Elizabeth Freeman's Silence and the Stories of Mumbet

‘Good Mother, Farewell’: Elizabeth Freeman’s Silence and the Stories of Mumbet sari edelstein Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/tneq/article-pdf/92/4/584/1793389/tneq_a_00770.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 ESTLED among pine trees and set apart from the rest N of the graves in the Stockbridge Cemetery in the Berk- shires, the region of western Massachusetts defined by its low- lying mountains, lies the Sedgwick family plot. Known as the “Sedgwick Pie” because of its unconventional circular shape, the plot is centered around Judge Theodore Sedgwick, who died in 1813, and his wife Pamela, their posterity spiraling out in concentric circles beyond them. The lore is that Judge Sedg- wick decreed that his descendants be buried around him with their feet facing the center so when they arose on Judgment Day, they would meet one another’s eyes first. But arguably the most noteworthy person interred in the Sedgwick plot is not a member of the family at all.1 Elizabeth Freeman is the only person buried in the Sedg- wick plot who is not a Sedgwick by blood or marriage.2 She was enslaved in Sheffield, Massachusetts in the late eighteenth century and successfully sued the Commonwealth for eman- cipation, thus establishing a legal precedent for the abolition I am grateful to Holly Jackson, Megan Marshall, David Levinson, David Lambert, Betsy Klimasmith, Jill McDonough, Susan Tomlinson, Julia Dauer, and Catherine Buf- foni at the Stockbridge Library for helpful suggestions and encouragement and to the peer reviewers for their indispensable feedback. 1For a recollection of this family lore, see Jean Stein, Edie: An American Girl (New York: Grove Press, 1994), 3–4. See also Eric Goldscheider, “Stockbridge Savors Being Small,” Boston Globe, November 6, 2005. 2There is at least one pet buried in the Pie, a dog known as “our Helen.” The New England Quarterly, vol. XCII, no. 4 (December 2019). C 2019 by The New England Quarterly. All rights reserved. https://doi.org/10.1162/tneq_a_00770. 584 STORIES OF MUMBET 585 of slavery in Massachusetts.3 Upon achieving legal freedom, she lived with and worked for the Sedgwick family for over twenty years in Stockbridge, where she holds the status of a local hero: there is a longstanding campaign to feature her portrait on a postage stamp, an annual Mum Bett Day celebra- tion, and a center to protect and support victims of domestic violence named in her honor. While Freeman has received less Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/tneq/article-pdf/92/4/584/1793389/tneq_a_00770.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 attention beyond the Berkshires, appearing only in passing in a handful of scholarly studies, her national reputation has grown in recent years.4 The New York Times devoted a full page to her portrait in “The 1619 Project” on the history of US slavery; she is featured at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, at the new Museum of African American History in Washington DC, and last year, the actress Octavia Spencer optioned the rights to develop a Hollywood film based on her life.5 But Freeman never told her own story. This essay considers Freeman’s biography, first, as it was written by one of the Sedg- wicks in the early nineteenth century; then, as it circulates in contemporary children’s and young adult literature; and finally, in relation to questions about the recovery and repurposing of 3Freeman’s lawsuit was one of many “freedom suits” initiated by enslaved people in Massachusetts and other colonies in the years leading up to the Revolution. In Massachusetts alone, “from 1760 to 1779, African Americans initiated twenty freedom suits.” See Christopher Cameron, To Plead Your Own Cause: African Americans in Massachusetts and the Making of the Anti-Slavery Movement (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2014), 72. 4Freeman is discussed briefly in Manisha Sinha’s The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), Jasmine Nicole Cobb’s Picture Freedom: Remaking Black Visuality in the Early Nineteenth Century (New York: New York University Press, 2015), and Catherine Adams and Elizabeth Pleck’s Love of Free- dom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). For a discussion of the legal significance of the case, see Arthur Zilversmit “Quok Walker, Mumbet, and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts” The William and Mary Quarterly 25 (1968): 614–24. For an analysis of Freeman’s portrait, see Catherine E. Kelly, Republic of Taste: Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). For discussions of Freeman in relation to Catharine Maria Sedgwick, see Lucinda L. Damon-Bach and Victoria Clements, eds., Catharine Maria Sedgwick: Critical Perspectives (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002). 5Dave McNary, “Octavia Spencer to Executive Produce Anti-Slavery Movie ‘Mum- bet,”’ Variety, April 2, 2018. For information on Freeman in popular culture, see this website: https://elizabethfreeman.mumbet.com 586 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY early American black lives. I want to consider how and why she ended up entombed with the Sedgwicks and to examine the ideological consequences of the narratives that have been told about her long life. The recent proliferation of children’s books on Freeman vividly demonstrates the desire for a celebratory national story, one that can be seamlessly woven into grade- school curricula that enshrine the founding ideals and ennoble Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/tneq/article-pdf/92/4/584/1793389/tneq_a_00770.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 exceptional individuals. And yet, Freeman’s story is more com- plex than such accounts allow, and the instrumentalization of her life narrative raises questions about the stories told in the absence or suppression of archival material and about how narrative serves as one tool among many for the containment of black lives, even those that are celebrated. While there are no records of her birth or early life, Freeman is believed to have been born into slavery in the town of Clav- erack in upstate New York around 1744. She was enslaved by Pieter Hogeboom, a New York farmer of Dutch ancestry, who had ten children. Pieter’s youngest daughter Hannah (Annetje) married Colonel John Ashley, a prominent judge and one of the largest land and slaveholders in Berkshire County. At some point after their marriage, Freeman was brought to the Ash- ley estate in Sheffield, Massachusetts.6 Ashley enslaved at least five people to work his grist and cider mills, his ironworks, and more than 3,000 acres of land.7 For most of the Revolutionary War, Freeman remained enslaved by the Ashleys, but in 1781, she filed a freedom suit on the grounds that slavery violated the newly ratified Massachusetts Constitution. A local lawyer and 6No records of Freeman’s move from New York to Massachusetts have been found. Some speculate that Freeman was brought to the Ashleys as an infant while others argue it was later in her life, given that she brought with her items from her mother and father. Mary Wilds, for example, makes the point that the mention of a “short gown that was my mother’s” in the will suggests that she was older when sold or sent to the Ashley household. Mary Wilds, Mumbet: The Life and Times of Elizabeth Freeman: The True Story of a Slave (Greensboro, NC: Avisson Press, 1999). 7Town of Sheffield, Massachusetts, Tax Valuation List of 1771, New England Ge- nealogical Society, Boston, MA. STORIES OF MUMBET 587 aspiring political figure, Theodore Sedgwick represented Free- man, and after they won the case, she moved into the Sedg- wick home, where for twenty-seven years, she worked as a head servant in the household and cared for Theodore Sedgwick’s seven children, who described her as a “mother” and eventu- ally buried her in their family plot. The Sedgwick family has a long and storied past in New Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/tneq/article-pdf/92/4/584/1793389/tneq_a_00770.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 England; their first ancestors arrived in this country inthe seventeenth century, but it was Theodore Sedgwick who es- tablished the family’s reputation. As a young lawyer in the Berkshires, Sedgwick, along with John Ashley and other local leaders, drafted the Sheffield Resolves, a petition against British tyranny and a manifesto for individual rights published in 1773, which included the line: “Mankind in a state of na- ture are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property.” Sedgwick’s sentences would inspire Thomas Jef- ferson’s articulation of natural rights and individual liberty in the Declaration of Independence. In the years after the Revolution, Theodore Sedgwick molded himself into an iconic American statesman; he de- signed a regal Federalist house in Stockbridge, served as a US representative and senator from Massachusetts, befriended George Washington, attended the Continental Congress, and was the recipient of the last letter written by Alexander Hamil- ton. Along with his wife, Pamela Dwight Sedgwick, who was re- lated to the Williamses who founded Williams College in 1793, Sedgwick became the patriarch of a large family that has de- manded public attention for the last two centuries with a ge- nealogy that includes an iconic editor of the Atlantic Monthly, Ellery Sedgwick; Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol’s tragic muse; and Kyra Sedgwick, Hollywood actress. Sedgwicks have written memoirs, published books, and left batches of correspondence; indeed, the family is so prolific that their voluminous archive is the second-largest at the Massachusetts Historical Society, ri- valed only by John Adams and his family.

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