Marguerite Scypion

Marguerite Scypion, also known in court files as Marguerite, (1770s – after 1836) was an African-Natchez woman, born into slavery in St. Louis, then located in New Spain. She was held first by Joseph Tayon and later by Jean Pierre Chouteau, one of the most powerful men in the city.

In 1805, two years after St. Louis came under US rule, Marguerite filed the first "freedom suit" in the city's circuit court, 41 years before Dred Scott and his wife Harriet filed their better-known case. In November 1836, Marguerite, her children, her sister, and other descendants of Marie Jean Scypion, her mother, finally won their case as free people of color. The unanimous jury decision in their favor was based on their maternal descent from a Natchez woman, as Indian slavery had been ended by the Spanish in 1769. The trial venue was moved to Jefferson County because the Chouteau family was influential in St. Louis. The decision withstood appeals to the state and the United States Supreme Court in 1838. The case was considered to end Indian slavery in Missouri.

Throughout their struggle, Marguerite and her two sisters argued that their mother, Marie Jean Scypion, had been illegally enslaved after 1769 because, after the Spanish started ruling the area, the colonial governor abolished Indian slavery in the Louisiana Territory to make regional policy consistent with other Spanish colonies. Since her mother was Natchez, Marie Jean Scypion was legally free. Thus, her descendants born after that date were also free, as they were born to a free mother. Although an 1806 Louisiana Territorial Supreme Court ruling decided against the Scypion descendants, they did not give up their desire for freedom.

Following the passage of a new law in 1824 protecting enslaved people's right to sue against illegal enslavement, the women and their children renewed their petitions. In 1826, Marguerite Scypion, her children, and her two sisters filed separate suits against their masters. One of the Scypion sisters and some of their descendants died before the cases were decided. The court combined the suits under the name of Marguerite (free woman of color) for the final trial. She and the other descendants of Marie Jean Scypion finally achieved freedom in 1836.

Early life Scypion was the third daughter born into slavery in St. Louis to Marie Jean Scypion, an enslaved woman. Marie Jean Scypion's mother was Natchez and had been captured and sold into slavery during the Indian wars. Her father was an enslaved Black person. Marguerite's sisters were Celeste and Catiche. Their father was not identified. Joseph Tayon and his wife Marie Louise enslaved the mother and daughters. After the two Tayon daughters married, Marie Louise Tayon assigned Celeste to Helene (Tayon) Chevalier and Catiche to Marie Louise (Tayon) Chauvin. This classification as mulatto restricted the rights of such persons who were free people of color. The Tayon family continued to struggle; in the spring of 1804, the sisters Mrs. Chevalier and Mrs. Chauvin filed legal documents that declared that Celeste and Catiche were free women of color to forestall their father's planned sale of the people they enslaved.

Three years after the death of the matriarch Marie Jean Scypion, Marguerite Scypion, in 1805, filed a freedom suit against François Tayon, who had inherited her after his father died. In October 1805, Marguerite's sisters Celeste and Catiche filed for writs of habeas corpus in the Superior Territorial Court, supported by affidavits from Chevalier and Chauvin saying that the women lived in their households voluntarily as free women of color. The court freed Celeste and Catiche. François Tayon opposed Marguerite's suit, but the court ordered him to release her, as well.

Scypion's daughters asserted that because their maternal grandmother Marie was a Natchez, her daughter Marie Jean Scypion was legally free under the 1769 Spanish proclamation. Scypion's status meant that her (three) daughters and their descendants were also legally free people of color, by the principle of partus sequitur ventrem. Incorporated into slavery case law in the United States since 1662 in the Virginia Colony, the principle of partus held that that of the mother determined the children's legal status. Celeste's children were Auguste, Paul, Antoine, and Sophie. Sophie's children Edward and William were also party to the suits.

In this suit, Marguerite accused Chouteau of assault and false imprisonment for his continuing to hold her and her children in slavery. She sued for $500 in damages as a free woman of color based on the illegal enslavement of her mother, who was of Natchez maternal ancestry. Although the judgment and appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court initially went against Marguerite and her sisters, the case was reviewed in 1834, and a new trial was ordered. All the descendants of Marie Jean Scypion were freed by this decision, and the case was considered to end Indian slavery in Missouri officially.

Legacy The Scypion daughters' persistence won their families' freedom and ended Indian slavery in Missouri.