An enslaved woman sued for her freedom in court and won — in 1781

Ajouté : 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]No way this is real. An enslaved woman heard the words all men are born free and equal, took her owner to court, and won her freedom in 1781.

[00:00:11]In 1781, an enslaved woman named Elizabeth Freeman, known as Mum Bett, was working in the home of Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts.

[00:00:21]One day, Colonel Ashley's wife attacked Mum Bett's younger sister with a heated kitchen shovel.

[00:00:26]Mum Bett stepped in front of the blow and received it on her own arm.

[00:00:30]She left the house immediately and refused to return.

[00:00:34]She walked to the office of a young lawyer named Theodore Sedgwick and made him an argument he could not refuse.

[00:00:40]She had heard the Massachusetts Constitution being read aloud in the Ashley household. It said that all men are born free and equal.

[00:00:48]She told Sedgwick, "I heard that. I am not a dumb creature. If that law means what it says, then I am not a slave."

[00:00:56]Sedgwick took her case.

[00:00:59]In 1781, a Massachusetts court ruled that Elizabeth Freeman was a free woman.

[00:01:04]She was the first enslaved person to successfully sue for freedom under the new Massachusetts Constitution.

[00:01:10]The ruling effectively made slavery illegal in Massachusetts, a full 82 years before the Emancipation Proclamation.

[00:01:18]Colonel Ashley appealed. He lost.

[00:01:21]Elizabeth Freeman walked out of that courtroom free and went to work as a paid housekeeper for Theodore Sedgwick's family, where she was beloved and respected for the rest of her life.

[00:01:31]She saved enough money to buy a small house.

[00:01:35]When she died in 1829, Sedgwick's daughter wrote about her that she had more dignity in her bearing than most people she had ever known of any color or condition.

[00:01:44]A woman who could not read heard a constitution being read aloud and decided in that moment that it applied to her.

[00:01:51]She was right. No way this is real, but it absolutely is.

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