Black Sis-tory: Harriet Robinson Scott
“… born into slavery but not defeated by it.”
Imagine being sold to one enslaver after another or being leased out by enslavers who keep your wages or being told that you have no rights and privileges under the Constitution.
This is the world that Harriet Scott Robinson was born into but not defeated by.
She was born around 1815 on the Virginia plantation of wealthy, politically connected Major Lawrence Taliaferro, a federal Indian agent, who owned at least 21 enslaved people, and who “gave” Harriet to his wife, Eliza Dillon Taliaferro.
In 1830, the Taliaferro family moved to Fort Snelling, located in the non-slave holding Wisconsin Territory, bringing along 15-year-old Harriet. Slavery was illegal in the region, but military officers commonly brought enslaved people with them when assigned to a posting.
At Fort Snelling, love blossomed between Harriet, then 21, and Dred Scott, a widowed, middle‑aged, enslaved man. Although marriage between enslaved people had no legal standing, around 1835 or 1836, Taliaferro — a justice of the peace — performed a civil ceremony for the couple. To allow them to live together, he subsequently transferred Harriet’s ownership to Dred’s enslaver, Dr. John Emerson, a U.S. Army surgeon.
According to Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, “During their marriage, Dred and Harriet had four children two boys who died as infants and two girls. Eliza was born in 1838 on the steamboat Gypsy in free territory. However, her status was that of her mother’s, a slave.
The U. S. National Park Service, notes “… Emerson moved the Scotts back and forth between free and slave territory. Their residence in free areas would become the centerpiece of their legal cases.”
In 1840, Emerson returned the Scotts to Missouri, a slave state. After his death in 1843, his widow, Irene, continued hiring them out to other households to do laundry, clean houses, or take care of children, but kept their wages--a major source of her income.
Following the birth of her second daughter, Lizzie, in 1846, Harriet asked to buy her freedom; Irene denied her request. Historians speculate that Rev. John Richard Anderson, a free man, abolitionist, and pastor of the First African Baptist Church in Missouri, which the Scotts attended, influenced Harriet’s decision to sue for her freedom.
The Scotts, under separate filings, sued for two reasons. First, they had lived in free states for extended periods with the permission of their owners (a basis for emancipation in several free states). Second, they were treated as “free people” when Major Taliaferro performed their civil ceremony.
The court dismissed their cases, but the Scotts refiled. While awaiting the St. Louis Circuit Court’s ruling, Irene arranged for the sheriff's office of St. Louis to manage the hiring out of Harriet, Dred, and their daughters. Their earnings would be saved and paid to whoever won the case.
Nine years later, the circuit court ruled in the Scotts’ favor. Irene appealed, and because of the gender conventions and legal norms of the period, the court consolidated the couple’s suits under Dred Scott v. Irene Emerson. In doing so, Harriet’s pivotal role in the long legal battle — and her broader contribution to history — was effectively obscured.
Eventually, Irene handed the legal case to her brother, John Sandford. Women and the American Story webpage states, “On March 22, 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in John’s favor, overturning the lower court’s decision to award Harriet and her family their freedom.”
Undeterred, Harriet and Dred, with the support of antislavery advocates “brought their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. This most famous court case, Dred Scott v. Sandford, was decided on March 6, 1857.”
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Supreme Court’s majority opinion, ruling that Dred remained a slave and that neither he nor any Black person could be considered a citizen of the United States. As a result, he had no legal standing to bring a suit in federal court. Taney further asserted that Dred had never been free, declaring enslaved people to be property under the Constitution.
Shortly before the Supreme Court ruling, Irene’s second husband, Dr. Calvin Chaffee, an abolitionist and Massachusetts congressman, endured “disparaging commentary” and accusations of hypocrisy because his wife was a slave owner. He insisted that Irene transfer ownership of the Dred family to Henry Taylor Blow, Dred’s former enslaver, who freed the family on May 26, 1857.
On September 17, 1858, Dred died of tuberculosis. Harriet lived in St. Louis as a free woman—earning a living as a laundress-- until her death on June 17, 1876.
Editor’s Note: The following excerpt is taken from the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation’s profile of Harriet Robinson Scott:
“For many years, it was unknown where her body lay. It was thought by many that she may have been buried next to Dred. In 1999, the Elijah P, Lovejoy Society of St, Louis placed a cenotaph next to Dred’s headstone in Calvary Cemetery because it was unknown where she was. In 2006, Mrs. Ruth Ann Hagar discovered records that located her resting place in Greenwood Cemetery …”
Harriet Robinson Scott print, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
