She was a healer, a nurse and a midwife, who bought her own property in nearby Stockbridge, VanSant said. "For me as an African American woman, it's amazing to be walking in her footsteps," she said.Īfter the court case, Ashley asked Freeman to return to his household as a paid servant, but she refused and instead went to work for Sedgwick, where she helped raise his children and was known by the affectionate name, Mumbet. She called Freeman an icon and a trailblazer. Gwendolyn VanSant, the CEO of BRIDGE, an area nonprofit that fosters racial understanding and equity, is overseeing the scholarships. He brought together stakeholders and raised about $280,000, enough money for the roughly 8-foot statue, as well as a scholarship fund in Freeman's honor for area high school students. Anthony in Adams, the Berkshire County community where the suffragist was born. Pignatelli was inspired to raise a statue of Freeman last year when he attended the unveiling of a statue of Susan B. He found that many of his colleagues in the Statehouse were also largely in the dark about the significance of her case, which set the legal precedent that essentially ended slavery in Massachusetts. William "Smitty" Pignatelli grew up not far from Sheffield in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts yet didn't hear her story until about 20 years ago. Her story, while remarkable, remains relatively obscure. The story of an enslaved woman who went to court to win her freedom more than 80 years before the Emancipation Proclamation had been pushed to the fringes of history.Ī group of civic leaders, activists and historians hope that ended Sunday in the quiet Massachusetts town of Sheffield with the unveiling of a bronze statue of the woman who chose the name Elizabeth Freeman when she shed the chains of slavery 241 years ago to the day. She is the only non-Sedgwick buried in the “inner circle” of the family plot in Stockbridge, MA.A monument of civil rights pioneer Elizabeth Freeman is unveiled in front of Sheffield's Old Parish Church in Sheffield, Mass., Sunday, Aug. She became a prominent healer, midwife, and nurse and was eventually able to buy her own home. Ashley offered her work as a paid servant but she chose employment as a domestic at the Sedgwick household. She changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman. In the groundbreaking case Brom and Bett v. It was both a challenge and a test case for Sedgwick and Ashley fought to keep Bett and Brom enslaved. Bett and a male slave named Brom asked prominent lawyer Theodore Sedgwick who had also helped draft the Sheffield Declaration to help win their freedom through the courts using the Massachusetts State Constitution. In 1773, Ashley helped draft the Sheffield Declaration which stated that “mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property.” Similar language was used in both the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the State Constitution of Massachusetts (1780). She moved to Sheffield, Massachusetts when her mistress married Colonel John Ashley. Elizabeth “Mum Bett” Freeman (1744?-1829) was born into slavery in the colony of New York decades before the American Revolution.
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