Charlotte Dupuy

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Charlotte Dupuy" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Charlotte Dupuy, also called Lottie (c. 1787–1790–c. 1866),^{[1][Note 1]} was an enslaved African-American woman who filed a freedom suit in 1829 against her enslaver, Henry Clay, who was then Secretary of State. The case went to trial 17 years before Dred Scott filed his more famous legal challenge to slavery. Then, living in Washington, D.C., Dupuy sued for her freedom and that of her two children based on a promise by her previous enslaver. The case was one of the many freedom suits filed by enslaved people in the decades before the American Civil War.

Although the Circuit Court's ruling in 1830 went against Dupuy, she had worked for wages for 18 months and lived in the household of Martin Van Buren, the succeeding Secretary of State, while it was decided. Clay had returned to his home in Kentucky in 1829. After the ruling, Clay had Dupuy renditioned to the home of his daughter and son-in-law in New Orleans, and she remained enslaved for another decade.

Finally, in 1840, Henry Clay freed Dupuy and her daughter Mary Ann. Four years later, he freed her son Charles Dupuy. By 1860, her husband Aaron Dupuy was listed on the census as a free man living with her at Ashland.

Cite error: There are <ref group=Note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=Note}} template (see the help page).