A field trip, discussion, and short lecture with 7th and 8th Graders in Jack & Jill St. Louis. The group paddled 10-person canoes from a launch point in North St. Louis downriver to the Gateway Arch, stopping for lunch on an island, and learning more about the history of enslavement and resistance along the Mississippi River.

Topics included:

• The Fugitive Slave Acts

• Missouri Territory’s “Once Free, Always Free” laws

• Freedom Suits brought by enslaved people in St. Louis

• Meachum Crossing and Mary Meachum