Slavery Suits from Washington University in Saint Louis

The St. Louis Circuit Court Historical Records Project at http://stlcourtrecords.wustl.edu/index.cfm is now offering Freedom Suits, "nearly 300 legal petitions for freedom brought by or on behalf of persons of color held in slavery within the St. Louis area from 1814 to 1860."

You can search the suits from the historical records page at http://stlcourtrecords.wustl.edu/search.php (make sure the "Lewis and Clark" option is unchecked.) If you just click on the "Freedom Suits" link, you'll get to browse the suits in groups of ten. The listings contain the year and term of the suit, the case number, the plaintiff, defendant, case action, and case notes. All the way to the right there are links to View Data (a general overview, no details) and View Case (digitized pages of case information.)

If you'd rather search, you can. Searching is available by year, plaintiff, defendant, action, or case notes. You can search within a year range or order the cases by a variety of variables.

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