Redemption Songs: Suing for Freedom before Dred Scott by Lea VanderVelde (review)

Historians have long been aware of freedom suits in the southern states, mostly as interesting anecdotes or footnotes when discussing other issues concerning race and slavery. There are a number of articles and a few books focusing specifically on the subject of how slaves went to court, filed a suit, and obtained a verdict. The literature mainly involves cases in the Upper South and Louisiana. Among the best of these studies is Judith Schafer’s analysis of New Orleans suits during the period 1846–62.¹ Although various aspects of freedom suits are discussed in this literature, many books and articles focus on the color of plaintiffs. Few historians would disagree with the assertion of Eva Sheppard Wolf, who writes that “the decisions of courts and juries [in freedom suits] rested on the appearance of the plaintiffs more than on their genealogies, establishing legally that race was based on how a person looked even more than who his ancestors were.”²

In the study under review, the evidence is strong that this was not the case, at least in Saint Louis. The author has combed through hundreds of freedom suits dating from the early nineteenth century to the Dred Scott decision in 1857 and chosen a dozen cases, discussing the reasons the suits were brought, the trial proceedings, outcomes, and what happened to those freed in later years. She cites several possible grounds for such legal action, including the enslavement of free blacks, Native Americans, children of free mothers, and slaves who resided with their owners or with their owners’ permission in free territory (by far the largest group). The lives portrayed are vivid, detailed, moving, deeply researched, and interesting. They are presented in a style of engaging prose and tell much about the slave families. Some of the research is extraordinary, as the author traces the families over time and discusses their owners and their owners’ families. She even visited a number of courthouses in Kentucky and Illinois to fill in the gaps in the Saint Louis court records. In addition, she discovered a rare manuscript court record concerning the first slave (Peter) to sue for freedom in the Northwest Territory in 1794. At the same time, in one exceptional section, she compares and contrasts the court record for Lucy Delaney with a memoir Delaney wrote a half century later, revealing how memories faded with the passage of time and how Delaney’s later recollections “depart from the legal records” (144), especially with respect to her portrait of her mother. The book is also groundbreaking with regard to the continuation of slavery in various sections of Illinois into the 1830s and 1840s. The new material includes some information about the lawyers who participated in the freedom suits, the process in the common law court, and the economic, social, and cultural attitudes of whites and blacks. In short, there is much to be admired in this book.

At the same time, the study does not contextualize its findings in either the literature of freedom suits or the broader literature on American slavery. One of the author’s themes appears to be how the migration west was not one in pursuit of liberty and freedom (she mentions the 1893 Turner thesis) but rather the expansion of slavery. This has been long accepted by scholars. In another section she suggests that the great migration of the antebellum era was to the West. One could just as easily argue, especially in light of the domestic slave trade, that it was to the South or the Southwest. The author employs the metaphor of the redemption song from Bob Marley’s powerful 1979 classic urging blacks to emancipate themselves from mental slavery, with lines taken from a speech given by Marcus Garvey The word “redemption” is not appropriate for slaves seeking their freedom, as they were not redeeming their freedom (except for the small number of free blacks) but seeking to...