On this day in 1781, the slave Elizabeth Freeman sued for her freedom

21 August 1781

More than 80 years before the Emancipation Proclamation, a slave named Elizabeth Freeman sued for her freedom in Massachusetts. The chances of her winning her case before a dozen white men seemed impossible.

Freeman worked for Col. John Ashley, whose wife was unkind to the slaves. When she attacked Freeman's daughter with a hot shovel, Freeman blocked the blow, leaving a deep scar on her arm. She left the scar visible as evidence of the mistreatment.

She first learned of freedom from Col. Ashley, moderator of the committee that drafted the Sheffield Declaration, which stated that all mankind was equal and free—a phrase later used in the Declaration of Independence and the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. When she heard that all men were born free and equal, she turned to her neighbor, lawyer Theodore Sedgwick, who agreed to represent her and a man Ashley had enslaved.

The jury found in their favor and awarded them 30 shillings in damages. She gave herself the name Elizabeth Freeman and stated: “During my slavery I would have been offered one minute's freedom and told that at the end of that minute I must die, and I would have accepted it – just to stand for one minute as a free woman on God's earth.”

Ashley tried to persuade her to return to his house as a paid servant, but instead she worked for Sedgwick, who became Speaker of the House of Representatives in Congress.

Her case and others led to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declaring that slavery was incompatible with the state constitution. After 20 years, she bought her own home on 20 acres and was buried in the Sedgwick family plot in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Her tombstone reads: “She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write, yet in her own domain she had no one superior or equal to her.”

A statue is dedicated to her today in the exhibition “Slavery and Freedom” at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.