Old Chouteau Mansion - Marguerite Scypion and the First Freedom Suit in St. Louis
- Title
- Old Chouteau Mansion - Marguerite Scypion and the First Freedom Suit in St. Louis
- Description
- Marguerite Scypion was an African-Natchez woman who filed the first freedom suit in St. Louis in 1806. This was nearly fifty years before the Dred Scott case was filed. Marguerite and her sisters used their Indigenous ancestry to argue that their mother, Marie Jean Scypion was unlawfully enslaved by the Tayon family after Native American slavery was abolished in the Louisiana Territory in 1769. The Missouri Supreme Court finally declared these women as free citizens in 1838.
- Creator
- Alyssa Vargas-Lopez
- Semester
- Intro to Public History
- Subject
- Historic Marker Nominations
- Marguerite Scypion
- Freedom Suit
- St. Louis History
- Dred Scott Case
- Native Americans
- African-Natchez
- Missouri Supreme Court
- Slavery
- Civil Rights
- Language
- English
- Publisher
- UMSL Digital Humanities Lab
- Date
- 2020
- Identifier
- Coordinates: 38.625395,-90.184660