Dred Scott documents available on Internet

State officials formally announced the Web site on Monday, Martin Luther King Day, so I\’m a little behind on this one.

The Missouri State Archives worked with St. Louis Circuit Court and Washington University to put 170 pages of the original Scott documents online.

\”In 1846, Dred Scott and his wife Harriet filed suit for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court. This suit began an eleven-year legal fight that ended in the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a landmark decision declaring that Scott remain a slave. This decision contributed to rising tensions between the free and slave states just before the American Civil War.


The records displayed in this exhibit document the Scotts\’ early struggle to gain their freedom through litigation and are the only extant records of this significant case as it was heard in the St. Louis Circuit Court.
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