Harriet Beecher Stowe

When President Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he reportedly remarked, "So, this is the little lady who wrote the book that made this great war." Stowe's best-selling Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852, focused national attention on slavery. She based her novel on runaway slaves' memoirs including Josiah Henson's and abolitionist reports.

Dred Scott

In a landmark case that eventually reached the Supreme Court, Dred Scott sued for his freedom in 1846. Taken into free territory by his owner but returned to Missouri, a slave state, Scott argued that his earlier residency made him a free man. Finally in 1857, the Supreme Court found that Scott, as a bondsperson, was not recognized as a U.S. citizen under the Constitution, and therefore, not eligible to sue in the courts. The decision widened the gulf between North and South.

John Brown

Fiery abolitionist John Brown dedicated his life to slavery's destruction. Fredrick Douglass wrote of Brown, whom he admired, "His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him." In 1859, hoping to act as a catalyst for a widespread slave rebellion, Brown unsuccessfully attacked the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). One member of Brown's group, African American abolitionist Osborne Anderson, escaped from Harpers Ferry via the Underground Railroad to Canada.

Address technical questions on the Footsteps to Freedom website to webmaster@rims.k12.ca.us