{"id":273,"date":"2018-10-03T23:47:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T23:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/?p=273"},"modified":"2023-08-05T18:11:40","modified_gmt":"2023-08-05T18:11:40","slug":"redemption-songs-and-mrs-dred-scott-by-lea-vandervelde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/redemption-songs-and-mrs-dred-scott-by-lea-vandervelde\/","title":{"rendered":"Redemption Songs and Mrs. Dred Scott by Lea VanderVelde"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"stampede

“Slave Stampede,” Daily Missouri Republican, July 16, 1856, p. 3 Courtesy of the State Historical Society of Missouri.<\/p><\/div>\n

On July 16, 1856, the\u00a0Daily Missouri Republican <\/em>reported on a large reward being offered to help recapture a group freedom seekers:\u00a0\u201cSlave Stampede: A reward\u00a0of\u00a0$1,500 was offered yesterday for the apprehension of eight negroes-a man and wife,\u00a0<\/span>three sons, two daughters and the wife\u2019s sister, who disappeared on Monday night. They are the property of Messrs R. Wash and John O\u2019Fallon Jr. Several other slaves are supposed to be in their company on the underground track.\u201d<\/span>[1]<\/sup><\/a> This short article, located in the middle of four pages of local and national news, described a\u00a0<\/span>group escape of eight or more enslaved blacks as a \u201cstampede.\u201d Yet what does the term mean in this context? Was it meant to sensationalize the news to grab readers\u2019 attention? Or was it designed as a way to dehumanize enslaved people by comparing them to a hoard of wild animals?<\/span><\/p>\n

Lea VanderVelde, a noted legal historian from the University of Iowa School of Law, attempts to answer these questions and many others in two recent books, Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery\u2019s Frontier<\/em> (2009) and Redemption Songs: Suing for Freedom Before Dred Scott<\/em> (2014). The former is a biography of Harriet Scott that examines her life as a slave and as an often-overlooked plaintiff behind the infamous Scott v Sandford<\/em><\/a>\u00a0decision. The latter study is a review of around 300 original court case files for freedom suits from the circuit courts of St. Louis, Missouri. All of these cases, described by the author as \u201csongs of freedom,\u201d can be viewed online here<\/a>.[2]<\/sup><\/a> Most of these suits involved claims of enslaved people being held illegally in bondage in either free territories or states, often by slaveholders, such as army officers (in the case of the Scott family) who traveled widely. In both studies, VanderVelde reveals valuable information not only about the nature of freedom suits, but also about the dynamics of group slave escapes in 19th century Missouri.<\/p>\n

For example, VanderVelde mentions the July 1856 stampede of eight\u00a0in a footnote to\u00a0Redemption Songs <\/em>(2014) as way to help elaborate on her use of the term \u201cstampede.\u201d[3]<\/sup><\/a> In the text, she writes that \u201cAs slaves, petitioners are described by witnesses in a passive voice as having the characteristics of objects…They are stolen, even \u2018stampeded,\u2019 by third parties.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0In her work, VanderVelde always emphasizes the agency of the enslaved, but here she seems to suggest that the term “stampede” was used by their oppressors as a way to dehumanize them.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cstampede\u201d surfaces in Mrs. Dred Scott <\/em>(2009) as well, during an exploration of the ramifications of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law.\u00a0 VanderVelde writes, \u201cfor the first time [after September 1850], the newspapers noted the new phenomenon of slaves running away in groups. They initially referred to these departures as \u2018slave stampedes\u2019 as if the escapees were witless horses.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Yet such group escapes, or \u201cstampedes,\u201d caused slaveholders great anxiety, because as VanderVelde notes, \u201cthis sort of exodus suggests [to them] some prior planning and outside assistance to avoid detection.\u201d[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

One exceptional case, the freedom suits of Milton Duty’s 26 slaves<\/a>, reveals that the concept of “stampedes” might also be applied to the freedom suit process. During his lifetime, Mississippi slaveholder Duty had ensured the manumission of his slaves by moving them to Missouri (with more liberal manumission policies). They lived together for a year in Missouri, where Duty instructed the slaves to rent out their labor in St. Louis in order to start saving money for their new lives free after bondage. When Duty died in 1838, greedy stakeholders, including both creditors and the executor of Duty’s will, immediately went through Duty’s personal items, tearing up and destroying as much evidence of Duty’s intention to free his slaves as possible. Over the following decade, Duty’s slaves were forced to enter a bitter legal battle to seek their freedom.\u00a0 More than two dozen of them filed for freedom at the same time in St. Louis Circuit Court in 1842. Yet despite the clarity of Duty’s intentions as outlined in his will, and after years of legal struggle, only one of the twenty six slaves was eventually granted freedom. Jesse, the drayman, won his case based in part on his ownership of Duty’s horses. By the time the petition was officially rejected by the Missouri Supreme Court in 1846, several of the original slaves who filed had already died. The story of Duty’s slaves reveals the struggles and obstacles faced by enslaved folks who chose to fight for their freedom legally rather than escaping.[7]<\/sup><\/p>\n

VanderVelde\u2019s work also suggests that whether escaping or petitioning, an important element of enslaved agency was about gender and family. In Redemption Songs<\/em> (2014), she writes that far more women than men filed for freedom in court. \u201cMost St. Louis freedom suits were initiated by women,” she observes, “Filing suit kept mothers and children together.\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/a> Legally, the status of slavery was passed through the mother to children. If the mother\u2019s status changed from enslaved to free, then her children would also become free. This meant that enslaved women had much more incentive than men to take the effort to legally change their status rather than risk family separation in escape. This concept that \u201cmen run, [and] women sue\u201d reveals a specific way in which gender, race, and conceptions about motherhood intersected to create unique experiences for enslaved women, and explains one reason why some slaves chose to sue for their freedom.[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Freedom suits, much more than escapes, \u201cpreserved the status quo.\u201d[10]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Many successful petitioners didn\u2019t move away even after winning their cases.\u00a0 Winny, an enslaved woman who won her case, spent the rest of her days in freedom as a washerwoman in St. Louis.[11]<\/sup><\/a> Dred and Harriet Scott, who eventually achieved freedom through manumission, also continued their free lives in St. Louis, where Dred worked as a doorman at Barnum\u2019s Hotel.[12]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Scott

A statue of Harriet and Dred Scott outside the St. Louis courthouse where they first filed for freedom in 1846 (Dred Scott Heritage Foundation)<\/p><\/div>\n

A second likely reason that some eligible slaves chose to sue for freedom over escaping was the simple fact that until the Scott case (Scott v. Emerson<\/em> in the Missouri Supreme Court in 1852 and then\u00a0Scott v. Sandford<\/em> in the US Supreme Court in 1857), slaves had a genuine chance at freedom through legal means. In the years leading up to the final Dred Scott decision, St. Louis courts had set a precedent that often surprisingly favored the petitioner in freedom suits. In 1824, this<\/a>\u00a0Missouri statue established that if a court reached a “judgment of liberation,” for a petitioner, then that individual was deemed wholly free, even if that judgment directly opposed the wishes of the slaveholder. Of the 300 original court filings from St. Louis that VanderVelde examined, over 100 litigants were granted their freedom.[13]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Still, slaves took on great risk to their lives and livelihoods by making any type of bid for freedom in a system that tried to strip them of their humanity. Both freedom suits and escapes were dangerous acts of bravery that undermined the institution of slavery. They were especially so, because as VanderVelde writes, \u201csurvival is a much more significant objective in influencing human behavior than attaining freedom.\u201d[14]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 What we hope to uncover, however, is how a family of eight, running away together on a July evening in 1856, might have seen their “stampede” as both an act of personal and political survival.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0“Slave Stampede,” Daily Missouri Republican (St. Louis, MO), July 16, 1856. [WEB<\/a>]<\/p>\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> Lea VanderVelde, Redemption Songs: Suing for Freedom Before Dred Scott<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 22.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a> VanderVelde, 263n.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/sup><\/a> VanderVelde, 203.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/sup><\/a> Lea VanderVelde, Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery\u2019s Frontier<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 287.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/sup><\/a> VanderVelde, Mrs. Dred Scott<\/em>, 287.<\/p>\n

[7]\u00a0<\/sup>VanderVelde,\u00a0Redemption Songs,<\/em> 159-176.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/sup><\/a> VanderVelde, Redemption Songs<\/em>, 195.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/sup><\/a> VanderVelde, Redemption Songs<\/em>, 195.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/sup><\/a> VanderVelde, Redemption Songs<\/em>, 195.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/sup><\/a> VanderVelde, Redemption Songs<\/em>, 65.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/sup><\/a> VanderVelde, Mrs. Dred Scott<\/em>, 322.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/sup><\/a> VanderVelde, Redemption Songs<\/em>, 20.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/sup><\/a> VanderVelde, Redemption Songs<\/em>, 194.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On July 16, 1856, the\u00a0Daily Missouri Republican reported on a large reward being offered to help recapture a group freedom seekers:\u00a0\u201cSlave Stampede: A reward\u00a0of\u00a0$1,500 was offered yesterday for the apprehension of eight negroes-a man and wife,\u00a0three sons, two daughters and the wife\u2019s sister, who disappeared on Monday night. They are the property of Messrs R. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21280,6109],"tags":[6109],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scholarship","category-secondary-sources","tag-secondary-sources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2543,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/2543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}