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Dred Scott and Slavery

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Dred Scott was a man that grew up in the tough times of slavery. Scott was born around the year 1800 and died in 1858. As a young man and all the way up to his death he tried several times to gain freedom for his family and himself through the Missouri court system, but failed. Scott then took his case to a court in Missouri, where he won only to have the final decision revoked by the Supreme Court (“Dred Scott Biography”). The notorious outcome of Dred Scott v. Sandford case embarked the start of the Civil War in the United States against the northern states and the southern states. Dred Scott was born as a slave in the state of Virginia around the year 1800. His owners for most of his young life were Peter and Elizabeth Taylor Blow. In 1818, the Blow family and some of their slaves including Scott moved to a cotton plantation in Alabama where they lived for the next twelve years (“Dred Scott”). In 1830, the Blow family and there slaves relocated to St. Louis Missouri. The Blow family had given up plantation farmers and decided to open a hotel called the Jefferson Hotel (“Dred Scott”). In the next two year both Peter and his wife Elizabeth Blow died and Dred was sold to U.S. Army doctor named John Emerson were he became his servant (“Dred Scott Biography”). Soon after Scott was sold to Dr. Emerson they both traveled to Fort Armstrong, Illinois where they resided for the next three years. This was the first time in Scott’s life that he was considered a “free” man due to

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