Mrs. Dred Scott

Mrs. Dred Scott is an ambitious account of the life of an unlettered woman-Harriet Scott, wife of Dred Scott-who left virtually no historical record of herself. It chronicles Harriet's life from her adolescence on the 1830s Minnesota-Wisconsin frontier, to slavery-era St. Louis and finally to the infamous Supreme Court case, recovering the life of an important player in one of the key episodes in American legal history. But more than a biography, Mrs. Dred Scott is a deep social...
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Mrs. Dred Scott is an ambitious account of the life of an unlettered woman-Harriet Scott, wife of Dred Scott-who left virtually no historical record of herself. It chronicles Harriet's life from her adolescence on the 1830s Minnesota-Wisconsin frontier, to slavery-era St. Louis and finally to the infamous Supreme Court case, recovering the life of an important player in one of the key episodes in American legal history. But more than a biography, Mrs. Dred Scott is a deep social history, bringing new understanding to some of the major questions of antebellum America: women's social and legal power; the evolution of "freedom"; and encounters between Native Americans, African Americans, and Europeans. VanderVelde convincingly re-constructs Harriet's life through fresh readings of journals, military records, court dockets, personal letters, and even frontier store ledgers to bring to light Harriet's actions and experiences as wife, mother, provider for her family, and litigant in the Supreme Court case. VanderVelde presents a stunningly detailed and engrossing account that takes bold and creative approaches to the reading of legal and social history. What she produces is a rich portrait of slave life and an invaluable reconsideration of history for all antebellum scholars.