Rachel v. Walker

Who is Rachel v. Walker?

Rachel v. Walker was a "freedom suit" filed by Rachel, an African-American slave, in the St. Louis Circuit Court. She petitioned for her freedom and that of her son James Henry from William Walker, based on having been held illegally as a slave in the free state of Michigan by a previous master, an Army officer. Her case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Missouri, where she won. The court ruled that an Army officer forfeited his slave if he took the person to territory where slavery is prohibited. This ruling was cited as precedent in 1856 in the famous Dred Scott v. Sandford case before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Rachel's was one of 301 19th-century freedom suits found among St. Louis Circuit Court records in the 1990s; it is the largest group of case files in the country available to researchers. The Missouri History Museum's research center maintains a searchable database online of the freedom suits.