Dred Scott was an enslaved African American man who, along with his wife, Harriet, unsuccessfully sued for the freedom of themselves and their two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott decision". The Scotts claimed that they should be granted freedom because Dred had lived in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory for four years, where slavery was illegal, and laws in those jurisdictions said that slave holders gave up their rights to slaves if they stayed for an extended period.
Scott c. 1857
Dred and Harriet Scott's restored quarters at Fort Snelling
The case centered on Dred and Harriet Scott (top) and their children, Eliza and Lizzie.
Dred Scott's grave in Calvary Cemetery, taken before Sep 2023 and was since replaced by a towering monument on Sep 30, 2023.
Harriet Robinson Scott was an African American woman who fought for her freedom alongside her husband, Dred Scott, for eleven years. Their legal battle culminated in the infamous United States Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857. On April 6, 1846, attorney Francis B. Murdoch had initiated Harriet v. Irene Emerson in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, making the Scotts the first and only married couple to file separate freedom suits in tandem.
Scott in 1857
St. Peter's Agency house (left in white fence) near Fort Snelling above the joining of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers (c.1850)
View from Fort Snelling looking across the Minnesota River toward Mendota (1848)
Geographer Joseph Nicollet stayed with the Taliaferros
