Freeman, Elizabeth (“Mum Bett”)

By: Taunya Lovell Banks

Source:

 Black Women in America, Second Edition

Freeman, Elizabeth (“Mum Bett”)

Sex:  Female

Born:  Claverack, New York, United States
c.1744

Died:  Stockbridge, Massachusetts, United States
28 December 1829

Activity/Profession:  Slave, Litigant, Nurse

(c. 1744; d. 28 December 1829),
the first enslaved black woman to successfully sue for her freedom, in Massachusetts in 1781.

“I heard that paper read yesterday that says, ‘all men are born equal, and that every man has a right to freedom.’ I am not a dumb critter; won't the law give me my freedom?” According to Catherine Sedgewick, Elizabeth Freeman said this to Theodore Sedgewick, a young Massachusetts lawyer who was Catherine's father.

Elizabeth Freeman, an enslaved black woman also known as Mum Bett (or Mumbet), was born in Claverack, New York, and sold to Colonel John Ashley of Sheffield, Massachusetts. She approached Theodore Sedgewick after hearing the Declaration of Independence read at the village meetinghouse in Sheffield. Another account claims that Freeman overheard talk about the Massachusetts state constitutional provision while waiting on tables. There is at least one possible explanation for the conflict over the legal source of Freeman's claim. She may have asked about the Declaration of Independence, but Sedgewick, knowing that it did not abolish slavery, resorted instead to similar language contained within the state constitution. Shortly thereafter, Freeman, with Sedgewick's help, entered a Massachusetts court to demand her freedom.

Despite her enslavement, Freeman, an illiterate black woman, was able to secure legal counsel and provide him with a legal theory for her case. Sedgewick filed suit on Freeman's behalf against Colonel Ashley and his son who Elizabeth claimed were illegally detaining her and a black male copetitioner named Brom (Brom and Bett v. Ashley). Sedgewick filed a writ of replevin, a lawsuit to recover something unlawfully taken, namely Freeman and Brom. The writ declared that the enslavement of Freeman and Brom violated a provision of the newly enacted 1780 state constitution that declared that all men are “born free and equal.” The jury ruled in favor of Freeman and Brom, making them the first enslaved African Americans to be freed under the new constitution.

Historians overlook or marginalize Freeman's contribution, citing instead a case involving a black man, Quock Walker, decided after Freeman's suit. There are several reasons to explain why Freeman is seldom credited with striking a blow against slavery in Massachusetts. First, the historian Arthur Zilversmit relied on Catherine Sedgewick as the primary source of his research, but discounted Sedgewick's claim that Freeman originated the legal theory for her case. He speculated, but cited no authority, that some prominent residents of Berkshire County selected Freeman and Brom to test the new state constitution. This historian seems to find it inconceivable that an enslaved black woman, unable to read or write, was intelligent enough to comprehend a “sophisticated” legal argument. He ignores the fact that while blacks in slavery were denied, often by law, access to literacy, intelligence does not hinge on literacy, skin color, or sex.

Elizabeth (“Mum Bett”) Freeman.  Watercolor portrait on ivory by Susan Anne Livingston Ridely Sedgwick, 1811. Sedgwick was a daughter of the lawyer who represented Freeman before the Massachusetts state supreme court.

Massachusetts Historical Society

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The freedom suit by Freeman and her coplaintiff, an attack on the institution of slavery, probably was funded by money collected by and among the enslaved black population in the area. Prior to 1783, monies collected from black Massachusetts slaves were used to litigate freedom suits. No doubt their efforts were encouraged and supported by white abolitionists, but many historians seem determined to deny black slaves any agency in using the courts to attack their slavery.

Second, enslaved black people had been suing for their freedom for more than twenty years before Brom and Bett v. Ashley. So in one sense, Freeman's case looks like a traditional freedom suit by a slave against her master. Further, during the 1780s, Massachusetts juries were predisposed to rule in favor of slaves seeking their freedom, so the outcome in Freeman's case seems unsurprising.

In contrast, Commonwealth v. Jennison involved the 1783 criminal prosecution of a white man, Nathaniel Jennison, for assault and battery on Quock Walker. Jennison argued that Walker was his slave and could be beaten. Walker had secured his freedom in an earlier civil case, so the criminal prosecution only involved a question of Walker's legal status at the time he was beaten. What makes this case notable is that Massachusetts Chief Justice William Cushing, an ardent abolitionist, instructed the jury that the 1780 constitution was incompatible with the institution of slavery, and based on this instruction, the jury convicted Jennison. Thus, historians contend the case struck the death blow on slavery in Massachusetts.

Elizabeth Freeman's contribution, however, is significant because, unlike other freedom suits based on individual circumstances or technicalities designed to secure freedom only for the petitioner, the legal theory set forth in her suit had the potential to free not just the petitioners, but all enslaved blacks in Massachusetts. Clearly this was Freeman's intent, because she later told people that she was moved to sue after taking a blow from her physically abusive mistress that was intended for her sister. Thus, Freeman was suing for her freedom and her sister's as well. In contrast, Quock Walker in his original civil suit against Jennison never relied on the state constitution in arguing that he was a free man. Only in a related case, Jennison v. Caldwell, did the lawyer representing Walker's employer broaden the claim for Walker's freedom by asserting that slavery is inconsistent with natural law and “God's law.”

Nevertheless, Freeman's case was the first freedom suit to use a state constitution as the basis to challenge chattel slavery. In addition, her suit resulted in the first court decision construing a state constitutional provision as inconsistent with the institution of slavery. Unfortunately, neither Freeman's nor Walker's suit resulted in the complete emancipation of enslaved blacks in the state. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 was never amended to specifically prohibit slavery, and the institution lingered on in areas of the state for several years.

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