In the pages that follow, the case files of more than three hundred
enslaved individuals who sued for freedom in St. Louis (in 287 cases,
several of which involved multiple enslaved plaintiffs) will serve as the
basis for a broader discussion of the legal culture of slavery and the processes
of negotiation that occurred in and around freedom suits. The St.
Louis freedom suits are located in the Missouri State Archives’ St. Louis
branch, as part of the St. Louis Circuit Court Historical Records Project,
and are nearly all available online through the Historical Records
Project website. A handful of newly discovered freedom suits from the
General Court for the Territory of Louisiana (which included St. Louis
and the territory that became Missouri) came to the author’s attention
in the final stages of this project. More freedom suits undoubtedly exist
in this collection of early territorial court records and will be an exciting
avenue for future research into early St. Louis. Additional local St. Louis
court cases—debt cases, disputes over slave sales, and other types of legal
action—and legal records relating to the freedom suits and local legal
culture, such as circuit court record books, execution books, and manumission
records, help to flesh out the use of the legal system by enslaved
individuals and their enslavers.