Sheffield, Mass. will be the scene of the unveiling of a statue of Elizabeth Freeman, a Black woman whose courageous actions led to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. The new statue will be unveiled on August 21, 2022 in the Berkshire location. Elizabeth Freeman was an enslaved woman who won her freedom in a lawsuit on Aug. 21, 1781. According to local news sources, the unveiling will take place at noon at the Sheffield Green near the Old Stone Store. Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick will lead the ceremony.
Elizabeth Freeman was part of the 2% of Massachusetts’s population at the time of the Revolution that was enslaved. Sheffield’s people had drafted a resolution in 1773, before the start of the Revolution, declaring that “Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other.” Article 1 of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 contained similar language, saying that “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights.”
When Elizabeth Freeman was badly scarred by her owner’s wife who hit her with a shovel, Freeman sought out the lawyer who had helped draft the Sheffield Resolve in 1773 and he filed suit on her behalf arguing that if “All men are born free,” slavery was illegal. The successful lawsuit effectively ended slavery in Massachusetts without civil war.
I have thought about Freeman for years. She was enslaved by violent owners with who she had to live for the rest of her life if her suit was unsuccessful. How brave does a person have to be to do that? Freeman explained her motivation to her lawyer’s daughter:
“Any time, any time while I was a slave, if one minute’s freedom had been offered to me & I had been told I must die at the end of that minute I would have taken it — just to stand one minute on God’s earth a free woman — — I would.”
Note: Feature illustration is a painting of Elizabeth Freeman.
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