Oregon State Bar Bulletin

This is the cover of the October 2016 "Oregon State Bar Bulletin," a professional journal with a distribution of more than 19,000 -- including all 17,000+ lawyers, judges, clerks, professors, students, and other current members of the Oregon State Bar.

 

Strangely Absent from History: Carson vs. Smith, 1852-1857

by Dr. Bob Zybach

REFERENCE: Zybach, Bob 2016. "Strangely Absent from History: Carson vs. Smith, 1852-1857," Oregon State Bar Bulletin, Vol. 77, No. 1: 24-28. [PDF_2_MB]

This article documents the history of Letitia Carson's legal action against Greenberry Smith, executor of the estate of David Carson, Letitia's "country" husband and father of her two children. How this story of an ex-Kentucky slave woman and Oregon Trail pioneer who successfully sued -- twice -- a rich white landowner in 1850s Oregon Territory became excluded from our newspapers, legal records, and written histories is a (probably sexist, elitist, racial, and political) mystery.

ILLUSTRATIONS:

May 12, 1855 Legal Judgement

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