She's Been Her Own Mistress: The Long History of Charlotte Dupee v. Henry Clay, 1790-1840

As Washington, D.C., thawed out in February of 1829, Congress convened inside the United States Capitol to count the votes for President of the United States. After each state's packet containing their vote was unsealed and reviewed, it was revealed that after an acrimonious campaign, Andrew Jackson had defeated the incumbent John Quincy Adams.

Henry Clay, the veteran Kentucky politician and Quincy Adams' Secretary of State, and those he enslaved were particularly affected. In order to make way for the incoming administration, Clay made plans to vacate his post in Washington and return to Ashland, his Kentucky plantation. But before the outgoing Clay could digest the results of the election, he received a shocking notice. Claiming that she was born of a free woman and wrongfully enslaved, Charlotte Dupee, a woman enslaved by Henry Clay for twenty-three years, was suing the powerful statesmen for her freedom.

Read the full story on O Say Can You See: Early Washington, D.C., Law & Family

Timing was the linchpin of Charlotte Dupee's freedom suit. She purposefully filed her petition against Clay in Washington, D.C., before his return to Kentucky. Doing so enabled Dupee and her lawyer to take advantage of favorable freedom suit legal precedents in the jurisdiction. Moreover, Dupee knew she would be mandated by law to remain in the District during the litigation of her case and, crucially, while Clay returned to his plantation in Kentucky. As a result, Charlotte Dupee exercised a unique degree of freedom in Washington, D.C. – and even worked for wages – while her slaveholder returned to Kentucky.

In May 1830, the court ruled against Charlotte Dupee; her formal petition for freedom was denied. But, while pivotal, this eighteen-month-long episode in Charlotte Dupee's life is only a snapshot of her long personal struggle for freedom. Prior research conveys Dupee's freedom suit as a blip in the biography of Henry Clay. Reflecting the lack of research into Dupee's entire life, resources that focus on slavery or freedom suits in Washington, D.C., only devote a sentence or two to Dupee's suit. As a result, vital moments in Charlotte Dupee's life that directly informed her freedom suit's argument and strategy are absent from historical studies. Beginning with what was likely her first brutal encounter with the system of slavery at five years old and continuing through her eventual emancipation, this essay will replace Henry Clay with Charlotte Dupee at the forefront of her own history.