When Was Elizabeth Freeman Born

American onetime slave and abolitionist

Elizabeth Freeman (a.yard.a. Mumbet)
Elizabeth Freeman, anile about 67
Born	c. 1744 Claverack, Province of New York
Died	December 28, 1829 (anile 84-85) Stockbridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Nationality	American
Other names	Bett, Mumbet, Mum Bett,
Occupation	Midwife, herbalist, servant
Known for	Brom and Bett 5. Ashley (1781), gained liberty based on constitutional right to freedom

Elizabeth Freeman (c. 1744 – Dec 28, 1829), also known as Bet, Mum Bett, or MumBet, was the get-go enslaved African American to file and win a freedom suit in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling, in Freeman's favor, establish slavery to be inconsistent with the 1780 Massachusetts Land Constitution. Her suit, Brom and Bett v. Ashley (1781), was cited in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtroom appellate review of Quock Walker's freedom suit. When the court upheld Walker'due south liberty under the state's constitution, the ruling was considered to have implicitly concluded slavery in Massachusetts.

Any fourth dimension, whatsoever time while I was a slave, if one minute's liberty had been offered to me, and I had been told I must dice at the terminate of that infinitesimal, I would have taken it—just to stand one infinitesimal on God's airth [sic] a free woman— I would.

—Elizabeth Freeman^[1]

Biography [edit]

Freeman was illiterate and left no written records of her life. Her early on history has been pieced together from the writings of contemporaries to whom she told her story or who heard it indirectly, as well every bit from historical records.^[2] ^[3]

Freeman was born into slavery around 1744 at the farm of Pieter Hogeboom in Claverack, New York, where she was given the name Bet. When Hogeboom'due south daughter Hannah married John Ashley of Sheffield, Massachusetts, Hogeboom gave Bet, around vii years onetime, to Hannah and her husband. Freeman remained with them until 1781, during which time she had a child, Piddling Bet. She is said to take married, though no marriage record has been located. Her husband (proper name unknown) is said to have never returned from service in the American Revolutionary War.^[4]

Throughout her life, Bet exhibited a strong spirit and sense of cocky. She came into conflict with Hannah Ashley, who was raised in the strict Dutch civilisation of the New York colony. In 1780, Bet prevented Hannah from hitting a servant girl with a heated shovel; Elizabeth shielded the girl and received a deep wound in her arm. Every bit the wound healed, Bet left it uncovered as evidence of her harsh handling.^[i] Catharine Maria Sedgwick quotes Elizabeth saying: "Madam never again laid her hand on Lizzy. I had a bad arm all winter, merely Madam had the worst of it. I never covered the wound, and when people said to me, before Madam,—'Why, Betty! what ails your arm?' I only answered —'ask missis!' Which was the slave and which was the real mistress?"^[1]

John Ashley was a Yale-educated lawyer, wealthy landowner, businessman and leader in the community. His firm was the site of many political discussions and the probable location of the signing of the Sheffield Proclamation, which predated the Declaration of Independence.

In 1780, Freeman either heard the newly ratified Massachusetts Constitution read at a public gathering in Sheffield, or overheard her principal talking at events in the domicile. She heard what included the following:^[1]

All men are built-in costless and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may exist reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.

Inspired by these words, Bett sought the counsel of Theodore Sedgwick, a young abolitionism-minded lawyer, to help her sue for freedom in court. According to Catherine Sedgwick's account, she told him: "I heard that paper read yesterday, that says, all men are created equal, and that every man has a right to liberty. I'thou not a dumb critter; won't the law give me my freedom?"^[1] After much deliberation Sedgwick accepted her instance, as well equally that of Brom, some other of Ashley's slaves. He enlisted the aid of Tapping Reeve, the founder of Litchfield Constabulary School, one of America'south earliest law schools, located in Litchfield, Connecticut. They were two of the top lawyers in Massachusetts, and Sedgwick later served as Usa Senator. Arthur Zilversmit suggests the attorneys may have selected these plaintiffs to test the status of slavery nether the new state constitution.^[5]

The case of Brom and Bett 5. Ashley was heard in Baronial 1781 earlier the County Courtroom of Common Pleas in Great Barrington.^[half-dozen] Sedgwick and Reeve asserted that the constitutional provision that "all men are built-in free and equal" effectively abolished slavery in the state. When the jury ruled in Bett's favor, she became the first African-American woman to be set free nether the Massachusetts land constitution.

The jury found that "...Brom & Bett are not, nor were they at the time of the buy of the original writ the legal Negro of the said John Ashley..."^[7] The court assessed damages of xxx shillings and awarded both plaintiffs compensation for their labor. Ashley initially appealed the decision, simply a month later dropped his appeal, apparently having decided the court's ruling on constitutionality of slavery was "final and binding."^[5]

After the ruling, Bett took the name Elizabeth Freeman. Although Ashley asked her to return to his business firm and work for wages, she chose to work in chaser Sedgwick'southward household. She worked for his family until 1808 as senior servant and governess to the Sedgwick children, who called her "Mumbet". The Sedgwick children included Catharine Sedgwick, who became a well-known author and wrote an business relationship of her governess'southward life. Also working at the Sedgwick household during much of this time was Agrippa Hull, a gratuitous black man who had served with insubordinate forces for years during the Revolutionary State of war.^[8]

From the fourth dimension Freeman gained her liberty, she became widely recognized and in demand for her skills as a healer, midwife and nurse. Afterward the Sedgwick children were grown, Freeman moved into her own firm on Ruddy Hill in Stockbridge, nearly her daughter, grandchildren and cracking grandchildren.

Death [edit]

Freeman's existent age was never known, just an estimate on her tombstone puts her age at about 85. She died in Dec 1829 and was cached in the Sedgwick family plot in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Freeman remains the just non-Sedgwick buried in the Sedgwick plot. They provided a tombstone, inscribed every bit follows:

ELIZABETH FREEMAN, also known by the name of MUMBET died Dec. 28th 1829. Her supposed historic period was 85 Years. She was built-in a slave and remained a slave for nearly xxx years; She could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal. She neither wasted fourth dimension nor property. She never violated a trust, nor failed to perform a duty. In every state of affairs of domestic trial, she was the near efficient helper and the tenderest friend. Good female parent, farewell.^[2]

Legacy [edit]

The decision in the 1781 case of Elizabeth Freeman was cited as precedent when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtroom heard the appeal of Quock Walker v. Jennison later that year and upheld Walker's freedom. These cases prepare the legal precedents that ended slavery in Massachusetts. Vermont had already abolished it explicitly in its constitution.^[ii] ^[3] ^[five] ^[nine]

A celebration of Elizabeth Freeman's office in the walk to freedom from enslavement included the unveiling of a statue in her laurels by the Sheffield Historical Society in August 2022.^[ten] ^[11]

Connectedness to W. E. B. Du Bois [edit]

Civil Rights leader and historian Due west. E. B. Du Bois claimed Freeman as his relative and wrote that she married his maternal great-granddaddy, "Jack" Burghardt.^[12] ^[13] However, Freeman was twenty years senior to Burghardt, and no record of such a marriage has been found. Information technology may take been Freeman's daughter, Betsy Humphrey, who married Burghardt after her first hubby, Jonah Humphrey, left the surface area "around 1811", and subsequently Burghardt's first married woman died (c. 1810). If and then, Freeman would take been Du Bois's footstep-smashing-not bad-grandmother. Anecdotal evidence supports Humphrey's marrying Burghardt; a close relationship of some form is likely.^[2]

In the media and arts [edit]

Season 1, episode 37 of the television testify Liberty'due south Kids, titled "Born Gratuitous and Equal", is about Elizabeth Freeman.^[14] It was first aired in 2003, and in it she was voiced past Yolanda King.^[14]
The story of Elizabeth Freeman was featured on Season 1, Episode iv, of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Freeman'southward lawyer, Theodore Sedgwick, is the 4th great-grandfather of Kyra Sedgwick, 1 of the guests of the episode.^[15]
The Portuguese fiber artist Joana Vasconcelos created a large installation in Freeman's honor in 2020 entitled Valkyrie Mumbet for the MassArt Fine art Museum (MAAM) in Boston, MA.^[sixteen]

References [edit]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^eastward Sedgwick, Catharine Maria (1853). "Slavery in New England". Bentley'southward Miscellany. London. 34: 417–424.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Piper, Emilie; Levinson, David (2010). One Minute a Complimentary Woman: Elizabeth Freeman and the Struggle for Freedom. Salisbury, CT: Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area. ISBN978-0-9845492-0-vii.
^ ^a ^b Rose, Ben Z. (2009). Mother of Freedom: Mum Bett and the Roots of Abolition. Waverly, Massachusetts: Treeline Press. ISBN978-0-9789123-1-4.
^ Wilds, Mary (1999). Mumbet: The Life and Times of Elizabeth Freeman: The Truthful Story of a Slave Who Won Her Freedom. Greensboro, North Carolina: Avisson Press Inc. ISBN1-888105-40-two.
^ ^a ^b ^c Zilversmit, Arthur (October 1968). "Quok Walker, Mumbet, and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts". The William and Mary Quarterly. Tertiary. Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Civilization. 25 (44): 614–624. doi:ten.2307/1916801. JSTOR 1916801.
^ "Massachusetts Constitution, Judicial Review, and Slavery – The Mum Bett Case". mass.gov. 2011. Retrieved July four, 2011.
^ Transcript of Case No. one, Brom & Bett vs. John Ashley Esq., Book 4A, p. 55. Inferior Court of Common Pleas, Berkshire County, Nifty Barrington, MA, 1781, transcribed past Brady Barrows at Berkshire Canton Courthouse, 1998.
^ Nash, Gary B. (July 2, 2008), "Agrippa Hull: revolutionary patriot", Black Past. Retrieved March 12, 2012.
^ "Africans in America/Part 2/Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett)". pbs.org . Retrieved July 7, 2010.
^ "Elizabeth Freeman Monument". Sheffield Historical Society . Retrieved August 19, 2022.
^ "Equity, logistics and the impacts of the Orange Line shutdown". www.wbur.org . Retrieved August 19, 2022.
^ Du Bois, W. E. B. (1984). Dusk of Dawn. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers. p. eleven. Originally published 1940.
^ Levering, David (1993). Westward. E. B. Du Bois, Biography of a Race 1868–1919. New York Urban center: Henry Holt and Co. p. fourteen.
^ ^a ^b "Watch Liberty's Kids Season i Episode 37: Born Free and Equal". Idiot box Guide . Retrieved February 9, 2018.
^ "FINDING YOUR ROOTS (Kevin Bacon & Kyra Sedgwick) - PBS America". January 22, 2013. Retrieved January 19, 2019 – via YouTube. ^{[ expressionless YouTube link ]}
^ "Joana Vasconcelos | MassArt Art Museum". maam.massart.edu . Retrieved Apr 7, 2021.