-slavery newspapers charged collusion on the abolitionist side. About a century later, a historian established that John Sanford never legally owned Dred Scott, nor did he serve as executor of Dr. Emerson's will. It
11920-424: The court overturned 28 years of precedent in Missouri. Justice Hamilton R. Gamble , who was later appointed as governor of Missouri, sharply disagreed with the majority decision and wrote a dissenting opinion. In 1853, Scott again sued for his freedom, this time under federal law. Irene Emerson had moved to Massachusetts, and Scott had been transferred to Irene Emerson's brother, John F. A. Sanford . Because Sanford
12069-485: The court ruled, they had gained their freedom. The owner appealed. In 1852 the Missouri supreme court overruled this decision, on the basis that the state did not have to abide by free states' laws, especially given the anti-slavery fervor of the time. It said that Scott should have filed for freedom in the Wisconsin Territory. Scott ended up filing a freedom suit in federal court (see below for details), in
12218-480: The court's ruling in the Scott case increased tensions between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in both North and South, further pushing the country toward the brink of civil war. Ultimately after the Civil War , on July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution settled the issue of Black citizenship via Section 1 of that Amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
12367-404: The courts, the Scotts were finally emancipated on May 26, 1857, after nationwide media coverage of their high-profile loss caused public embarrassment to Massachusetts Congressman Calvin C. Chaffee , an abolitionist who had married Eliza Irene Sanford Emerson. The Supreme Court ruling ultimately triggered a constitutional crisis , rallied abolitionists , and set the stage for the events leading to
12516-552: The decades after the end of Reconstruction in 1877, many of slavery's economic and social functions were continued through segregation , sharecropping , and convict leasing . Involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime is still legal in the United States. By the time of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the status of enslaved people had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry. During and immediately following
12665-485: The decision built popular opinion and voter sentiment for his Emancipation Proclamation and the three constitutional amendments ratified shortly after the Civil War: The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments, abolishing slavery, granting former slaves' citizenship, and conferring citizenship to anyone born in the United States and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" (excluding subjects to
12814-608: The differences between the Constitution of the Confederate States and the United States Constitution , laid out the cause for the American Civil War, as he saw it, and defended slavery: The new [Confederate] Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions – African slavery as it exists among us – the proper status of
12963-431: The earlier precedents and established new limitations on African Americans. In 1846, having failed to purchase his freedom, Scott filed a freedom suit in St. Louis Circuit Court. Missouri precedent, dating to 1824, had held that slaves freed through prolonged residence in a free state or territory, where the law provided for slaves to gain freedom under such conditions, would remain free if returned to Missouri. The doctrine
13112-499: The early colonial period , it was practiced in what became Britain's colonies , including the Thirteen Colonies that formed the United States. Under the law, an enslaved person was treated as property that could be bought, sold, or given away. Slavery lasted in about half of U.S. states until abolition in 1865, and issues concerning slavery seeped into every aspect of national politics, economics, and social custom. In
13261-638: The effects of the climate on his health. He sent numerous requests to the Surgeon General for another reassignment, preferably closer to Illinois, where he hoped to secure his land claims near Fort Armstrong. While in Louisiana, John Emerson was introduced to Eliza Irene Sanford, who was visiting from St. Louis. She was the sister-in-law of Captain Henry Bainbridge, who was also from St. Louis. On February 6, 1838, John and Irene were married in Louisiana. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Emerson sent for
13410-596: The end of the war, freed slaves in British lines either evacuated to other British colonies or to Britain itself, were re-enslaved by the victorious Americans, or fled into the countryside. In early 1775, the royal governor of Virginia , Lord Dunmore , wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth of his intention to free slaves owned by American Patriots in case they staged a rebellion. On November 7, 1775, Dunmore issued Dunmore's Proclamation , which promised freedom to any slaves of American patriots who would leave their masters and join
13559-457: The enslaved of the early Republic were considered sentient property, were not permitted to vote, and had no rights to speak of, they were to be enumerated in population censuses and counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation in the national legislature, the U.S. Congress . The rebels began to offer freedom as an incentive to motivate slaves to fight on their side. Washington authorized slaves to be freed who fought with
13708-558: The essence of the Missouri Compromise, which divided territories into jurisdictions either free or slave. Speaking for the majority, Taney ruled that because Scott was considered the private property of his owners, he was subject to the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution , prohibiting the taking of property from its owner "without due process". Rather than settling issues, as Taney had hoped,
13857-469: The federal government from prohibiting the importation of slaves, described as "such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit", for twenty years after the Constitution's ratification (until January 1, 1808). The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 , passed by Congress and signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson (who had called for its enactment in his 1806 State of
14006-404: The fort referred to her in their records as "Har.Etheldred" or "H.Dread." By September 14, 1837, Harriet was already married to Dred, and John Emerson was her enslaver. On that date, she was hired out by Dr. Emerson to Lieutenant James L. Thompson, 5th Infantry, and his wife Catherine, who later testified in the Scotts' trial as a witness to their residence at Fort Snelling. That fall, Harriet
14155-466: The gate and across from the fort hospital. Harriet Robinson and Dred Scott were married in a civil ceremony officiated by Lawrence Taliaferro as justice of the peace , in 1836 or 1837. Harriet was about seventeen and Dred was about forty years old. It was the second marriage for Dred. The exact date of the wedding is not recorded. No journal entries exist for Taliaferro in 1837; he had reportedly run very low on paper and stationery. Their marriage
14304-496: The greater number in cities. Many men worked on the docks and in shipping. In 1703, more than 42 percent of New York City households held enslaved people in bondage, the second-highest proportion of any city in the colonies, behind only Charleston, South Carolina . Enslaved people were also used as agricultural workers in farm communities, especially in the South , but also in upstate New York and Long Island , Connecticut , and New Jersey . By 1770, there were 397,924 blacks out of
14453-400: The historian James Oliver Horton noted, prominent slaveholder politicians and the commodity crops of the South had a strong influence on United States politics and economy. Horton said, in the 72 years between the election of George Washington and the election of Abraham Lincoln, 50 of those years [had] a slaveholder as president of the United States , and, for that whole period of time, there
14602-499: The infamous United States Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857. On April 6, 1846, attorney Francis B. Murdoch had initiated Harriet v. Irene Emerson in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, making the Scotts the first and only married couple to file separate freedom suits in tandem. Born into slavery in Virginia, Harriet Robinson lived briefly in the free state of Pennsylvania before being taken to
14751-523: The intelligent European white race. He states that "The negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people in the world." Without the South, "He (slave) would become an insufferable burden to society" and "Society has the right to prevent this, and can only do so by subjecting him to domestic slavery." On March 21, 1861, Alexander Stephens , Vice President of the Confederacy, delivered his Cornerstone Speech . He explained
14900-515: The jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside ..." Scott's freedom suit before the state courts was backed financially by Peter Blow's adult children, who had turned against slavery in the decade since they sold Dred Scott. Henry Taylor Blow was elected as a Republican Congressman after the Civil War, Charlotte Taylor Blow married the son of an abolitionist newspaper editor, and Martha Ella Blow married Charles D. Drake , one of Scott's lawyers who
15049-552: The lands of the Louisiana Purchase and Mexican Cession , was a major issue in the 1840s and 1850s. It was addressed by the Compromise of 1850 and during the Bleeding Kansas period. Harriet Robinson Scott Harriet Robinson Scott ( c. 1820 – June 17, 1876) was an African American woman who fought for her freedom alongside her husband, Dred Scott , for eleven years. Their legal battle culminated in
15198-505: The leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away ... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon
15347-451: The majority opinion. Taney ruled, with three major issues, that: The Court had ruled that African Americans had no claim to freedom or citizenship. Since they were not citizens, they did not possess the legal standing to bring suit in a federal court. As slaves were private property, Congress did not have the power to regulate slavery in the territories and could not revoke a slave owner's rights based on where he lived. This decision nullified
15496-421: The nation". Gadsden was in favor of South Carolina's secession in 1850, and was a leader in efforts to split California into two states, one slave and one free . Other Southern writers who also began to portray slavery as a positive good were James Henry Hammond and George Fitzhugh . They presented several arguments to defend the practice of slavery in the South. Hammond, like Calhoun, believed that slavery
15645-438: The negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of
15794-466: The northern and southern states, and hastened the eventual explosion of their differences into the American Civil War . President Abraham Lincoln 's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments —the Thirteenth , Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments—nullified the decision. The Scotts were manumitted by private arrangement in May 1857. Dred Scott died of tuberculosis
15943-471: The offer. Scott and his wife separately filed freedom suits to try to gain their freedom and that of their daughters. The cases were later combined by the courts. The Scotts' cases were first heard by the Missouri circuit court. The first court upheld the precedent of "once free, always free". That is, because the Scotts had been held voluntarily for an extended period by their owner in a free territory, which provided for slaves to be freed under such conditions,
16092-575: The officers struggled to maintain military discipline due to widespread drunkenness and a growing number of deserters. In 1839, Emerson became embroiled in an argument when the Fort Snelling quartermaster, Lieutenant McPhail, agreed to provide the Emersons with a stove, but refused to provide a second stove for the Scott family to use. Lieutenant McPhail punched Dr. Emerson in the nose and broke his glasses, after which Emerson challenged McPhail to
16241-642: The original state lawsuit before she married Chaffee. Following the ruling, the Chaffees deeded the Scott family to Republican Congressman Taylor Blow , who manumitted them on May 26, 1857. Scott worked as a porter in a St. Louis hotel, but his freedom was short-lived; he died from tuberculosis in September 1858. He was survived by his wife and his two daughters. Scott was originally interred in Wesleyan Cemetery in St. Louis. When this cemetery
16390-497: The other married and has descendants, some of whom still live in St. Louis as of 2023, including Lynne M. Jackson, Scott's great-great-granddaughter, who led the successful effort to install a new towering memorial at Dred Scott's grave at Calvary Cemetery on September 30, 2023. The newspaper coverage of the court ruling, and the 10-year legal battle raised awareness of slavery in non-slave states. The arguments for freedom were later used by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln . The words of
16539-474: The political power of Southern states, as three-fifths of the (non-voting) slave population was counted for congressional apportionment and in the Electoral College , although it did not strengthen Southern states as much as it would have had the Constitution provided for counting all persons, whether slave or free, equally. In addition, many parts of the country were tied to the Southern economy. As
16688-493: The second half of the 18th century, a debate emerged over the continued importation of African slaves to the American colonies. Many in the colonies, including the Southern slavocracy , opposed further importation of slaves due to fears that it would destabilize colonies and lead to further slave rebellions . In 1772, prominent Virginians submitted a petition to the Crown , requesting that the slave trade to Virginia be abolished; it
16837-401: The size of the United States, and it was established at the insistence of Cutler and Putnam as "free soil" – no slavery. This was to prove crucial a few decades later. Had those states been slave states, and their electoral votes gone to Abraham Lincoln's main opponent, Lincoln would not have become president. The Civil War would not have been fought. Even if it eventually had been,
16986-597: The state for longer than six months, local custom allowed slaveholders to register the children of enslaved mothers for slave status until the age of 28. While living in Pennsylvania, Harriet was likely trained as a laundress or chambermaid at the inn owned by the Dillon family, possibly by her own mother. Harriet never learned to read or write. In 1835, Lawrence Taliaferro moved his entire household to join him at St. Peter's Indian Agency near Fort Snelling in present-day Minnesota. He had lived and worked there since 1820 as
17135-417: The state's new 1780 constitution . New Hampshire began gradual emancipation in 1783, while Connecticut and Rhode Island followed suit in 1784. The New York Manumission Society , which was led by John Jay , Alexander Hamilton , and Aaron Burr , was founded in 1785. New York state began gradual emancipation in 1799, and New Jersey did the same in 1804. Shortly after the Revolution, the Northwest Territory
17284-536: The steamboat Gipsey as it traveled north on the Mississippi River, in free territory, back to Fort Snelling. In 1840, the Scott family moved to St. Louis in the slave state of Missouri with Irene Emerson, who eventually hired them out to her brother-in-law, Captain Henry Bainbridge, at Jefferson Barracks . After Dr. Emerson's death in 1843, Dred accompanied Captain Bainbridge to Louisiana and Texas, leaving Harriet and their two daughters behind in St. Louis. Harriet
17433-413: The superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This view of the "Negro race" was backed by pseudoscience . The leading researcher was Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright , a Southerner and the inventor of the mental illnesses of drapetomania (the desire of a slave to run away) and dysaesthesia aethiopica ("rascality"), both cured, according to him, by whipping. The Medical Association of Louisiana set up
17582-547: The total of the state's free population, at the rate of three-fifths of their total number, to establish the state's official population for the purposes of apportionment of congressional representation and federal taxation. The "Three-Fifths Compromise" was reached after a debate in which delegates from Southern (slaveholding) states argued that slaves should be counted in the census just as all other persons were while delegates from Northern (free) states countered that slaves should not be counted at all. The compromise strengthened
17731-492: The understanding that the outcome of his case would apply to Harriet's suit as well. Legal historians have argued that this was an error on the part of the Scotts' lawyers, as Harriet's claim to freedom was stronger than that of Dred, and the legal status of children was determined by the status of their mother. As their case progressed through the Missouri Supreme Court, the United States Circuit Court for
17880-567: The war effectively ended slavery in most places. After the Union victory, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on December 6, 1865, prohibiting "slavery [and] involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime." During most of the British colonial period, slavery existed in all the colonies. People enslaved in the North typically worked as house servants, artisans, laborers and craftsmen, with
18029-575: The white settlers in Minnesota country, and there was frequent intermarriage, making race relations there more "fluid" than in other parts of the United States. The absence of a cash crop economy also meant that enslaved blacks were generally able to exercise more freedoms than in the plantation South. As maid servants, Harriet and Eliza were responsible for grooming their mistress – helping Mrs. Taliaferro with her hair and dress each day – in addition to their household chores. Each night, they slept in
18178-423: The winter of 1836 and became very close to Mrs. Taliaferro, later referring to her as his "sister." Harriet probably answered the front door to greet Dakota and Ojibwe visitors to the Indian agency. VanderVelde suggests that she got to know many of them by name, particularly if they were from nearby bands. Twenty-four-year-old Henry Hastings Sibley , the new regional manager for American Fur Company , also became
18327-585: The wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. The French writer and traveler Alexis de Tocqueville , in his influential Democracy in America (1835), expressed opposition to slavery while observing its effects on American society. He felt that a multiracial society without slavery was untenable, as he believed that prejudice against blacks increased as they were granted more rights (for example, in Northern states). He believed that
18476-681: The year, the settlement community regarded clean clothing and bathing with soap as evidence of their "superiority" over the local Native American tribes. At dinner, the servant women would serve food in the Taliaferros' dining room, taking it from the basement, up the stairs into the outdoors, around the back, and into the main house through the back door. As an innkeeper's daughter, Mrs. Taliaferro received many compliments from guests about her elegant table settings and how well she organized her household. In Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery's Frontier (2009), Lea VanderVelde suggests that Harriet Robinson served dinner to several notable visitors while at
18625-479: Was a citizen of New York, while Scott would be a citizen of Missouri if he were free, the Federal courts had diversity jurisdiction over the case. After losing again in federal district court, the Scotts appealed to the United States Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford . (The name is spelled "Sandford" in the court decision due to a clerical error.) On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered
18774-402: Was a frequent churchgoer, and in St. Louis, her church pastor (a well-known abolitionist ) connected the Scotts to their first lawyer. The Scott children were around the age of ten when the case was originally filed. The Scotts were worried that their daughters might be sold. The Scott v. Emerson case was tried by the state in 1847 in the federal-state courthouse in St. Louis. Scott's lawyer
18923-547: Was a legal practise and had become entrenched socially and economically in many societies. The ideals and principles promoted in the Enlightenment and the American Revolution helped to put slavery and the desire for its abolition on the political agenda. As historian Christopher L. Brown put it, slavery "had never been on the agenda in a serious way before", but the American Revolution "forced it to be
19072-399: Was also the first name of Eliza Dillon Taliaferro, as well as Harriet's friend and fellow servant, Eliza. Historian VanderVelde suggests that Harriet named her daughter after the last of these—her friend, the Taliaferro's servant. Dr. Emerson would remain on his second tour of duty at Fort Snelling from October 1838 to May 1840. During this time, the Scott family probably lived once again in
19221-496: Was attorney George Curtis . His brother Benjamin was an Associate Supreme Court Justice and wrote one of the two dissents in Dred Scott v. Sandford . In 1850, Irene Emerson remarried and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts . Her new husband, Calvin C. Chaffee , was an abolitionist . He was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1854 and fiercely attacked by pro-slavery newspapers for his apparent hypocrisy in owning slaves. Given
19370-434: Was captured in the " Lucas Swamps " of Missouri and taken back. As an army officer, Emerson moved frequently, taking Scott with him to each new army posting. In 1833, Emerson and Scott went to Fort Armstrong , in the free state of Illinois. In 1837, Emerson took Scott to Fort Snelling , in what is now the state of Minnesota and was then in the free territory of Wisconsin . There, Scott met and married Harriet Robinson ,
19519-800: Was closed nine years later, Taylor Blow transferred Scott's coffin to an unmarked plot in the nearby Catholic Calvary Cemetery , St. Louis, which permitted burial of non-Catholic slaves by Catholic owners. Some of Scott's family members have claimed that he was a Catholic. A local tradition later developed of placing Lincoln pennies on top of Scott's gravestone for good luck. Harriet Scott was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Hillsdale, Missouri . She outlived her husband by 18 years, dying on June 17, 1876. Their daughter, Eliza, married and had two sons. Their other daughter, Lizzie, never married but, following Eliza's early death, helped raise Eliza's sons (Lizzie's nephews). One of Eliza's sons died young, but
19668-413: Was elected by the state legislature as a Republican US Senator. Members of the Blow family signed as security for Scott's legal fees and secured the services of local lawyers. While the case was pending, the St. Louis County sheriff held these payments in escrow and leased Scott out for fees. In 1851, Scott was leased by Charles Edmund LaBeaume, whose sister had married into the Blow family. Scott worked as
19817-470: Was established, by Manasseh Cutler and Rufus Putnam (who had been George Washington's chief engineer). Both Cutler and Putnam came from Puritan New England. The Puritans strongly believed that slavery was morally wrong. Their influence on the issue of slavery was long-lasting, and this was provided significantly greater impetus by the Revolution. The Northwest Territory (which became Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota) doubled
19966-498: Was heavily pregnant. She was probably very uncomfortable, as the Gipsey was a small and cramped steamer – "more of a tugboat than a pleasure ship." Small boats like the Gipsey were notorious for the extreme heat generated from their wood furnaces and steam engines. The sternwheeler had no private cabins and only two group cabins – one for ladies and the other for gentlemen. Harriet may have had to go below deck and try to find "a secluded corner" where she could give birth, "behind
20115-629: Was hired out to Adeline Russell, wife of grocery wholesaler Samuel Russell, most likely working as a laundress . In 1846, Dred Scott returned to St. Louis and tried to purchase his freedom from Mrs. Emerson, who refused. The Scotts then decided to pursue their freedom through the courts. By then, Harriet, a member of the Second African Baptist Church , was aware of the many freedom suits that had been won by enslaved women in St. Louis. Based on legal precedents set by Winny v. Whitesides in 1824 and Rachel v. Walker in 1836,
20264-452: Was known as "Once free, always free". Scott and his wife had resided for two years in free states and free territories, and his eldest daughter had been born on the Mississippi River, between a free state and a free territory. Dred Scott was listed as the only plaintiff in the case, but his wife, Harriet, had filed separately and their cases were combined. She played a critical role, pushing him to pursue freedom on behalf of their family. She
20413-462: Was needed to build the rest of society. In a speech to the Senate on March 4, 1858, Hammond developed his "Mudsill Theory", defending his view on slavery by stating: "Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in
20562-497: Was never a person elected to a second term who was not a slaveholder. The power of Southern states in Congress lasted until the Civil War , affecting national policies, legislation, and appointments. One result was that most of the justices appointed to the Supreme Court were slave owners. The planter elite dominated the Southern congressional delegations and the United States presidency for nearly fifty years. Slavery in
20711-428: Was not held until January 1850. This time, direct evidence was introduced that Emerson owned Scott, and the jury ruled in favor of Scott's freedom. Irene Emerson appealed the verdict. In 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the lower court ruling, arguing that, because of the free states' anti-slavery fervor was encroaching on Missouri, the state no longer had to defer to the laws of free states. By this decision,
20860-409: Was originally Francis B. Murdoch and later Charles D. Drake . As more than a year elapsed from the time of the initial petition filing until the trial, Drake had moved away from St. Louis during that time. Samuel M. Bay tried the case in court. The verdict went against Scott, as testimony that established his ownership by Mrs. Emerson was ruled to be hearsay. But the judge called for a retrial, which
21009-458: Was outlawed by individual states beginning during the American Revolution. The import trade was banned by Congress in 1808 , although smuggling was common thereafter, at which point the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service (Coast Guard) began enforcing the law on the high seas. It has been estimated that before 1820 a majority of serving congressmen owned slaves, and that about 30 percent of congressmen who were born before 1840 (some of whom served into
21158-514: Was quickly transferred again, this time to Fort Jesup in Louisiana. Although Harriet stated in her 1846 lawsuit that Taliaferro "sold" her to Emerson, there is no record of an actual sale. Legal historian Walter Ehrlich writes that instead, what appears to have happened is that Harriet and Dred agreed with Taliaferro and Emerson to be legally married, and that Taliaferro informally transferred his ownership of Harriet to Emerson. In his 1864 autobiography, Taliaferro would write that he had officiated
21307-467: Was rejected. Rhode Island forbade the importation of slaves in 1774. The influential revolutionary Fairfax Resolves called for an end to the "wicked, cruel and unnatural" Atlantic slave trade. All of the colonies banned slave importations during the Revolutionary War. Slavery had existed for thousands of years, all around the world. In the United States and many parts of the world it
21456-511: Was said to have "inherited" Harriet rather than purchased her. The name Robinson may have come from the family that enslaved her mother. There was a Robinson family living near the home where Lawrence Taliaferro had grown up in King George County, Virginia , but there is no known record connecting them to Harriet. Another possible explanation is that Harriet may have been given to Taliaferro and his wife, Elizabeth Dillon, as part of
21605-470: Was sold to Dr. John Emerson, a surgeon serving in the United States Army , who planned to move to Rock Island, Illinois . Blow died in 1832, and historians debate whether Scott was sold to Emerson before or after Blow's death. Some believe that Scott was sold in 1831, while others point to a number of enslaved people in Blow's estate who were sold to Emerson after Blow's death, including one with
21754-584: Was the final one of many officiated by Taliaferro during his time as Indian agent in pre-territorial Minnesota. Civil wedding ceremonies were unusual at the time for enslaved couples. As Indian agent, Taliaferro was a strong believer in Western-style marriages and their "civilizing" effect on families on the "frontier," whether they were Native Americans, fur traders, soldiers, or other settlers. Once they were married, Harriet left St. Peter's Agency and went to live with Dred at Fort Snelling. Officers at
21903-475: Was the only servant woman remaining at Fort Snelling and her housekeeping services were in high demand. She was hired out to as many as three officers before being hired exclusively to the post commandant, Major Joseph Plympton, in November. Taliaferro had previously hired his servant Eliza out to Plympton, and now Plympton paid Dr. Emerson for Harriet's services. Around this time, Dr. Emerson had been granted
22052-510: Was transferred to Fort Jesup in Louisiana in 1837, leaving the Scott family behind at Fort Snelling and leasing them out (also called hiring out) to other officers. In February 1838, Emerson met and married Eliza Irene Sanford in Louisiana, whereupon he sent for the Scotts to join him, only to be reassigned to Fort Snelling later that year. While on a steamboat heading north on the Mississippi River, north of Missouri, Harriet Scott gave birth to their first child, whom they named Eliza. They later had
22201-421: Was unnecessary to find a New Yorker to secure diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts, as Irene Emerson Chaffee (still legally the owner) had become a resident of Massachusetts. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Roswell Field advised Dr. Chaffee that Mrs. Chaffee had full powers over Scott. However, Sanford had been involved in the case since the beginning, as he had secured a lawyer to defend Mrs. Emerson in
#453546