River of Injustice: St. Louis’s Freedom Suits and the Changing Nature of Legal Slavery in Antebellum America by Kelly Marie Kennington Department of History Duke University Date:_________________ Approved: ___________________________ Laura F. Edwards, Supervisor ___________________________ Edward Balleisen ___________________________ Peter H. Wood ___________________________ Adriane Lentz-Smith Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 ABSTRACT River of Injustice: St. Louis’s Freedom Suits and the Changing Nature of Legal Slavery in Antebellum America by Kelly Marie Kennington Department of History Duke University Date:_________________ Approved: ___________________________ Laura F. Edwards, Supervisor ___________________________ Edward Balleisen ___________________________ Peter H. Wood ___________________________ Adriane Lentz-Smith An abstract of dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 Copyright by Kelly Marie Kennington 2009 Abstract Slavery and freedom are central issues in the historiography of nineteenth- century America. In the antebellum era (1820-1860), personal status was a fluid concept and was never as simple as black and white. The courts provide a revealing window for examining these ambiguities because court cases often served as the venue for negotiations over who was enslaved and who was free. In St. Louis, enslaved men and women contributed to debates and discussions about the meaning of personal status by suing for their freedom. By questioning their enslavement in freedom suits, slaves played an important role in blurring the law’s understanding of slavery; in the process, they incurred the enormous personal risks of abuse and the possibility of sale. Using the records of over 300 slaves who sued for freedom, as well as a variety of manuscript sources, newspapers, and additional court records, this project traces these freedom suits over time, and examines how slave law and the law of freedom suits shifted, mainly in response to local and national debates over slavery and also to the growing threat of anti-slavery encroachment into St. Louis. When the laws tightened in response to these threats, the outcomes of freedom suits also adjusted, but in ways that did not fit the pattern of increasing restrictions on personal liberty. Instead, the unique situation in St. Louis in the 1840s and 1850s, with its increasingly anti-slavery immigrant population, allowed slaves suing for freedom to succeed at greater rates than in previous decades. iv Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….iv Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………...vi Introduction……………………………………………………………………………1 1. “According to the Statute”: Missouri’s Legal Heritage and the Fluidity of Law…17 2. “Good Reasons to Fear”: Slaves’ Experiences in Freedom Suits…………………65 3. “Under the Protection and Authority”: Interests and Influences in St. Louis Freedom Suits………………………………………………………………………108 4. “Living as free”: The “Problem” Posed by Free Blacks in a Slave Society……..155 5. Changes in Law, Changes in Politics: St. Louis in the Turbulent 1850s………...203 Epilogue…………………………………………………………………………….250 Appendix…………………………………………………………………………...256 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………..263 Biography…………………………………………………………………………..274 v Acknowledgements I am blessed to have had the generous help of many people while writing this dissertation. The shortcomings of the project are all my own, of course, but the project has benefited greatly from the assistance of numerous others who deserve recognition. I want to begin by thanking my advisor, Laura Edwards. Her guidance and advice along every step of this process has been invaluable to my professional development. I know this dissertation is immensely improved by Laura’s thoughtful comments and suggestions, and I am deeply grateful for all of her help. My committee members, Peter Wood, Ed Balleisen, and Adriane Lentz-Smith also deserve special mention. Each of them brings a unique perspective to my work, and I appreciate each of their contributions. I am very lucky to have such a generous committee of scholars reading and commenting on my work. A number of other professors at Duke and elsewhere have contributed to my development as a scholar. Randy Sparks and Judy Schafer generously gave their time to help an over-eager undergraduate begin to think about a career in history. The many conversations I had with them formed the basis for my research habits and my interest in studying southern slave law. I would also like to thank Margaret Humphreys for her generosity and support throughout my time in graduate school. Thanks also to Dirk Bonker, Sally Deutsch, Lil Fenn, John French, Eric Gardner, Barry Gaspar, John Hart, Reeve Huston, Tom Robisheaux, Alex Roland, and John Thompson for their support. I also want to thank Daina Ramey Berry, Jonathan Ocko, David Gilmartin, and the members of the Triangle Legal History Seminar for reading and commenting on one of my chapters. vi I want to thank the members of my dissertation writing groups, Gordon Mantler, Sebastian Lukasik, Steve Inrig, Felicity Turner, Orion Teal, and Eric Weber, for reading and commenting on parts of the project. Heidi Giusto also read many pieces of my work, and I know that our innumerable conversations about slavery and the law have helped to improve the project. I also appreciate the conversations, advice, and friendship of: Anne-Marie Angelo, Adam Arenson, Kim Bowler, Elizabeth Brake, Jenny Crowley, Mitch Fraas, Julia Gaffield, Samantha Gervase, Reena Goldthree, Alisa Harrison, Paul Johstono, Max Krochmal, Pam Lach, Heather Marshall, Noeleen McIlvenna, Todd Olzewski, Bryan Pitts, Jacob Remes, Linda Rupert, Liz Shesko, David Silkenat, Silvermoon, Paige Welch, and Amy Williams. Several archivists provided me with assistance during my visits to Missouri, and so I want to thank the staff of the Missouri Historical Museum, the Missouri State Archives-St. Louis, and the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection not only for their help, but for their kindness. Personal relationships can make quite a difference in the course of a project, and I cannot say enough good things about the people I met through my archival journeys. In particular, I want to thank Molly Kodner and Dennis Northcott at the Missouri Historical Museum; Eben Lehmen, Patricia Barge, Sharon Kenny, Nik Henle, and Bill Glankler at the Missouri State Archives-St. Louis branch; and Ruth Ann Hager at the St. Louis County Library. Kristin E. S. Zapalac at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ State Historic Preservation Office deserves special thanks for her kindness and her willingness to share some of her own research and her unending knowledge about Missouri’s freedom suits. vii Thank you also to my family for their love and support through this process, especially my parents, Rohn Kennington and Leslie Kennington, for their words of encouragement, and my husband Kevin Brandewie, for his patience, his willingness to listen, and for always believing in me. It is difficult to know where to begin in thanking Mike and Diane Everman. They not only opened up their home for me to stay while researching in St. Louis, they also provided me with endless evenings of conversation and fun exploring the many museums, festivals, and restaurants of St. Louis. They are two of the most remarkable individuals I know, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their support, their advice, and most of all their friendship. viii Introduction Never, perhaps…was there…a century of such unvarying and unmitigated crime as is to be collected from the history of the turbulent and blood-stained Mississippi. The stream itself appears as if appropriate for the deeds which have been committed…There are no pleasing associations connected with the great common sewer. – Captain Frederick Marryat1 At the edge of the river, slaves in St. Louis lived on the border of the slave system. Only the Mississippi River separated the city of St. Louis, founded on its banks in 1764, from the free state of Illinois. Gazing across the river’s churning waters, enslaved men and women in St. Louis could actually see freedom on the other side. Some in St. Louis also lived on the edge of the slave system in a figurative sense, because Missouri provided a means of winning freedom by using the legal system to question enslaved status. Their ability to sue for freedom meant that slaves in St. Louis stood on the edge of a river of injustice, where they desperately tried to avoid getting swept away. Like the Mississippi River, the history of slavery in America was constantly changing, full of twists and turns, ebbs and flows, all of which held momentous consequences for hundreds of thousands of men and women of African descent. There were powerful continuities from decade to decade, but there were also subtle and important shifts. For generations, the Mississippi River has served as a rich symbol for all those who have lived along its banks or traveled its waters, as well as for the nation as a whole. Poet Walt Whitman once called it the “spinal river,” and in some ways it 1 Frederick Marryat, Diary in America, Series II, Volume I (Philadelphia: T.K. & P.G. Collins, 1840), chapter 8, accessed at: http://www.athelstane.co.uk/marryat/diaramer.htm (March