Last month, I happened to be at a gas station in Bloomington, Minnesota, just south of the Twin Cities, when I went inside to get a diet Coke and saw the following name on the door of the gas station:
Yes, that’s right, the gas station was called Dred Scott Automotive. How could this be?, I wondered. Was it just a coincidence, and perhaps the gas station owner just happened to have the name Dred Scott, like the slave suing for his freedom in the infamous Dred Scottt v. Sanford? (It’s happened before, although it may be a stage name.) Or maybe the gas station owner was a con law junky, and he thought it would be funny to name the station after one of the most infamous cases in all of constitutional law? Or maybe he was a very subtle racist, and he was trying to send a message that the station offered first class service — at least for the white man?
The answer turns out to be kind of interesting, at least to me. Scott’s claim to freedom was based on his having spent years as a free man before being forced to move back to a slave state. Most of his time as a free man had been spent in the area of Fort Snelling, where he had traveled with the doctor who had purchased him in Missouri. From the opinion:
The plaintiff was a negro slave, belonging to Dr. Emerson, who was a surgeon in the army of the United States. In the year 1834, he took the plaintiff from the State of Missouri to the military post at Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, and held him there as a slave until the month of April or May, 1836. At the time last mentioned, said Dr. Emerson removed the plaintiff from said military post at Rock Island to the military post at Fort Snelling, situate on the west bank of the Mississippi river, in the Territory known as Upper Louisiana, acquired by the United States of France, and situate north of the latitude of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north, and north of the State of Missouri. Said Dr. Emerson held the plaintiff in slavery at said Fort Snelling, from said last-mentioned date until the year 1838.
It turns out that Fort Snelling, then described as “situate[d] on the west bank of the Mississippi river, in the Territory known as Upper Louisiana,” is in territory that is now part of the state of Minnesota: pretty near Bloomington, Minnesota, to be specific.
As I understand it, then, the area near Fort Snelling has a number of businesses that honor Dred Scott and the region’s role in trying to give Dred Scott his freedom. As a result, when you’re in Bloomington, you can get your car fixed at Dred Scott Automotive, and you can even play put-put at Dred Scott Minigolf. (Might want to wait for the spring on that one, though.)