Iowa’s stand against slavery

Black History Month is an appropriate time to celebrate the 185th anniversary of a defining moment in Iowa’s heritage.

In 1804, when Iowa’s land was added to the U.S. by the Louisiana Purchase, slavery was legal. As territories were carved out of the then northwest reaches of the nation, slavery was banned within them. By 1820, those boundaries were identified further when the Missouri Compromise allowed that state to permit slavery, but prohibited such involuntary servitude north of its border.

Burlington, at a narrow point on the Mississippi River that made it a popular crossing, was the territorial capital and home to the court system, both of which began to thrive in the late 1830s. By this time, Thomas Easton had moved from New Orleans to serve as city engineer. He brought with him a Black woman known simply by the name Rachel, whom he had purchased for $385.00 in Louisiana.

Learning of her status as a slave in the Iowa Territory, Burlington Mayor David Hendershott removed her from Easton’s residence and gave her refuge. Easton sued Hendershott and the case was heard by territorial District Court Judge Charles Mason. Mason, a prominent abolitionist, ruled on May 6, 1839, that Rachel was a freed woman.

The next day, Easton filed an appeal of the case claiming Rachel was still his property and the county sheriff forcibly removed Rachel from the mayor’s protection. Rachel then signed, with an “X,” a writ of habeas corpus authored by Mason, stating she chose to go with Hendershott and claimed false imprisonment against the sheriff and Easton.

Reconvening his court on May 8, Mason presided over testimony affirming Rachel’s choice, and Easton, knowing Mason’s anti-slavery stance and not wanting a penalty against him or the sheriff, agreed to allow the case to be dismissed, which awarded Rachel her freedom.

Mason, however, was also Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Iowa Territory, and would shortly hear a second case that would settle the issue of slavery far more definitively and on a larger scale.

Jordan Montgomery, of Virginia, purchased a slave named Ralph at an Old Dominion market in 1830. Four years later, Montgomery moved to Missouri, but agreed to award Ralph his freedom in exchange for $500.

Not having that sum, it was mutually agreed Ralph would go to Dubuque, get a job as a lead miner, and direct payments to Montgomery.

Ralph settled in Dubuque. Believing himself to be a free man, he did not dispatch any installments to his former master. Montgomery demanded the county sheriff arrest Ralph and remand him to Montgomery in Missouri.

The sheriff captured Ralph and placed him on a boat destined for St. Louis. But another miner whom Ralph had befriended filed a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the “prisoner.” Presented with the document, the sheriff in Bellevue escorted Ralph off the boat.

The habeas corpus case was supposed to be held in District Court, but was elevated by the presiding judge in Dubuque to the Territorial Supreme Court. In Burlington on July 4, 1839, Justice Mason ruled in favor of the petitioner, declaring “Ralph, a man of color, is free by operation of law.”

Mason also acknowledged that, as a matter of law, Ralph had entered into a legal contract, and was thus liable for the sum he agreed to pay Montgomery. But even with that payment having not yet been rendered, it did not make him a fugitive slave.

To clarify the larger issue, Mason then added, in accordance with the compromise of 1820, lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of Missouri prohibited slavery and, as such a master could not exercise acts of ownership over them.

He went on to admonish all slave holders, making clear what they claim to be property, are “human beings and that it is thus proper that the laws extend equal protection to men of all conditions and colors.”

It was in Iowa, therefore, where the die was cast for the future legal challenges to slavery and involuntary servitude, including the Dred Scott vs. John Sanford case that, 18 years later, threatened to tear apart, nationally, all the progress made in Iowa Territory courtrooms.

In this 185th anniversary year since those hallmark decisions were handed down in Burlington, it is proper that Iowa’s historic courts, and its adherents to freedom, be remembered during this Black History Month.