How Did Some Enslaved People Sue for Their Freedom — and Win?

In 1781, Elizabeth Freeman successfully sued her enslaver for her own freedom. Learn how freedom suits worked pre- and post-American Revolution in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/mum-bett.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey, Brainstuff. Lauren
Vogelbaum here a Revolutionary War era court case, but granted
an enslaved woman freedom from her cruel enslavers, a benevolent
white lawyer turned employer, a name change at a crucial
turning point. These are all moments in Elizabeth Freeman's life.

(00:26):
Her story, or at least what we know of it,
reads like a tale of grit and justice, ripe for Hollywood,
But in reality, the circumstances of Freeman's triumph were rooted
in necessity and survival. A Freeman called Bet before she
chose her new Moniker was born into slavery on an

(00:47):
unknown date in the seventeen forties, by either inheritance or purchase.
Freeman was enslaved as a child by Colonel John Ashley
and his wife Hannah at the Ashley House in Sheffield, Massachusetts.
Freeman did domestic work, served visitors, and dealt with the
reported brutality of Hannah Ashley. But by seventeen eighty, Freeman

(01:09):
had become aware that documents like the Declaration of Independence
and the Massachusetts Constitution espoused the ideas of freedom and
equality as birthrights. A freeman determined that she too was
entitled to freedom by law. In the wake of other
enslaved black people and abolitionists who took their claims to court,
a Freeman decided to sue for her freedom. She had

(01:32):
the help of lawyers Theodore Sedgwick and Tapping Reeve to
do so. This was not a common course of action.
Some enslaved people weren't aware that they could petition for
their freedom and win, nor did they have the resources
to do so. On top of that, challenging the law
and ones enslavers could be risky and feudal. However, such

(01:55):
freedom suits in which enslaved people filed lawsuits against their
enslavers to their freedom, were not unprecedented in colonial times.
Many of these suits were brought by men, and many
of the claimants challenged their own enslavement rather than the
entire institution of slavery. For instance, Elizabeth Key sued for
her freedom in Virginia in sixteen fifty six on the

(02:17):
basis that her father was a free white man and
that she was a Christian, conditions that entitled her to
freedom by English common law. Before the article. This episode
is based on how stuff work spoke with Lamarchie Fraser,
an artist, educator and director of Education and Interpretation at
the Museum of African American History, Boston, and Nantuckett. She

(02:39):
explained that there were many legal reasons enslaved people petitioned
for freedom, and many levels of awareness about their ability
to do so. A quote, maybe the enslaved petitioners haven't
been manumitted, that is, set free when their contract says
they should be. Maybe they should be at this point
in time, earning wages for their s. There are distinct

(03:01):
differences in cases where petitions are brought, but they are
not without the knowledge that they exist. They're not existing
in a vacuum. Some enslaved people found ways to organize
to win their freedom. Freeman asserted that she was free
according to the rules the United States politicians had enshrined
in governing documents. Some of what we know today about

(03:25):
Freeman comes from Catherine Maria Sedgwick, who was the daughter
of Freeman's lawyer. Theodore Freeman helped raise her, and Catherine
later wrote about Freeman's life and convictions. She quoted Freeman
as saying, I'm not a dumb critter. Won't the law
give me my freedom. Sedgwick went on to say about Freeman,
I can imagine her upright form as she stood dilating

(03:47):
with her fresh hope based on the declaration of her
intrinsic inalienable right. Freedom. Suits were often unsuccessful, resulting in
neither the emancipation of the plaintiff nor the abolition of
slavery in the place where the case was brought, but some,
including Freeman's, were stories of liberation. Of Freeman's lawyers decided

(04:10):
to add Brahm, one of four other enslaved people at
the Ashley estate, to the suit, making it Brahm and
Bett versus Ashley. A Freeman may have sought Sedgwick's help
since he visited the Ashley house, or Sedgwick and Reeve
may have pursued Freeman and Brahm in order to test
whether slavery was legal in Massachusetts under the new state constitution.

(04:32):
Either way, Sedgwick got a writ of replevin, which is
an order authorizing the retaking of property by its rightful owner,
from the court, ordering John Ashley to release Freeman and
Brahm because they were not his property. Ashley refused to
release them and was ordered to appear in court on
August twenty first of seventeen eighty one, Sedgwick and Reeve

(04:54):
argued before the court that slavery was unconstitutional because the
Massachusetts Constitute stated that all men are born free and equal.
The next day, the jury determined that Brahm and Freeman
should be emancipated. The two were awarded thirty shillings in damages,
and Ashley had to pay the court costs. Freeman, upon

(05:15):
her victory, took her new name, an assertation of her
newfound independence. The outcome of this case and one other
that year showed that the legal and moral foundations of
the institution of slavery were disintegrating. These cases marked the
beginning of the end of slavery in Massachusetts. According to

(05:36):
seventeen ninety census, no enslaved people lived in the state.
That said, the state constitution was not amended to outlaw slavery,
and people remained in bondage as chattel. Slavery became obsolete
in Massachusetts. Freeman went on to work for the Sedgwicks,
providing her services in the household and community as a servant, midwife,

(05:57):
and governess, and, in a reversal almost too improbable for
a third act, the Freeman became one of the first
women in Massachusetts to own property herself. She bought a
home and land of her own, amassing enough wealth and
property to create a will a couple of months before
she died in December of eighteen twenty nine at the
age of about eighty five. The items that she owned

(06:20):
and chose to pass down, the shawls, gowns, earrings, quilts, spoons,
and gold beads, among other objects, tell a story about
her character and what she valued. Despite the lack of
autobiographical accounts of Freeman's life, Fraser said, as we see
her life unfolded in the ways that are accessible to us,

(06:41):
and we find a woman who is not deterred from
her honesty, her truth, and her will to be free.
Today's episode is based on the article how Enslaved Elizabeth
Freeman mum Bett Sued for her Freedom and one on
Housetofwork dot com, written by Eve's Jeff Cope. Brainstuff is

(07:02):
production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and
is produced by Tyler klang A. Four more podcasts to
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