J. Robert Osborne
Dred Scott was born a slave sometime around 1800 in Virginia, owned by a family named Blow. They moved to Alabama and raised cotton before Dred and his owner, Peter Blow ended up in St. Louis, Missouri around 1830 where his master bought a boardinghouse. Mr. Blow died in 1832 shortly after his wife had died and the estate of Mr. Blow sold Dred Scott sometime in 1833. His new owner was Dr. John Emerson who was a surgeon in the Army. He was assigned first to Fort Armstrong in Illinois and then Fort Snelling in the Wisconsin Territory where Dred met and married Harriet Robinson. So far, Dred Scott, always a slave, had lived in three different slave states and one state and one territory where slavery had been abolished by the tenets of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the state and territorial legislatures.
Dr. Emerson was then transferred back to St. Louis in 1837 and then to Fort Jessup in Louisiana. He didn't like Louisiana and asked for a transfer with his new wife to Fort Snelling again. Dr. Emerson was then transferred to Florida and in 1842 he left the army and returned to St. Louis. He died in Iowa in 1843. The Scotts had returned with him to St. Louis and after he died they sued for their freedom because they had lived in territory where there was no slavery. That started the legal case that eventually found its way to the Supreme Court even though at that time the courts were generous in granting freedom to those slaves that had resided in free territory before they returned to the slave state of Missouri. (1)
The first time Dred Scott lived in free territory was in 1834 and it was a very different America at that time than it would be in 1846 when he filed his lawsuit. Twelve years had gone by and the tensions over the future of slavery in the territories the United States was acquiring were intensifying. Texas had joined the Union in 1845 and though few realized it at that time it would be the last state where slavery was legalized to be admitted to the Union .The United States was also about to go to war with Mexico in 1846 when the case started.