Documented experiences from enslaved Black St. Louisans, historical artifacts and court pleadings from lesser-known freedom suits in Missouri will be on display at the Civil Courts law library in downtown St. Louis beginning Tuesday.
The Slavery in St. Louis and Freedom Suits exhibits are curated by the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site and the Missouri State Archives in St. Louis. Curators aim to help St. Louisans learn more about the city’s racist past and about enslaved Black Missourians who sued their slaveholders for their freedom during the early to mid-1800s in the city courts.
The exhibits introduce residents to the significance of slavery in St. Louis and how it shaped the city’s history, said Nick Sacco, a historian and curator for the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site.
“In St. Louis, all history is local,” he said. “We can really study the national sort of influence and impact of slavery through individuals who were enslaved here in St. Louis.”
At the History of Slavery exhibit, visitors can learn about the beginning of slavery in Missouri and follow it to the Antebellum and Civil War periods. It will also highlight the laws that regulated slavery in St. Louis, along with the horrific experiences that enslaved people endured during that period. There will be stories shared throughout the exhibit of some formerly freed slaves who were illegally re-enslaved in Missouri and resisted enslavement.
Curators pose questions to visitors throughout the exhibits asking them to think about the ways slavery is still lingering in the city.
“If we think about all the street names in our city here ... Peter Lindell, Thomas Skinker, Laclede, William Clark,” Sacco said. “So many of our street names and our built landscape (have) been shaped by the legacy of slavery and we don't even know it.”
To many, Dred and Harriet Scott are two familiar names. In 1846, the enslaved married couple filed their lawsuit against their slave owners for their freedom in the St. Louis Old Courthouse citing that they were previously freed people in other territories. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that no enslaved person who lived in a free state or territory where slavery was illegal could sue for their freedom because African Americans were not U.S. citizens. This decision drove the country closer to the Civil War.
The Freedom Suits exhibit will also highlight lesser-known cases similar to Dred and Harriet Scott’s case. In St. Louis, over 300 free Black Missourians – the most in one city in the country – filed lawsuits against their slave owners for illegally holding them as slaves.
Curators said the collection is not just oppressive but showcases resistance and liberation and that enslaved people played a leading role in the abolishment of slavery.
Bill Glankler has been working on the Freedom Suits exhibit for a few months, but he said scholars have known about the suits for over 20 years. Visitors can view handwritten documents from the enslaved person who argued their case. Each lawsuit will also describe the reason behind their pursuit of freedom. The three cases on display will be John Merry v. Clayton Tiffin and Louis Menard in 1826, Peter v. John Richardson in 1841, and Mary v. Samuel B. Bellis in 1855.
“There's been a lot of ink spilled on the Dred Scott decision and several other ones, but I wanted ones that were just that nobody had ever really talked about or worked on,” said Glankler, who is the Missouri State Archives supervising archivist. “These were actual human beings trying to gain their freedom.”
According to a recent Pen America report, schools in Missouri have banned 333 books across 14 school districts. School districts, teachers and parents around the St. Louis area have been fighting for months over how to teach about gender identity, sexual content and race. More pointedly, the Francis Howell School District board voted in March to revise its curriculum around teaching Black history and Black literature. The new curriculum will include coverage of slavery, but it will not teach units from the previous curriculum that highlight the importance of studying Black history and how economic policies alone hindered African Americans from building generational wealth.
This is an exciting time to host this exhibit, because many students are interested in learning about marginalized histories, Sacco said.
“It’s impossible for us to talk about St Louis' history if we don't explore that relationship with slavery and think about the ways that enslaved people constructed homes, government buildings, and contributed to the advancement of the law through freedom suits,” he said. “How do we explore St. Louis' history if we don't want to talk about the history of slavery?”
The Slavery in St. Louis exhibit is on display through Oct. 1, and the Freedom Suits exhibit is open through Dec. 3.
