1847: Dred Scott and the Freedom Seekers
Big Idea
Black men and women used the U.S. legal system to fight to be recognized as citizens of the United States and to be provided the same legal protections as White people.
What’s important to know?
Dred Scott: As a result of a Missouri law—”once free, always free”—Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom. They lost their case when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that because of the Naturalization Act of 1790, Black people were not citizens and therefore could not appeal to the courts or be protected by the laws of the United States.
Freedom Suits: Undaunted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott and refusing to accept the notion that they were not citizens of the land in which they were born and lived, many Black men and women sued for their freedom in St. Louis, and many won their cases.
St. Louis “Stampedes”: In 1849 and 1854, enslaved Black people in St. Louis, supported by White abolitionists, attempted to escape and, when unsuccessful, fought for their freedom in events called the St. Louis Stampedes.
1: Dred Scott
As the public debate over free versus slave states continued, an African American slave named Dred Scott pushed the conversation further.
Dred and Harriet Scott
Image Source: Wikipedia
Dred Scott and other enslaved Black men and women sued for their freedom in St. Louis courts as a result of a Missouri law that stated “once free, always free.” Scott sued for his and his family’s freedom arguing that they had been enslaved in a free state and therefore should be released as free. In 1857, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney led the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Scott’s argument. The Court asserted that “negroes, whether slave or free, were not citizens of the United States” (Bogan, 1990, p. 381) and therefore ineligible to make this appeal for freedom in front of the Court. As scholar john a. powell (2021) noted of this ruling, “[Supreme Court Justice] Taney not only inverted the states’ rights paradigm and nationalized the denial of citizenship to African descendants, stripping northern Black citizens of their federal citizenship rights, but he also denied states the ability to do anything about it” (p. 215).
Not surprisingly, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney had been born in Smith County, Maryland, to a tobacco farming family who owned slaves (Bogen, 1990, pp. 381-382). This decision, in line with the 1790 Naturalization Act, continued to define Black persons as inferior and not eligible for citizenship in the United States.
2: “Freedom Suits”
Richard Thompson, a man of colour v. James E. Blount and Leakin Baker
Image Source: Washington University Library
While Scott lost his case, he was one of many Black enslaved persons who sued for their freedom in St. Louis. Known as the “Freedom Suits,” enslaved Black men and women in St. Louis sued for their freedom citing Missouri’s judicial standard that guaranteed “once free, always free” (Hays, 2022).
Slaves who had been taken to a free state and spent enough time there to be considered a “resident,” used this statute to sue for their freedom when they returned to St. Louis. While not all cases were decided in favor of the enslaved person, nearly a third of those who brought suit won their cases (Hays).
Click here to see the archival records of freedom suits. Review the list of individuals who brought their suits here.
3: St. Louis “Stampedes”
The St. Louis “Stampedes” refer to a period of time when multiple escapes were attempted by groups of enslaved Black Missourians. White abolitionists organized and helped enslaved people cross the Mississippi into Illinois (a free state) and then facilitated their progress through the Underground Railroad. In one case, when an initial escape was foiled, enslaved men and women armed themselves to fight for their freedom.
Watch the following video from Dickinson University’s A House Divided Project, to learn about one particular stampede that occurred in Canton, Missouri in 1849.
The 1849 Canton Stampede from A House Divided Project at Dickinson College.
Visit this website to see the journey that Black Americans attempted as they sought their freedom from enslavement in Missouri.
Your Turn
How did the Freedom Suits contribute to the development of democracy in the United States? And how did the St. Louis “Stampedes” represent the deadly consequences of asserting freedom in Missouri?
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Read more at the Equal Justice Initiative about the Dred Scott case.
Read the texts from the Freedom Suits at the WashU repository.
Read about the plaintiffs in the Freedom Suits at the Freedom Suits Memorial Foundation.
Explore more at the African American Midwest digital repository.
Slavery and the Courts from the Library of Congress.
Read:
Foley, William E. "Slave Freedom Suits Before Dred Scott: The Case of Marie Jean Scypion's Descendants." Missouri Historical Review 79 (October 1984), pp. 1-23.
powell, j. a. (2024). Belonging without Othering: How We Save Ourselves and the World. Stanford University Press.
Sestric, A. J. 57 Years: A History of the Freedom Suits in the Missouri Courts. (St. Louis: Reedy Press, 2012)
Kennington, K. M. (2017). In the shadow of Dred Scott : St. Louis freedom suits and the legal culture of slavery in antebellum America. The University of Georgia Press. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=1506495
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Materials from iCivics on resisting slavery, including the role the freedom suits played in this.
Material from Missouri Digital Archive “Before Dred Scott: Freedom Suits in Antebellum Missouri.”
Teaching the slave stampedes using maps, from the Organization of American Historians.
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General Resources:
Map of slave stampedes across the United States.
Books & Articles:
Johnson, D. (2017). Slave Stampedes: A Borderland Phenomenon.The Freedom Seeker, Vol. XIV, No. 3.
Kennington, K. M. (2017). In the Shadow of Dred Scott. University of Georgia Press.
Archives:
Slave Stampedes on the Southern Borderlands, National Park Service and A House Divided Project.
The State Historical Society of Missouri: African American Research Guide
Museum & Parks:
When in St. Louis visit the Old Courthouse where the Freedom Suits were tried.
Read about and visit the Freedom Suits memorial in St. Louis.
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Blackett, R. (2018). The Captive’s Quest for Freedom. Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery. Cambridge University Press.
Bracey, C. ed. et al (2010). The Dred Scott Case: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Race and Law (Law Society & Politics in the Midwest). Ohio University Press, 2010.
Hunt II, C.J. (2007). No Right to Respect: Dred Scott and the Southern Honor Culture. New England Law Review 42 (79).
Milteer Jr., W. E. (2022). Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South. University of North Carolina Press.
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Bogen, D. S. (1990). The Maryland context of Dred Scott: The decline in the legal status of Maryland free blacks 1776-1810. The American Journal of Legal History, 34, 381-411.
Hays, G. (2022). Stories of enslaved Missourians were forgotten for decades – until now. PBS NewsHour. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/this-new-memorial-honors-the-hundreds-of-enslaved-missourians-who-sued-for-freedom
powell, j. a. (2021). Dred Scott: 1854-1859. In, Hannah-Jones, N., Roper, C., Silverman, I., & Silverstein, J. (2021). The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. Random House Publishing.