Research Paper on the Dred Scott Case
Research Paper on the Dred Scott Case
To tell the story of a slave is, of necessity, to tell the story largely, of his masters. This is the story of a slave that whished for freedom. After belonging to several different owners, Dred whished to carry on his life as a free man with his wife and two children. Relying on the “Justice System” in America. Dred took his fight for freedom to the courts, little did he know that his case would one day go down in history as the turning point in American slavery.
The Blow family were Dred’s first masters; they lived on a farm in Virginia, poor and worn out from years of cultivation, they moved with the “Era of Good Feelings” west like so many others to Huntsville, Alabama (Hopkins 1). For eleven years the Blow’s farmed in Alabama, but either the land had not been as bountiful as promised, or the lure of greater possibilities in growing St Louis caused Peter Blow to move on. Huntsville was left behind and the Blows and their Negroes traveled again, this time northwest (Hopkins 2).
Peter Blow set up a boarding house called The Jefferson Hotel in St Louis, but accumulating unpaid bills indicate that the venture was less than successful. Peter Blow eventually gave up his hotel and moved his family into another house, but his own health failed in the months that followed, he died on June 23,1863 (Fehrenbacher 239)
After Mr. Blow’s death in 1863 Dred was sold to meet creditors debts for five hundred dollars to Dr. John Emerson who at the time had been trying to obtain an appointment as assistant surgeon to the United States Army. He received his commission and took with him a slave who was the former property of Peter Blow (Ferenbacher 240).
Dred could neither read nor write, and on legal documents he made his “mark”. He had very dark skin and may have been no more than five feet tall. He was described by a newspaper once as “ illiterate but not ignorant” with a “ strong common sense” he however still remains a very indistinct figure (Ferenbacher 240). It is uncertain how Dred felt about being sold...