About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the 21st century.
Although she died 190 years ago, much is known about the woman and her life.
From her will, we know about dresses she wore and things that she owned. We can name some of her relatives, friends and charges. From a contemporary writer, we know about her station in life and events in which she was involved. From those events we can glean her character. From her portrait we know what she looked like at a single moment in time. From her tombstone we know she was loved and respected. What don’t we know?
A movie is being made about Elizabeth Freeman, who was affectionately known as MumBet. Someone will play the former slave. That actress will become the face of MumBet and will craft a voice for her. We only know what she looked like at an age estimated to be 67 years. We do not know how she looked as a child or young woman. We do not know what she sounded like or what her posture, her gait and her gestures were like. Can we determine it at a distance of 300 years?
Let us begin at the end. Her tombstones reads: “ELIZABETH FREEMAN, also known by the name of MUMBET died Dec. 28th 1829. Her supposed age was 85 years. She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years; she could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal. She neither wasted time nor property. She never violated a trust, nor failed to perform a duty. In every situation of domestic trial, she was the most efficient helper and the tenderest friend. Good mother, farewell.”
In the end, she was revered; in the beginning, she was snatched from her home, carried thousands of miles away and sold into slavery. Catharine Sedgwick fills in the middle. In her article “Slavery in New England” (Bentley’s Miscellany in 1853), Sedgwick writes of the outstanding events in Elizabeth Freeman’s life or the events in an outstanding life.
In 1781, at approximately 37 years old, Freeman was a slave in Sheffield who heard the public reading of the Declaration of Independence. She sought the help of attorney Theodore Sedgwick because she believed that that document meant she was entitled to be free. She won her suit in August 1781. From that date to the end of her life, she remained a paid servant in the Sedgwick household. Catharine, a daughter of the house, was in the perfect position to present to the world a written portrait of her “MumBet” (Mother Betty).The following vignettes come from Sedgwick’s pen.
“Madam A [Hannah Hogeboom Ashley] who lived in Sheffield a border-town in the western part of Massachusetts…belonged to the provincial gentry…Her husband [John Ashley] combined the duties of soldier and magistrate and honorably discharged both…He was the gentlest, most benign of men, she a shrew untamable…He was the kindest of masters to his slaves, she the most despotic of mistresses.”
According to an early census, the Ashley household had five slaves. Among them was a woman Sedgwick describes as “a remarkable woman of pure unmixed African race. Her name was Elizabeth Freeman — transmuted to Betty.” Later, she was called “Mammy Bet,” which was shortened to MumBet.
Sedgwick goes on to describe MumBet as chattel of Ashley’s who nonetheless had “no superiors & few equals.”
The first insight into her character comes as Sedgwick describes MumBet’s sister Lirry [other authors claim Lirry was her daughter, not her sister, and call her alternately Lizzy or Libby]. Lirry was “a sickly timid creature over whom she [MumBet] watched as the Lioness does over her cub.”
On one occasion, Lirry was accused by Madame A of the theft of food. In punishment, Madame A raised a hot poker preparatory to striking Lirry. MumBet stepped between them, “imposed her brawny arm and took the blow.” She protected the child but her arm was permanently injured.
MumBet was not above a bit of clever revenge. She refused to cover the wound and when people asked her what happened to her arm, we “hear” Mumbet for the first time.
MumBet replied, “Ask Misses.”
Was she always so brief? When her speech is transcribed, is it also Anglicized? After almost an entire life in American households, did she retain an African accent?
Sedgwick tells another story, different in particulars but similar in that MumBet once again protects a child. Again we “hear” the voice of MumBet. Sedgwick writes what MumBet said, but was it written as she sounded or Anglicized? Is there a hint in what is crossed out?
“It was in May,” MumBet said, “just the time of the apple-blossoms. I was wetting the linen that was bleaching when a smallish girl came into the gate, & up the lane & straight onto me, & asked said to me without raising her eyes ‘where is Generalyour master? I must speak with him’. I told her she said that my master was absent — that he would not come home before night. ‘Then I must stay’ she said, ‘for I must speak with him.’ I set down my watering-pot & told her to come with me into the house — I saw it was no common case. Girls Galsin trouble were often coming to Master [‘Girls in trouble’ is a definite rustic phrase indicating but one species of difficulty trouble]. But I never saw one look like this. The blood seemed to have stopped in her veins — Her face & neck were all in blotches of red, & white — She had bitten her lip through — her voice was hoarse & husky — & her eye lids seemed to settle down as if she could never raise them again — I showed her into a bedroom next the kitchen & shut the door, hoping Madam would not mistrust it — for she never overlooked anybody’s wrong doing but her own, and she had a partic’lar hatred of gals that had met with a misfortune – she could not abide them — She saw me bring the gal in — it was just her luck — she always saw everything — I heard her coming, & I threw open the bed-room door — for being that I could not no way hide the poor child — she was not over fifteen — I detarmined [is Sedgwick spelling the way MumBet sounded?] to stand by her — As soon as Missess had When Madam had got half across the kitchen in full sight of the child she turned to me & her eyes flashing like a cat’s in the dark — she asked me what that baggage wanted?”
Madame A wants to throw the child out but MumBet asserts her right to appeal any case to the man of the house and prevails. The young girl presents her case of abuse to Ashley and justice is done. Her father is imprisoned and the girl is placed in a safer home.
Do we finally know what MumBet sounded like? Possibly, but we begin to know what she was like.
“MumBet’s character was composed of few & strong elements. Action was the law of her nature…a state of servitude was intolerable.”
And now we get a glimpse of her: “Bet, had a love of splendid wear, & till the last of her long life, went on accumulating chintzes & silks…[she had] an emphatic shake of the head peculiar to her…Mum-Bet perfectly maintained the decorum of her station, but her integrity, her resolute mind, and intelligence were apparent in her deportment, and made those above her feel that their superior station was but an accident.” Can you see and hear her now?
