Harriet Robinson Scott: From the Frontier to Freedom
A LETTER FROM DUCHESS When I was growing up I was never taught that enslaved people tried to escape As the descendant of formerly enslaved people I could not help but wonder if it was their fault that they were owned by others I also wondered if they were satisfied with their conditions in slavery It wasn't until I was an adult that I learned that there were black people who dreamed of freedom In college I read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl This book is an autobiography written by Harriet Jacobs Jacobs hid in an attic for seven years to escape her slaveholder Fifteen years before Jacobs fled to the attic another Harriet went to court to sue for her freedom Harriet and her husband had been enslaved their whole lives They decided to fight for their freedom in court They went through years of court trials before they were finally freed This book explores the difficulties enslaved people faced in fighting for their freedom Please join me on a journey that tells the story of the promise of freedom duchess harris 4
5 A statue in Saint Louis Missouri honors Harriet Robinson Scott and her husband Dred Scott
CHAPTER ONE 6
SLAVERY ON THE FRONTIER it was 1835 and 14 year old Harriet Robinson was traveling north along the Mississippi River by steamboat Harriet was on the lower deck of the boat with five other black people They were traveling with Lawrence Taliaferro their slaveholder Taliaferro was a federal Indian agent He interacted with Native American tribes on behalf of the US government It was his job to control the trade with tribes and keep the peace Taliaferro and his household were moving from Bedford Pennsylvania to Fort Snelling Harriet Robinson Scott lived for a time in Fort Snelling located in present day Saint Paul Minnesota
