Dred Scott, The Veteran Litigant

Item set

• Dorinda v. John Simonds Jr. (1826)
  In this case, an enslaved woman named Dorinda sued for her freedom in a Missouri court, claiming she had become free due to being taken to reside in Illinois for a time. While her suit was pending, Dorinda wrote to her attorney with concerns that her enslaver had violated the court's order not to remove her from its jurisdiction. Her suit was eventually dismissed, and it is unknown whether she was able to obtain her freedom.
• Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
  Dred Scott was owned by Dr. John Emerson. Emerson took Scott into Wisconsin, a free state. While living in a free territory, Scott got married and had children, believing he and his family were free. He was later taken back to Missouri where he sued for his freedom. The Supreme Court ultimately decided in the case that Black people could not sue in federal court and that they were never meant to be included in the body politic. Dred Scott was later central to the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
• Dred Scott, The Veteran Litigant
  This teaching module explores how legal actors like Dred Scott possessed knowledge about the law unaccounted for in the Supreme Court record of their cases. This module reads the "Statement of Facts" in Scott v. Sandford alongside contemporaneous unpublished documents to reveal the significant ways Dred Scott directed the course of his own freedom-making.
• Letter from Dorinda to Hamilton R. Gamble (1827)
  Dorinda, "a free woman of color," wrote to her attorney in the midst of her freedom suit to tell him that her enslaver had violated the court's order not to remove her from the court's jurisdiction and planned to "keep me out of your reach if possible."
• Letter from John Emerson to Thomas Lawson (1838)
  In this letter, Dred Scott's enslaver John Emerson wrote to his superiors requesting a change of post, citing numerous personal struggles including the fact that "one of my negroes in Saint Louis has sued me for his freedom." This is thought to be the only reference surviving in the historical record of the first freedom suit Dred Scott filed in Missouri courts.
• List of Enslaved People Freed by Lawrence Taliaferro
  This undated note scribbled on the back of a document attesting to Lawrence Talliaferro's membership in the Franklin Society lists the name of 21 enslaved men and women whom Taliaferro manumitted between 1839-1843. Among the names is Harriet Robinson, the wife of Dred Scott.
• Statement of Facts in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1854)
  The parties in Dred Scott v. Sandford agreed to a "Statement of Facts" about the timeline of events in Scott's life that were relevant to his freedom suit. This agreed upon evidence downplayed Dred Scott's active role in putting his case before the court.