By Rox Laird

roxlaird@dmreg.com

The story of the Iowa Territorial Supreme Court decision 175 years ago In the Matter of Ralph is remarkable. What was happening in the courts in our neighbor state to the south was even more remarkable.

The Iowa territorial court in 1839 secured the freedom of a former Missouri slave living in Dubuque (see editorial on Page 1 OP today). The ruling was an unqualified rejection of slavery, but that was not so extraordinary given the abolitionist sentiments in the Iowa Territory. But in Missouri, slaves were successfully pleading their cases for freedom in court before judges and juries and with lawyers appointed by the court.

This was truly extraordinary, given that slavery was legal and practiced in Missouri, and judges, jurors and lawyers there were not generally opposed to the practice. Yet, between 1817 and 1856, scores of men, women and children were granted freedom by Missouri state judges.

The story of the Missouri freedom suits is told by University of Iowa professor Lea VanderVelde in a book scheduled for publication this fall, "Redemption Songs: Suing for Freedom Before Dred Scott." These are the stories of a dozen such freedom suits, which VanderVelde was able to tell in remarkable detail because of her extraordinary find 17 years ago: a cache of crumbling documents in the St. Louis Courthouse that have survived for more than 200 years.

Many of these court documents, handwritten and bearing the "X" mark of illiterate plaintiffs, had been sitting in a court clerk's shoe box in a desk drawer until archivists and historians learned of their existence. These rare documents are extraordinary not only because of their age but because they contain rich, firsthand details of the stories of slaves seeking justice. Most surviving accounts of freedom suits in other states are abbreviated, dry recitation of facts in appeals court rulings.

VanderVelde happened on this trove while researching a book on Harriet Scott, whose story was eclipsed by the legal saga of her husband Dred, though she sued for her freedom, too. VanderVelde spent months in St. Louis poring over the dusty and crumbling papers, and she weaves details from the records and other historical documents into stories of slaves who sued their owners for freedom.

Those stories are, by themselves, moving and fascinating windows into the lives of slaves in the early and middle decades of the 19th century. But the larger story of these suits is equally fascinating: the fact that Missouri followed a legal precedent that slaves who had resided in a free state could petition the court for release from bondage. Lawyers were appointed, though the petitioners were typically unable to pay them anything.

Thus, unlike the Iowa case in the matter of Ralph, Missouri courts were granting freedom to slaves based not on opposition to slavery — advocating abolition was a crime in Missouri at the time — but on the rule of law.

Among the freedom suits heard in the St. Louis Courthouse was Dred Scott's, which was successful before it was reversed by the Missouri Supreme Court. His appeal in federal court led to defeat in the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous 1857 decision that not only put an end to freedom suits but inflamed passions leading to the Civil War.

VanderVelde's book exposing this fresh view of history is both a work of original scholarship and of passion. Despite some obscure technical legal jargon readers may find off-putting, it is an enjoyable read because she keeps the focus on the human lives at stake in these amazing stories of justice dispensed amid a world of injustice in the years leading to the Civil War.

THERE'S MORE READING YOU CAN DO

Book: "Redemption Songs: Suing for Freedom Before Dred Scott" (336 pages, $29.95) will be published this fall by Oxford University Press.

Online: The 300 existing Missouri freedom suits have been digitized and can be seen at www.stlcourtrecords.wustl.edu/about-freedom-suits-series.php.