One Minute A Free Woman

The American Revolution provided new opportunities for people of African descent to challenge the very idea of slavery. In 1781, inspired by the ideals of the Revolution and the recently ratified Massachusetts State Constitution, Elizabeth Freeman and another enslaved man named Brom went to court and did just that. Using the assistance of lawyers Theodore Sedgwick and Tapping Reeve, they argued that as inhabitants of the newly independent state whose constitution declared that “All men are born free and equal,” they were being illegally held in bondage. On Aug. 21, 1781, they won their case, setting a precedent and paving the way for the abolition of slavery throughout the state. 

One Minute A Free Woman: Elizabeth Freeman and the Struggle for Freedom by Emilie Piper and David Levinson is a well-researched and detailed account of Elizabeth Freeman’s life. Using various sources, Piper and Levinson tell Freeman’s story and put her within the greater historical context of slavery in Massachusetts and the colonies. Although she could not read or write, Freeman understood the Revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality and fought for them. In a world that was designed to keep her as property, she found within herself a remarkable drive to pursue her own freedom.

Read an excerpt from One Minute A Free Woman about Freeman’s precedent-setting court case. 

Excerpt

Brom and Bett’s case moved forward on May 28 as Brom & Bett vs. John Ashley Esq. The case was brought against the Inferior Court of Common Pleas in Great Barrington. […] The Court of Common Pleas was the lowest in the hierarchy of the four courts in the colonial system. Unlike today, when we think of courts as interpreting and applying the law and having only limited or indirect influence over citizens who do not come before it, the colonial Massachusetts courts had enormous influence on people's daily lives. And the judges who sat on the courts were typically the wealthiest and most powerful men in their towns and cities — men like John Ashley and Theodore Sedgwick. The courts approved town bylaws, assessed taxes, issued licenses, allocated building funds, jailed debtors, as well as adjudicating civil and property disputes.

Although the cases they heard were limited to civil cases, the Courts of Common Pleas were powerful bodies in every western Massachusetts town in which they sat because 90 percent of their cases were suits against debtors. Debt was a daily problem for Berkshire subsistence farmers, and the bankers, lawyers, and merchants with whom they owed money regularly brought suit to collect their debts. These suits were a terrible burden for poor farmers, who, in addition to facing repayment orders they could not meet or prison also had to pay a share of the court costs. What was perceived by the debtors as unfair interface by the government and the rich in their daily lives was one major reason Berkshire farmers came to support independence from England and also, when matters got worse rather than better after independence, Shay’s Rebellion.

Four judges sat on the court, and cases were generally handled by trial by jury. Appointment as a judge of the Court of Common Pleas was a key first step in a politician's career, and judges often made a healthy income from the court costs paid by litigants. The power of the court was limited in one significant way — cases could and were routinely appealed to Superior Court of Judicature, which for Berkshire appeals, met once a year in Springfield as a part of its annual circuit of the state. 

On May 28, Judge William Whiting ordered, “When we have often commanded you that justly and without delay you should cause to be replevied Brom a Negro man of Sheffield in our said county Laborer, and Bett a Negro Woman of Sheffield aforesaid spinster, whom John Ashley Esq. and John Ashley JuR. Esq. both of Sheffield aforesaid have taken and being [indecipherable text] taken detain (as it is said)….Brom and Bett had asked the court for a writ of replevin, a prejudgment order by the court ordering that property be returned to a party of who claims that the property was taken or held illegally. It is a civil, not a criminal action. The property in Brom & Bett was Brom and Bett themselves, Sedgwick’s theory of the case being that they could not be held as slaves by Ashley because slavery had never been legal in Massachusetts, and even if it had, it was now illegal under the 1780 constitution. The sherrif served Ashley at least twice, asking Brom and Freeman be released under the writ issued by the court. Ashley refused, and the case moved forward to trial.

There is no record of the trial, only of the jury’s verdict. So, we do not know exactly what was argued in court that day. On August 21, 1781 the jury delivered its verdict.

“…the same case is committed to the Jury Jonathan Holcom Foreman and his fellows who being duly sworn return this verdict that in this case the jury find that the aforesaid Brom and Bett are not and were not at the time of the of the purchase of the original writ the legal Negro servants of the said John Ashley during their life [indecipherable text] thirty shillings damages wherefore it is considered by the Court Adjudged and determined that the said Brom & Bett are not, nor were they at the time of the purchase of the original writ the legal Negro of the said John Ashley during life, and that the said Brom & Bett do recover against the said John Ashley the sue of thirty shillings lawful silver Money, Damages, and the Costs of this suit Paned at five pounds fourteen shillings and four pence like Money and hereof, the s. Brom & Bett may have their Executions.”

It was a clear victory for Freeman. After the verdict or perhaps even earlier, Freeman left the Ashley home and went to work for the Sedgwicks. She remained with them until 1807. The jury members freed Brom and Bett because they accepted the argument that slavery had never been legal in Massachusetts and, therefore, Ashley could not own Brom and Bett. Members of the jury made no mention of the constitutional argument, perhaps because they did not accept it or because it was moot; slavery could not be unconstitutional under the new constitution because it did not legally exist before the constitution was enacted in 1780.

Looking back now, with the knowledge we have of the history of slavery in Massachusetts, this rationale for the jury's verdict seems badly flawed. State librarian George Moore's history shows quite clearly that slavery had always existed in Massachusetts and numerous laws had been enacted to support it as well as prevent its demise. We also know that the state government never enacted a law to ban slavery, despite repeated efforts to do so.

Ashley responded as expected and filed an appeal:

“The said John Ashley appeals from the Judgment of this Court to the Supreme Judicial Court to be holden at Great Barrington within and for the County of Berkshire upon the first Tuesday of October next: and John Ashley Jun. Esq. Recognizes with [sureties] as the law Directs for the said John Ashley his prosecuting with asset [sic] this appeal at the said Supreme Court & c. as on file_____.”

The appeal was never heard. Ashley realized it had become redundant and would fail since another freedom case had been heard in appeal in Worcester, Massachusetts, that October, and the notion that slavery was now illegal had been upheld. Consequently, Ashley accepted the jury’s verdict and freed his slaves, the first man in the state to do so on the grounds that slavery was unconstitutional.

Emilie Piper and David Levinson, One Minute A Free Woman: Elizabeth Freeman and the Struggle for Freedom (Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area /African American Heritage Trail, 2010), 70-72.