Dred Scott v. Sandford

Circumstances Leading to the Decision

The events preceding the decision tell an intriguing story of how the institution of chattel slavery in the United States deprived Blacks of virtually all aspects of legal or social personhood. This includes parental and filial rights and even the right to determine one's own name. For example, the individual known as Dred Scott, born around 1800, did not acquire that name until 1833. Before that, he was known simply as Sam, one of five slaves purchased by Peter Blow in 1819. In 1820, the Blow family settled in Huntsville, Alabama. While there, Sam was hired out to work on the river as a dockhand. After the death of Mrs. Blow in 1831, Peter Blow migrated to what was then the promising frontier town of St. Louis, Missouri. One year later, Blow died. Sam was subsequently sold along with another unnamed slave to Dr. John Emerson, at which point he was renamed Dred Scott. (It remains unclear whether it was actually Sam or the other slave who was given this name).

Dred Scott lived a more transient and perhaps more traumatic life with Dr. Emerson than he had with the Blows. For example, Scott ran away shortly after his sale to Emerson. Scott was soon found near St. Louis, however, and, in accordance with Article IV of the U.S. Constitution, was returned to Emerson's possession. As a doctor with the U.S. Army, Emerson was frequently transferred to various military installations throughout the Midwest. Between 1834 and 1843, Emerson took Scott to the state of Illinois and the then-free territories of Wisconsin and Iowa. According to the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (a law stipulating that for each new slave state or territory added to the Union, a free one must be added), these were free regions. While in Wisconsin, Scott met a young slave named Harriet Robinson. Sources differ about whether Harriet's owner sold her to Emerson or gave her to Dred Scott as a wife, but the two were married by a justice of the peace in 1838 and subsequently had two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie. In 1843, Dr. Emerson died, and in 1846, his widow hired Dred and Harriett Scott out to her brother-in-law and later to a Mr. Samuel Russell.

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