Winny v. Whitesides alias Prewitt (1 Mo. 472, 1824 WL 1839 [1824]) was the first freedom suit heard by the Supreme Court of Missouri. The case established the state's judicial criteria for an enslaved person's right to freedom. The court determined that if a slave owner took a slave into free territory and established residence there, the slave would be free. The slave remained free even if returned to slave territory, engendering the phrase "once free, always free."[1]
Winny, a slave living with Phebe Whitesides and her husband in Missouri, filed suit in 1818, basing her claim on the laws of two U.S. territories, the Northwest Territory and the Louisiana Territory (renamed the Missouri Territory when the State of Louisiana joined the Union in 1812).
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established laws prohibiting slavery in the Northwest Territory, the region north of the Ohio River comprising the present-day states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Article 6 of the ordinance declares, "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid."[3]
The Laws of the Territory of Louisiana included "an act to enable persons held in slavery, to sue for their freedom" and a process for achieving that end.(Chapter 35, Freedom, June 27, 1807)[4]
"1. It shall be lawful for any person held in slavery to petition the general court or any court of common pleas, praying that such person may be permitted to sue as a poor person, and stating the grounds on which the claim to freedom is founded..."[4]
"2. The court to whom application is thus made, may direct an action of assault and battery, and false imprisonment, to be instituted in the name of the person claiming freedom against the person who claims the petitioner as a slave..."[4]
"3. If the court, or any judge thereof in vacation shall have reason to believe that the above order has been or is about to be violated, in such case the said court, or any judge thereof in vacation, may require that the person of the petitioner be brought before him or them, by writ of habeas corpus, and shall cause the defendant or defendants, his, her, or their agent to enter into recognizance with sufficient security, conditioned as recited in the above order, or in case of refusal to direct the sheriff of the district to take possession of the petitioner, and hire hi or her to the best advantage, which hire shall be appropriated either to the petitioner, or to the defendant or defendants, as the event of the suit may justify...[4]
"4. The court before whom such a suit may be tried, may instruct the jury that the weight of proof lies on the petitioner, but to have regard not only to the written evidences to claim of freedom, but to such other proofs either at law or in equity as the very right and justice as the case may require. And the court on a verdict in favor of the petitioner, may pronounce a judgement of liberation from the defendant or defendants, and all persons claiming by, from, or under, him, her, or them."[4]
"5. Suits instituted in any court of common pleas under this law, may be removed into the general court before judgement, or if judgement is given in any such cause in the court of common pleas, appeal, or writ of error shall lie to the general court as in other cases."[4]
Winny's Suit
Winny v. Whitesides freedom petition (1819)
In 1794 or 1795, Phebe Whitesides and her husband lived in the Carolinas with a slave about 12 years of age called Winny. When the Whitesides moved to Illinois, then part of the Northwest Territory, they took Winny with them. The couple resided in Illinois for three or four years, retaining the girl in slavery. The Whitesides then moved to St. Louis, Missouri, once more bringing Winny with them and still holding her as a slave.[5]
Winny filed suit to obtain her freedom from Mrs. Whitesides (Mr. Whitesides had died) in the Superior Court of Missouri Territory in 1818. When Missouri entered statehood, the case was transferred to the Circuit Court of St. Louis County. The court assumed the Whitesides had held Winny as a slave in Missouri for about 20 years, at which time she petitioned for her liberty. The records do not explain why she waited to sue or what caused her to sue when she did.[5]
Winny's claim against Phebe Whitesides was “assault and battery.” The term did not necessarily connote that Whitesides had been physically abusive, but meant that Whitesides was restraining Winny in an unlawful way, i.e. “unlawful imprisonment.”[5]
Whitesides refused liability on the grounds that Winny was her slave. She admitted to "imprisoning" Winny, but claimed the imprisonment was not unlawful, but justified since Winny was not free. Winny challenged this defense.[5]
A jury trial began in February 1822.[5] Winny's case centered on her assertion that residence in the Northwest Territory had conferred her freedom. Whitesides’ attorney asked that the jury be instructed Winny's residence in Illinois “did not render the said Winny free, under and by virtue of the ordinance of Congress of 1787.” The trial judge refused to give this instruction. Instead, he told the jury that if they believed the Whitesides resided in Illinois, with the intention of making the place their home, they should find for Winny and award damages to her as they would to any plaintiff in an action of false imprisonment.[5]
The jury returned a verdict in Winny's favor and awarded her damages of $167.50.[5]
Whitesides' Appeal
Phebe Whitesides appealed the judgment to the Supreme Court of Missouri, which heard the case in late 1824.[5] Her argument consisted of three parts:
Second, even if Winny had been free in the Northwest Territory, she had not sued for her freedom or been declared free there. For 20 years, Winny had been a resident of Missouri a slave territory and state. According to Whitesides’ counsel, her right of ownership "revived so soon as the slave was found in Missouri, unless the slave had, while residing there [in the Northwest Territory], asserted and obtained his freedom by the process of law.” Counsel also argued concerning the willingness of the court of one jurisdiction to recognize and apply the law of another. A Missouri court, adjudicating the rights of Missouri residents, need not and should not apply the law of the Northwest Territory or Illinois.[7]
Third, the Northwest Ordinance simply provided that there would not be slavery in the Northwest Territory. It did not state "that the slaves of persons settling in that country . . . thereby become free.[8]
The Court's Decision
The three-member court, Justice Mathias McGirk, Judge George Tompkins and Judge Rufus Pettibone unanimously found in Winny's favor. Tompkins wrote the decision.
As to the first argument, Tompkins conceded the Continental Congress might not have had the power, under the Articles of Confederation, to create the Northwest Territory, but declared that issue moot. As to the laws governing the region, the Constitution of 1789, "expressly placed this power of regulating the Territory where alone it could be exercised, in the Congress.” He noted that rules regulating the Territory included laws concerning slavery, “To acquire property is incident to sovereignty; so it is to make rules for the disposition and regulation thereof. To us it appears most manifest that Congress had both power to acquire the Territory, and to forbid the introduction of slaves.”[9]
Addressing Whitesides' second point, Tompkins rejected the assumption that the Northwest Territory was akin to a separate nation, asserting it was the property of the states and subject to the laws enacted by those states. Even in situations involving different countries, he opined, “personal rights and disabilities, obtained or communicated by the laws of any particular place, are of a nature which accompany the person wherever he goes.” Assuming Winny had gained her freedom in the Northwest Territory, she retained that right, regardless of whether or not she sought or obtained a court decree confirming her status. "If, by a residence in Illinois, [Mrs. Whitesides] lost her right to the property in the defendant, that right was not revived by a removal of the parties to Missouri.”[9]
An astonished Tompkins continued, "We did not suppose that any person could mistake the policy of Congress in making this provision. When the States assumed the right of self-government they found their citizens claiming a right of property in a miserable portion of the human race. Sound national policy required that the evil should be restricted as much as possible. What they could, they did. They said, by their representatives, it shall not vest within these limits, and by their acts for nearly half a century they have approved and sanctioned this declaration."[9]
The justice did, however, dinstnguish between residence and transit. Freedom attached if the master brought the slave into free territory with the intent of residing there, but did not if master and slave simply passed through the territory. "The sovereign power of the United States has declared that 'neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist' there; and this court thinks that the person who takes his slave into said territory, and by the length of his residence there indicates an intention of making that place his residence and that of his slave, and thereby induces a jury to believe that fact, does, by such residence, declare his slave to have become a free man. But it has been urged that by such a construction of the ordinance every person traveling through the territory, and taking along with him his slave, might thereby lose his property in his slave. We do not think the instructions of the Circuit Court can be, by any fair construction, strained so far; nor do we believe that any advocate for this portion of the species ever seriously calculated on the possibility of such a decision."[9]
Significance
At the end of 1824, the Missouri General Assembly passed a law providing a process for enslaved persons to sue for freedom and have some protections in the process. The years between 1824 and 1844 are considered the "golden age" of freedom suits since many slaves won their freedom during these years. Winny v. Whitesides set the standard for determining freedom cases up until the 1850s.[2]
Under its guidance, the courts of Missouri and Kentucky ruled in favor of slaves in most cases.[10] Many of the successful petitions originated in St. Louis County. Between 1806 and 1865, in the City of St. Louis alone, nearly 300 enslaved individuals took legal action against their masters in a fight for freedom.[1]
Notable cases include Merry v. Tiffin & Menard, LaGrange v. Chouteau, Theoteste alias Catiche v. Chouteau, Julia v. McKinney, Wilson v. Melvin and Rachel v. Walker.[1]
The "once free, always free" precedent was overturned by the Missouri Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Irene Emerson (1852) and the resulting U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857). Very few slaves pressed successful suits after 1852.[2]
Related Research Articles
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that held the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and thus they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. The decision is widely considered the worst ever rendered in the Supreme Court's history, being widely denounced for its overt racism, perceived judicial activism and poor legal reasoning, and for its crucial role in the start of the American Civil War four years later. Legal scholar Bernard Schwartz said that it "stands first in any list of the worst Supreme Court decisions". Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes called it the Court's "greatest self-inflicted wound".
Dred Scott was an enslaved African American man who, along with his wife, Harriet, unsuccessfully sued for freedom for themselves and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott decision". The case centered on Dred and Harriet Scott and their children, Eliza and Lizzie. The Scotts claimed that they should be granted their freedom because Dred had lived in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory for four years, where slavery was illegal, and laws in those jurisdictions said that slaveholders gave up their rights to slaves if they stayed for an extended period.
The Northwest Ordinance, enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. It created the Northwest Territory, the new nation's first organized incorporated territory, from lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains, between British North America and the Great Lakes to the north and the Ohio River to the south. The upper Mississippi River formed the territory's western boundary. Pennsylvania was the eastern boundary.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was an Act of the United States Congress to give effect to the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which was later superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment, and to also give effect to the Extradition Clause. The Constitution’s Fugitive Slave Clause guaranteed a right for a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave. The subsequent Act, "An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters", created the legal mechanism by which that could be accomplished.
Rachel v. Walker (1834) was a "freedom suit" filed in the St. Louis Circuit Court by an African-American woman named Rachel who had been enslaved. She petitioned for her freedom and that of her son James (John) Henry from William Walker, based on having been held illegally as a slave in the free territory of Michigan by a previous master, an Army officer. Her case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Missouri, where she won in 1836. The court ruled that an Army officer forfeited his slave if he took the person to territory where slavery is prohibited. This ruling was cited as precedent in 1856 in the famous Dred Scott v. Sandford case before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 539 (1842), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 precluded a Pennsylvania state law that prohibited blacks from being taken out of the free state of Pennsylvania into slavery. The Court overturned the conviction of slavecatcher Edward Prigg as a result.
Polly Berry was an African American woman notable for winning two freedom suits in St. Louis, one for herself, which she won in 1843, and one for her daughter Lucy, which she won in 1844. Having acquired the surnames of her slaveholders, she was also known as Polly Crockett and Polly Wash, the latter of which was the name used in her freedom suit.
The fugitive slave laws were laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of enslaved people who escaped from one state into another state or territory. The idea of the fugitive slave law was derived from the Fugitive Slave Clause which is in the United States Constitution. It was thought that forcing states to deliver fugitive slaves back to enslavement violated states' rights due to state sovereignty and was believed that seizing state property should not be left up to the states. The Fugitive Slave Clause states that fugitive slaves "shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due", which abridged state rights because forcing people back into slavery was a form of retrieving private property. The Compromise of 1850 entailed a series of laws that allowed slavery in the new territories and forced officials in free states to give a hearing to slave-owners without a jury.
The history of slavery in Missouri began in 1720, predating statehood, with the large-scale slavery in the region, when French merchant Philippe François Renault brought about 500 slaves of African descent from Saint-Domingue up the Mississippi River to work in lead mines in what is now southeastern Missouri and southern Illinois. These were the first enslaved Africans brought in masses to the middle Mississippi River Valley. Prior to Renault's enterprise, slavery in Missouri under French colonial rule had a much smaller scale compared to elsewhere in the French colonies.
Harry v. Decker & Hopkins (1818) was a freedom suit in which the Supreme Court of Mississippi ruled that the three slaves in the case were freed based on prior residence in the Northwest Territory, established as free in 1787. Mississippi's court was the first in the South to rule on this issue and created a precedent in transit cases that was widely observed by slave state courts.
Marguerite Scypion, also known in court files as Marguerite, was an African-Natchez woman, born into slavery in St. Louis, then located in French Upper Louisiana. She was held first by Joseph Tayon and later by Jean Pierre Chouteau, one of the most powerful men in the city.
Freedom suits were lawsuits in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States filed by slaves against slaveholders to assert claims to freedom, often based on descent from a free maternal ancestor, or time held as a resident in a free state or territory.
Slavery in what became the U.S. state of Illinois existed for more than a century. Illinois did not become a state until 1818, but earlier regional systems of government had already established slavery. France introduced African slavery to the Illinois Country in the early eighteenth century. French and other inhabitants of Illinois continued the practice of owning slaves throughout the Illinois Country's period of British rule (1763–1783), as well as after its transfer to the new United States in 1783 as Illinois County, Virginia. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) banned slavery in Illinois and the rest of the Northwest Territory. Nonetheless, slavery remained a contentious issue, through the period when Illinois was part of the Indiana Territory and the Illinois Territory and some slaves remained in bondage after statehood until their gradual emancipation by the Illinois Supreme Court. Thus the history of slavery in Illinois covers several sometimes overlapping periods: French ; British ; Virginia ; United States Northwest Territory (1787–1800), Indiana Territory (1800–1809), Illinois Territory (1809–1818) and the State of Illinois.
Marie Louise v. Marot 9 La. 473 (1836) was a freedom suit heard by the Louisiana state district court and appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court. It held that a slave who is taken to a territory that prohibits slavery cannot be again reduced to slavery on returning to a territory that allows slavery. The ruling was cited as precedent to the 1856 landmark Dred Scott v. Sandford case heard by the US Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justice John McLean cited the precedent in his dissent of the majority ruling. Seven of the nine justices did not abide by the precedent in what has been considered the worst decision ever made by the Supreme Court.
Slavery has been forbidden in the state of Minnesota since that state's admission to the Union in 1858. The second section of the first Article of the state's constitution, drafted in 1857, provides that:
There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude from the State otherwise there is the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.
Harriet Robinson Scott was an African American woman who fought for her freedom alongside her husband, Dred Scott, for eleven years. Their legal battle culminated in the infamous United States Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857. On April 6, 1846, attorney Francis B. Murdoch had initiated Harriet v. Irene Emerson in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, making the Scotts the first and only married couple to file separate freedom suits in tandem.
Robert Wash served on the Supreme Court of Missouri from September 1825 to May 1837. During his term, the pro-slavery judge, who owned slaves himself, wrote the dissenting opinion on several important freedom suits, including Milly v. Smith, Julia v. McKinney and Marguerite v. Chouteau. However, he did join in the unanimous finding for the plaintiff in the landmark Rachel v. Walker case.
The Guardian of Sally v. Beatty was a 1792 court case decided in the Supreme Court of South Carolina. A jury charged by Chief Justice John Rutledge held that a slave who had been bought and manumitted by another slave was free, not the other slave's owner's property.
Diana Cephas was the plaintiff in a freedom suit filed in St. Louis, Missouri in 1840. She won her case after it went to trial in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County in 1843. Born into slavery in Maryland, she and her young son Josiah had been taken to the free state of Illinois in 1839, where she was hired out by her slaveholder over several months. She was then taken to Missouri, a slave state, but won her freedom with the help of freedom suit attorney Francis B. Murdoch, despite the efforts of lawyers Myron Leslie and Roswell M. Field to discredit her.
Polly Strong was an enslaved woman in the Northwest Territory, in present-day Indiana. She was born after the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery. Slavery was prohibited by the Constitution of Indiana in 1816. Two years later, Strong's mother Jenny and attorney Moses Tabbs asked for a writ of habeas corpus for Polly and her brother James in 1818. Judge Thomas H. Blake produced indentures, Polly for 12 more years and James for four more years of servitude. The case was dismissed in 1819.
1 2 3 4 Stephens, E.W. (1870). Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, Volumes 1-3. pp.259–261.
↑ Graham Guilford Rennie, Connor (April 2016). Is Mere Color Such a Fact?. Christchurch, New Zealand: University of Canterbury. p.60.
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