Dred Scott

Dred Scott changed the trajectory of United States History when he sued for his freedom

Quick Facts

Significance:

Known for his role in the Dred Scott Case. The Dred Scott decision helped move the country to the brink of Civil War.

Place of Birth:

Southampton County Virginia

Date of Birth:

1799

Place of Death:

St. Louis, Missouri

Date of Death:

September 17, 1858

Place of Burial:

St. Louis, Missouri

Cemetery Name:

Calvary Cemetery

Dred Scott was born enslaved to the Peter Blow family in Southampton County, Virginia around 1799. Scott would go on to become one of the most recognized enslaved people of all time.

Not much is known about his early life. In 1833, when he was around 30 years old, Scott was sold to Dr. Emerson, an army surgeon. Scott lived with Emerson on an army post in Illinois (which was a free state) and when Dr. Emerson was reassigned to Fort Armstrong at Rock Island, Illinois, Scott was taken along. Under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the State Constitution of 1818, slavery was prohibited in Illinois. However, Army and Navy officers did not consider themselves to be citizens of a state merely because they happened to be stationed there. A couple of years later in 1836, Emerson was moved to Fort Snelling on the west side of the Mississippi in what is now Minnesota. Emerson took Dred Scott along, although Fort Snelling was in territory from which slavery was barred by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. That is where Dred met and fell in love with Harriet Robinson, who was enslaved by Major Taliaferro, an officer from Virginia. Dr. Emerson bought Harriet and the couple married. Two years later in 1838 their first daughter Eliza was born. When the Army moved Dr. Emerson to Louisiana, he met and married Irene (February 1838). The Scotts welcomed their second daughter Lizzie soon after, in 1840. 

After Dr. Emerson’s death in 1843, Dred and Harriet Scott were left to Emerson’s widow, Irene Emerson. Irene's family hired the Scotts out and kept all the money. Three years later, the Scotts filed separate petitions for their freedom based on the established doctrine of "once free always free." Since the Scotts had been enslaved in areas slavery was illegal, technically they should be free. This was not unusual: over 300 enslaved people sued for their freedom at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis.

Historians have considered a few reasons as to why Dred and Harriet chose to sue for their freedom at this time:

• Mrs. Emerson might have been planning to sell them, or to break up their family by selling just one or two of them.

• They may have offered to buy their own freedom and been refused

• They may have been dissatisfied with being hired out

• They may have seen their daughters growing older and wanted to prevent them from facing the same hardships they had.

In 1847, the Dred Scott case was brought to trial. The courts considered Dred and Harriet's suits together, so when people refer to the Dred Scott Case, it actually refers to both of their petitions.

The Scotts lost their first trial due to hearsay evidence but, after being granted a second trial in 1850 they were both granted their freedom by the courts. Because slaves were valuable property at the time, Mrs. Irene Emerson appealed the decision to the Missouri Supreme Court and the decision was reversed in 1852 on the basis that “times now are not as they were when the previous decisions on this subject were made.” At the time, Missouri law allowed slavery, and the court would uphold the rights of slave-owners in the state by any means.

Dred Scott however, was not yet ready to give up on his fight for liberation and in 1954 – with the help of a team of lawyers who opposed slavery – Scott filed a suit against John F.A. Sanford, Mrs. Emerson’s brother and executor of the Emerson estate. The case was decided in favor of Sanford, prompting Scott to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and on March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney read the official opinion of the court. Seven of the nine justices agreed that Dred Scott should remain enslaved, but Taney did not stop there. Taney felt that Dred Scott’s suit for freedom should be dismissed for the following reasons:

• As a slave, Dred Scott was not a citizen of the United States, and therefore had no right to bring suit in the federal courts on any matter.

• Scott had never been free, due to the fact that slaves were personal property; thus the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional, and the federal government had no right to prohibit slavery in the new territories.

Although the Dred Scott Case on its surface appears to argue whether the Scotts were entitled to their freedom, what was more important was the consideration of property rights. If slaves were indeed valuable property, like a car or an expensive home today, could they be taken away from their owners because of where the owner had taken them? In other words, if a car was driven from Missouri to Illinois, and owning a car was illegal in the State of Illinois, could the authorities then take the car upon returning to Missouri? These were the questions being discussed in the Dred Scott case, with one major difference: a car is not human and cannot sue. Which was more important: the rights of people to own property, or the rights of people to not be property?

Mrs. Emerson remarried to Calvin C. Chaffee, a northern congressman who opposed slavery and eventually turned the Scott family over to Dred’s original enslavers, the Blows. The Blows in turn granted the Scott’s their freedom in May of 1857. Dred Scott’s freedom was short lived as he died less than a year later from tuberculosis, but Harriet lived nearly twenty years longer. Their descendants still live in St. Louis.

This Dred Scott decision ultimately pushed the country closer to the brink of Civil War as the American public reacted very strongly to the ruling. The ultimate result of the war, the end of slavery throughout the United States, was not something Dred Scott could have foreseen in 1846 when he decided to sue for his freedom in St. Louis' Old Courthouse.