Sheffield — On this day 243 years ago, enslaved Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, stood in a courthouse in Great Barrington, beside a male slave (women were not allowed to stand alone in court), trying not to think about what their owners Colonel John Ashley and his wife would do to them if their case failed. But the ruling was unanimous. The Massachusetts State Constitution, ratified the previous year, which said, “Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other and have the right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty, and property,” applied to her as well.
On August 21, 1781, Elizabeth Freeman gained her freedom by simply suing for it, and two years later, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to ban slavery, based on her precedent-setting case.
“The onus was on the enslaved person to tell their owner that they were free,” said Anne-Elizabeth Barnes at the event in Sheffield on Sunday to celebrate Freeman’s life. “It didn’t become the law of the land, it was legislated in a different way, but by the 1790 census there were no slaves listed anywhere.”
With Jana Laiz, Barnes wrote a biography of Freeman, “A Free Woman on God’s Earth,” available at the Old Stone Store in Sheffield. For 15 years, the two women have been running a walk commemorating the one Freeman made to ask lawyer Theodore Sedgwick for help obtaining her freedom.
On the drizzly morning of August 18, only six walkers took part in the four-mile walk from the Ashley House, at Bartholomew’s Cobble, to downtown Sheffield. But many gathered afterward on the grounds of the Sheffield Historical Society. Nadia Milleron, Independent candidate for the 1st Congressional District, opened the ceremony by reading a Proclamation the Massachusetts House of Representatives wrote in 2016 on the 235th anniversary of Freeman’s emancipation. As Milleron pointed out, it was a “bloodless transition,” achieved by rule of law, rather than civil war.
Musician and Sheffield resident Wanda Houston then read excerpts from the one-woman play “Meet Elizabeth Freeman,” written by Teresa Miller for the Museum of the American Revolution several years ago. Houston performed it at the Old Parish Church when Sheffield’s Elizabeth Freeman statue was commemorated in 2022, and then in three schools, among other places.
“They called me Mumbet. I was born a slave, and I was given to Hannah when I was just a child, maybe eight or nine years old,” Houston began. “She got married to Colonel John Ashley … and that’s how I come to Sheffield.” Mumbet cooked and cleaned for the unpleasant Mistress Ashley. She describes being hit one with a hot shovel from the stove.” She was also a midwife and healer in the community.
Houston enacts Mumbet watching the men as they signed and toasted the Constitution, and read aloud its words about freedom. Later, she followed Theodore Sedgwick home, and asked him, “Did you mean that?” And so he came to represent her in court. Afterward, she went to live and work for the Sedgewick family, and is buried in their plot in Stockbridge.
Col. John Ashley appealed the case, but it was never heard. Later, he came to realize slavery was unconstitutional and freed his other slaves.
“When you consider that this was the beginning of what turned into the Civil War,” said Houston in the Q&A and conversation after her performance, “the fact that this is not known, that this is not part of the American story, is fascinating to me.” We always hear about the South, she said, and gloss over the slaves that were up here in the North.
“This story is major, it’s an incredible story, an American story, and it needs to be a part of every history book. Every child needs to hear this because this is what ended it; the beginning of making us who we are and our identity as a nation.”
Regarding her performance, which the audience loved, she said one of the hardest parts was deciding what Mumbet sounded like. Mumbet first lived with a Dutch family and spoke Dutch, but Houston said, “the Southern thing comes out when I get comfortable. But I tried to make her sound more Eastern.”
Houston, who is from Chicago, talked about how when she came here and drove through Great Barrington for the first time, the “birthplace of W.E.B. Du Bois” signs told her, “This is a friendly community. These are people who recognize their history. A sign up like that that tells me I’m in a safe place.”
“History is so vital, history is happening right now,” she continued. “We have to stand together in what needs to happen and what needs to change, whether it’s reparations or gender freedom; we have to decide who we are as a nation and who we are as a people and what’s important for the freedom of all people.”
Houston said she goes around telling people Mumbet’s story, including a young man she bought a car from recently, who was upset he was turning 30. “Honey, you better be glad,” she told him, “I’m twice your age,” and did he know the story? “This is the land that you live on,” she told him, “this is where we are. Massachusetts is an amazing state to be in. What started this great country is all right here.”
