History of slavery in Missouri
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The history of slavery in Missouri began in 1720,
Growth
The institution of slavery only became especially prominent in the area following two major events: the invention of the
When Louisiana was purchased in 1803, 2,000–3,000 slaves were within the limits of what is now Missouri, of which only the eastern and southern portions were then settled. By 1860 the Black population comprised 9.7% of the state's total including 3,572 free negroes and 114,931 who were enslaved.[3] By the beginning of the American Civil War, 32% of counties in Missouri had 1,000 or more enslaved individuals. Males cost up to $1,300.[4] In the State Auditor's 1860 report, the total value of all enslaved people in Missouri was estimated at approximately US$44,181,912 (~$1.18 billion in 2023).
Slave codes
Spanish officials established slaves codes in the 1770s. Under U.S. rule, Missouri's territorial slave code was enacted in 1804, a year after the Louisiana Purchase, under which slaves were banned from the use of firearms, participation in unlawful assemblies, or selling alcoholic beverages to other slaves. It also severely punished slaves for participating in riots, insurrections, or disobedience of their masters. It also provided for punishment by mutilation of a slave who sexually assaulted a White woman; a White man who sexually assaulted a female slave of another White man was typically charged with nothing more than trespassing upon her owner's property. The code was retained by the State Constitution of 1820.
At the end of 1824, the Missouri General Assembly passed a law providing a process for enslaved persons to sue for freedom and have some protections in the process. An 1825 law passed by the General Assembly declared blacks incompetent as witnesses in legal cases which involved whites, and testimonies by black witnesses were automatically invalidated. In 1847, an ordinance banning the education of blacks and mulattoes was enacted. Anyone caught teaching a black or mulatto person, whether enslaved or free, was to be fined $500 and serve six months in jail.
Dred Scott case
In 1846, one of the nation's most public legal controversies regarding slavery began in St. Louis Circuit Court.
Scott eventually lost his case in the
Bleeding Kansas and John Brown
Missouri, before 1850, was bordered on the west and northwest with vast and sparsely populated territories obtained via the
It will be remembered that the first territorial legislature [of Kansas] was elected fraudulently by voters who actually lived in Missouri. This body of law-makers assembled first at Pawnee in July, 1855, but immediately moved to Shawnee Mission, near the Missouri border, where they completed their labors in a proslavery atmosphere and in the most shameless proslavery fashion, — establishing the entire code of Missouri as the laws of Kansas and adding whatever beside they could think of that they believed would aid in the establishment of slavery in the territory.[5]
On December 20, 1858, John Brown entered northwest Missouri, liberated 11 slaves, took captive two white men, and looted horses and wagons. (See Battle of the Spurs.) The Governor of Missouri announced a reward of $3,000 (equivalent to $97,711 in 2022) for his capture. On January 20, 1859, Brown embarked on a lengthy journey to take the liberated slaves to Detroit and then on a ferry to Canada.
The end of slavery in Missouri
As one of the
See also
- Marguerite Scypion, a slave of African and Native American descent who sued for her freedom
- Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1861–1863
- History of slavery in the United States by state
References
- ^ "The Kansas City Star 20 Sep 1908, page 15". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2023-08-16.
- ^ "US slave map".[dead link]
- ^ Trexler, Harrison Anthony. (1914). Slavery in Missouri. 9 Eight Federal Census, Population. 601
- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- The North American Review: 435–446, at p. 438.
- ^ Missouri (1865). Journal of the Missouri state convention, held at the city of St. Louis January 6-April 10, 1865. St. Louis: Missouri Democrat. pp. 25–26. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
- ^ Fletcher, Thomas C. (1865). Missouri's Jubilee. Jefferson City, MO: W. A. Curry, Public Printer. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
Further reading
- Astor, Aaron. Rebels on the Border: Civil War, Emancipation, and the Reconstruction of Kentucky and Missouri (LSU Press, 2012).
- Boman, Dennis K. "The Dred Scott Case Reconsidered: The Legal and Political Context in Missouri." American Journal of Legal History 44 (2000): 405+.
- Burke, Diane Mutti. On Slavery's Border: Missouri's Small Slaveholding Households, 1815–1865 (U of Georgia Press, 2010).
- Dempsey, Terrell. Searching for Jim: Slavery in Sam Clemens's World (University of Missouri Press, 2003) sources used by Mark Twain.
- Frazier, Harriet C. Slavery and crime in Missouri, 1773–1865 (McFarland, 2001).
- Greene, Lorenzo, Gary R. Kremer, and Antonio F. Holland. Missouri’s Black Heritage (2nd ed. University of Missouri Press, 1993).
- Hammond, John Craig, "The Centrality of Slavery: Enslavement and Settler Sovereignty in Missouri, 1770 – 1820" in Jeffrey L. Pasley and John Craig Hammond eds., A Fire Bell in the Past: The Missouri Crisis at 200, Volume I, Western Slavery, National Impasse (University of Missouri Press, 2021)
- Hammond, John Craig, Slavery, Freedom, and Expansion in the Early American West (University of Virginia Press, 2007).
- Hildebrand, Jennifer. "'I awluz liked dead people, en done all I could for'em': Reconsidering Huckleberry Finn's African and American Identity." Southern Quarterly 47.4 (2010): 151.
- Hurt, R. Douglas. Agriculture and slavery in Missouri's Little Dixie (University of Missouri Press, 1992).
- Harrold, Stanley. Border War: Fighting over Slavery before the Civil War (Univ of North Carolina Press, 2010).
- Kennington, Kelly M. In the Shadow of Dred Scott: St. Louis Freedom Suits and the Legal Culture of Slavery in Antebellum America (University of Georgia Press, 2017).
- McLaurin, Melton. Celia, a Slave (University of Georgia Press, 1991).
- O’Brien, Michael J., and Teresita Majewski. "Wealth and status in the Upper South socioeconomic system of Northeastern Missouri." Historical Archaeology 23.2 (1989): 60–95.
- Phillips, Christopher. The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border ( Oxford University Press, 2016).
- Poole, Stafford, and Douglas J. Slawson. Church and Slave in Perry County, Missouri, 1818–1865 (Mellen, 1986).
- Stepenoff, Bonnie. From French Community to Missouri Town: Ste. Genevieve in the Nineteenth Century University of Missouri Press, 2006.
- Stone, Jeffrey C. Slavery, southern culture, and education in Little Dixie, Missouri, 1820–1860 (Taylor & Francis, 2006).
- Trexler, Harrison Anthony. Slavery in Missouri, 1804–1865 (Johns Hopkins Press, 1914) online.