Department of Historic Resources

(www.dhr.virginia.gov)

For Immediate Release

April 10, 2013

State Historical Highway Marker

Commemorating “Dred Scott and the Blow Family”

To Be Dedicated

—Scott spent his childhood as a slave in Southampton County; 
his case before the U.S. Supreme Court resulted in the “Dred Scott Decision,” 
a ruling that denied U.S. citizenship to blacks and prevented Congress from prohibiting
slavery in U.S. territories prior to the Civil War —

—The marker’s text is reproduced below—

RICHMOND – A new state historical marker issued by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources will be dedicated this month to commemorate Dred Scott, a slave born in Virginia who became the central figure in one of the most controversial cases ever decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, Dred Scott v. Sanford.

The “Dred Scott and the Blow Family” historical marker recalls that Scott was born into slavery in the early 1800s on a plantation in Southampton County owned by Peter Blow, whose two sons decades later purchased Scott’s freedom a short year before his death in St. Louis, MO in 1858, after he lost the legal suit challenging his status as a slave.

The marker will be dedicated during a public unveiling ceremony on Tuesday, April 16, at 2 p.m. at the marker’s location at the intersection of Route 58 and Buckhorn Quarter Road, east of the Town of Capron.

The ceremony will feature remarks by Lynne Jackson, a great-great-granddaughter of Dred Scott and president of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation of St. Louis; Jeffrey A. Hines of the Southampton County Historical Society; and representatives of the Blow Family and the Department of Historic Resources.

The dedication will be followed by a 4 p.m. reception at the Rochelle Prince House in Courtland.

The Dred Scott Decision in 1857 sharpened the divisions over slavery in the U.S. between citizens, political parties, and regions during the run up to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

Scott lived in Virginia and then Alabama before the “Blows moved to Missouri and in 1830 sold Scott to an army officer who was stationed in various free territories,” the marker states. Scott eventually “sued for his and his family’s freedom in 1846 because he lived where slavery was illegal,” according to the marker.

Under Chief Justice Roger Taney, the Supreme Court ruled in 1857 that Scott was “property, not a citizen,” in the marker’s words, and therefore had no legal standing to file a suit. The ruling also denied to Congress the authority to outlaw slavery in U.S. territories, thereby overturning the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

Virginia’s historical highway marker program, which began in 1927 with the installation of the first historical markers along U.S. Route 1, is considered the oldest such program in the nation. Currently there are more than 2,200 official state markers, most maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation, as well as by local partners in jurisdictions outside of VDOT’s authority.

Text of the marker:

Dred Scott and the Blow Family

Dred Scott, a slave, lived as a child northeast of here on the Peter Blow plantation early in the 1800s.  The Blows moved to Missouri and in 1830 sold Scott to an army officer who was stationed in various free territories.  Scott sued for his and his family’s freedom in 1846 because he lived where slavery was illegal.  In 1857, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not outlaw slavery and that Scott was property, not a citizen.  The Dred Scott decision outraged abolitionists and further divided the nation.  Blow’s sons purchased Scott’s freedom in 1857; he died in 1858.