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Dred Scott was born a slave in Southampton County, Virginia in 1795. Industrious and intelligent, he was employed as a farmhand, stevedore, craftsman, and general handyman. In 1819, his original owner moved to Huntsville, Alabama, and later to St. Louis, Missouri. In 1832 he died, and Scott was sold for $500 to a surgeon in the U.S. Army who took Scott to the free state of Illinois in 1834 and on to Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was banned by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.