People
Scott, Dred
Born in Virginia, Scott first lived in Missouri in about 1830, when the Peter Blow family emigrated to St. Louis. He was sold by Blow to Dr. John Emerson, an Army surgeon, and began his trek to freedom when Emerson took him to Rock Island, Illinois, in 1833. Several years later, Scott married Harriett Robinson Scott at Fort Snelling, Minnesota Territory.
In 1846, Scott and his wife filed separate petitions in St. Louis Circuit Court, seeking their freedom according to a Missouri law which had long acknowledged that slaves taken to free territory were entitled to their freedom. They lost their first trial, on a technicality, in 1847; but the court granted a new trial. After some maneuvering in the appeals courts, the case again went to trial in 1850. The Scotts won.
However, the Missouri Supreme Court, speaking through a 2-1 majority, reversed the decision and reversed years of precedent in holding that the Scotts were not free as a result of years of residency in free territory.
The case which produced the infamous 1857 decision of the United States Supreme Court was commenced in federal court in St. Louis in 1854, and sought to use federal law to override the Missouri Supreme Court decision.
The Scotts were freed in 1857, two months after the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court; The widow of Dr. Emerson had married a Congressman from Massachusetts, and his wife’s role in the case became a serious political liability.
See an excellent description of the Scott litigation on the Missouri Secretary of State’s website, at http://www.sos.state.mo.us/archives
/resources/africanamerican/scott/scott.asp.
