Everything about Mum Bett totally explained
Mum Bett, later known as
Elizabeth Freeman, (c.1742 - 1829) was the first black woman to be set free in the United States, and great-grandmother to
W.E.B. DuBois.
Mum Bett was born into slavery at the farm of
Pieter Hoogeboom in
Claverack, New York. When Pieter died, Mum Bett was left with Pieter's daughter and her husband, John Ashley of
Sheffield, Massachusetts, and she served with them until 1780. During that time she married and had a child. Her husband was killed in combat during the
Revolutionary War.
In 1780, Mum Bett prevented her mistress from striking her sister Lizzy with a heated shovel and was struck instead. She immediately left the Ashley house and refused to return. When John Ashley appealed to the law to force her to return, Mum Bett sought the counsel of
Theodore Sedgwick, an abolitionist-minded lawyer, who in turn enlisted the aid of
Tapping Reeve, the founder of America's first law school.
Mum Bett had overheard conversation regarding Massachusett's new constitution which was adopted in 1780. She reasoned that her right to freedom was now coded into law. The exact wording was as follows:
Sedgwick willingly accepted her case, as well as that of a man named Brom who was another of Ashley's slaves, and used that very defense - contending that "
all men are born free and equal" was fully applicable in the situation. The case of
Brom and Bett vs. Ashley was heard in August 1781 before the County Court of Common Pleas in
Great Barrington. When the jury ruled in her favor, she became the first African American woman to be set free under the Massachusetts constitution. The jury found that Brom and Bett had been illegally detained in servitude by the Ashleys, assessed damages of thirty shillings, and awarded Mum Bett compensation for her labor from age 21 onwards.
After the ruling, John Ashley pleaded with Bett to return to his house and work for wages. Instead, Bett changed her name and went to work for the household of her lawyer, Theodore Sedgwick. She remained in his service for a number of years. In later years she was well known for her skill as a midwife and nurse. As a free woman, she and her daughter also set up a house of their own. One of her great-grandchildren was
W.E.B. DuBois.
Elizabeth Freeman was around 87 years old when she died in 1829. She was buried in the
Sedgwick family plot in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her tombstone is engraved:
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