Rachel v. Walker: Legal Precedent for Self-Emancipation

OREGON TRAIL : The potentials of self-emancipation in the 'slave-free' Northwest Territory

RACHEL V. WALKER : BLACK FREEDOM and CITIZEN PROLOGUE

        INTENTION: 

  • To think through the position of white settlers who broke territorial law to continue enslavement where it was banned

 

  • “After the United States became an independent nation, enslavers implemented “term slavery” to get around the Northwest Ordinance’s ban on slavery. They brought enslaved people into the state and required them to enter contracts to labor without pay for extended periods of time — sometimes well beyond their life expectancy or as long as ninety-nine years.”
  • Colored Conventions Project, “Slavery and Racist Laws” 

He never enjoyed that place. It was some kind of prison to him. Considering the opinions of those in Fort Snelling, you might sympathize more with those interned there, the soldiers, and the men. My lovely Colonel could have never thought his demise to be those others they wish to be sympathized. His tarnished record of upholding the balance of the races, will always fall to that woman we tried to help. God knows we were righteous in taking her in. We traveled with her from place to place, from the Northwest, to the South, to Missouri, all over. It is easy for those loud detractors to scream a freedom, but what would become of these subordinates? Have we not been given the rightful cause to evangelize and save their souls? My Colonel knew this. He lived it. We lived it. 

I wont say her name. However, when we brought her with us to Fort Snelling, My Colonel had just been stationed there,  without regard to the operation on our land and just us settling into a quiet life of parenthood. Begrudgingly, My Colonel more than I, we moved our young family and our servants with us on this journey up North to Prairie du Chien. Without a surprise, she was not alone with a bounty of servants easing the journey for the settlers going to new land. How insufferable such conditions of traveling, settling, and building would be without them, and in no way could we be expected to work in such a manner. It never quite became clear to me the commotion around her case. Yes, I know the law; I am a reading woman. But, I would never take to defending one of these things with the law. Our law. Not for them. We came this far to avoid making laws for them. Let them stay where they rest, in their place. 

  • “Life on the Midwestern frontier became even more taxing when Rachel became pregnant and gave birth to a boy named James Henry, whose father is not revealed in the historical record. Rachel was not protected by status or race or law or family. She had no legal or social recourse against the sexual advances of the multitude of men who had access to her, especially Thomas. And, in 1834, just months after she gave birth, Thomas took them to St. Louis and sold them to Joseph Klunk, who sold them to William Walker — a local slave trader.”
  • Clark-Pujara, Christy “Rachel- Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, WI” Literary Landscapes, the New Territory Magazine

When we arrived to du Chien at Fort Crawford, there was no fort in sight. This little fact had been kept from me. I reckon My Colonel already knew the stress that the move had put me under, and loved me so, he thought not to worry me about what would be. How lovely that I was never forced to take up its building, or the labor to make that Crawford into a Fort! We were so blessed to have her there. She worked good, even in the cold. As much as I seethe to think of her, I must regard her natural taking to labor. Even once she had been burdened with that child, she worked well. So much speculation rattled the infantile settlement, not much more than a few wives, uncultured themselves, speaking on matter foreign to themselves. While, I never took a look at that boy. I could not help but not be bothered with yet another infant. There was just too much. We had to let her go. 

On his journey back from St. Louis, My Colonel relished me with a letter exclaiming his happiness to see her move on to better employment. Goes to show her ungrateful disposition that she would be vengeful enough to sue us for her worth. Tsst! I was so beside myself. She would have never acted this way within our care, and service. We had managed to maintain an obedient relationship, so to see her fall so far from her training, I mean, I am duly saddened. However, embarrassment became our fortune. The lawsuit made noise across the NW and the last saving hope to our struggle for balance, Missouri. How could we be blamed for foregoing our God and state-given right to have her in one place, but not in the other? Did we not already assume the fees to house and employ her? Why should it stop across an imaginary line, being carved by those who wish to disrupt the order of things? And that boy, how could he become free just by where he was born? There is nothing that can convince place birth should supersede the natural hierarchy of the species? Even if we were in the NW, and it is not legal there, we got her in Missouri. A rightful, legal state maintaining God and the state’s will. But, no lesser this decision passed would there not be more of them clamoring for freedom, using the democratic systems we fought for to make their own rights. If only My Colonel knew what would become of his legacy: setting forth the right to freedom for every one of them in this country. The shame, he must have died knowing who he was at heart. The peace I wish him.

Love, 

Maria Smith Stockton

(wife of Col. Stockton and co-owner of Rachel)