Prison Island

Lore & Background

Dred Scott was born into slavery c. 1799 in Southampton County, Virginia. In 1818, Peter Blow and his family took Dred, with five other enslaved people, to Alabama, where the family ran an unsuccessful farm near Huntsville. The Blows gave up farming in 1830 and moved to St. Louis, Missouri. Dred Scott 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. After Scott learned of this sale, he attempted to run away, spurred by a distaste he had developed for Emerson. He was temporarily successful, dodging among fellow slaves, but was eventually captured in the "Lucas Swamps" of Missouri and taken back. As an army officer, Emerson moved frequently, taking Scott with him. In 1833, they went to Fort Armstrong, in the free state of Illinois. In 1837, Emerson took Scott to Fort Snelling, in what is now Minnesota and was then in the free territory of Wisconsin. There, Scott met and married Harriet Robinson, an enslaved person owned by Lawrence Taliaferro. The marriage was formalized in a civil ceremony presided over by Taliaferro, who was a justice of the peace. Taliaferro transferred ownership of Harriet to Emerson, who treated the Scotts as his slaves. Dr. Emerson was transferred to Fort Jesup in Louisiana in 1837, leaving the Scott family behind at Fort Snelling and leasing them out to other officers. In February 1838, Emerson met and married Eliza Irene Sanford in Louisiana, then 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, Eliza. They later had a daughter, Lizzie, and two sons who did not survive infancy. The Emersons and Scotts returned to Missouri 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. Irene Emerson refused. Scott and his wife separately filed freedom suits; the courts later combined the cases.

Reader's Guide

The Scotts' cases were first heard by the Missouri circuit court, which upheld the precedent of "once free, always free"—because the Scotts had been held voluntarily for an extended period by their owner in a free territory, the court ruled they had gained their freedom. The owner appealed, and in 1852, the Missouri supreme court overruled this decision, stating the state did not have to abide by free states' laws, especially given the anti-slavery fervor of the time. It said Scott should have filed for freedom in the Wisconsin Territory. Scott ended up filing a freedom suit in federal court, appealing 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, and 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 U.S. Supreme Court overturned the earlier precedents and established new limitations for African Americans. Although Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had hoped to settle issues related to slavery and congressional authority by this decision, it instead aroused public outrage, deepened sectional tensions between 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 and Fourteenth amendments—respectively nullified and abrogated the decision.

Did You Know?

• Dred Scott was born into slavery c. 1799 in Southampton County, Virginia, and it is unclear whether Dred was his given name or a shortened form of Etheldred.
• Harriet Robinson Scott played a critical role, pushing Dred to pursue freedom on behalf of their family, and her church pastor connected them to their first lawyer.
• The U.S. Supreme Court case name is spelled 'Sandford' due to a clerical error.
• Private arrangement manumitted the Scotts in May 1857, and Dred Scott died of tuberculosis a year later.