Among the most infamous U.S. Supreme Court decisions is Dred Scott v. Sandford . Despite the case's signal importance as a turning point in America's history, the lives of the slave litigants have receded to the margins of the record, as conventional accounts have focused on the case's judges and lawyers. In telling the life of Harriet, Dred's wife and co-litigant in the case, this book provides a compensatory history to the generations of work that missed key sources only recently brought to light. Moreover, it gives insight into the reasons and ways that slaves used the courts to establish their freedom. A remarkable piece of historical detective work, Mrs. Dred Scott chronicles Harriet's life from her adolescence on the 1830s Minnesota-Wisconsin frontier, to slavery-era St. Louis, through the eleven years of legal wrangling that ended with the high court's notorious decision. The book not only recovers her story, but also reveals that Harriet may well have been the lynchpin in this pivotal episode in American legal history. Reconstructing Harriet Scott's life through innovative readings of journals, military records, court dockets, and even frontier store ledgers, VanderVelde offers a stunningly detailed account that is at once a rich portrait of slave life, an engrossing legal drama, and a provocative reassessment of a central event in U.S. constitutional history. More than a biography, the book is a deep social history that freshly illuminates some of the major issues confronting antebellum America, including the status of women, slaves, Free Blacks, and Native Americans.

Lea VanderVelde is Josephine Witte Professor of Law at the University of Iowa. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Introduction Chapter 1: Wife of a Celebrity Chapter 2: 1835: Arriving on the Frontier Chapter 3: Settling In Chapter 4: Entertaining Guests at the Indian Agency Chapter 5: Late Summer Harvest Chapter 6: Wintering Over at St. Peter's Agency Chapter 7: Winters Deep Chapter 8: The Change of the Guard Chapter 9: Celestial Explorers Chapter 10: The Call of the Wood as a Prelude to Treaty Chapter 11: A Treaty Made before Her Eyes Chapter 12: The Master Departs, Together Alone Chapter 13: Traveling the Length of the River Chapter 14: New Baby in a New Land Chapter 15: The Deteriorating Community Chapter 16: Battles and Baptisms Chapter 17: Taliaferro's Last Stand Chapter 18: Leaving Minnesota Trying Courts: The Justice of Frontier Trials Chapter 19: While the Doctor was Away: St. Louis, 1840-43 Chapter 20: The House of Chouteau Chapter 21: Black Social Life of St. Louis Chapter 22: The Doctor Returns Chapter 23: 1843 Interlude: Jeff Barracks between Wars of National Expansion Chapter 24: Harriet and Her Children in St. Louis Chapter 25: The Courthouse and the Jail Chapter 26: Other Matters at the Courthouse Chapter 27: Filing Suit Again Chapter 28: Trial by Pestilence, Trial by Fire Chapter 29: Declared Free Chapter 30: Missouri Changes its Course Chapter 31: Before the High Court