Born c. 1744
Died December 1829
Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Slave, nurse, midwife

"Anytime, anytime while I was a slave, if one minute's freedom had been offered to me, and I had been told I must die at the end of that minute, I would have taken it—just to stand on God's earth a free woman."
Portrait: Elizabeth Freeman. Reproduced by permission of the Granger Collection, New York.

Elizabeth Freeman, who lived as a slave for thirty years, was known for her courage, wit, kindness, dignity, and intelligence. Her 1781 victory in obtaining freedom from slavery played a large part in putting an end to slavery in the state of Massachusetts.

Freeman was born around 1744, possibly on the estate of Pieter Hogeboom of Claverack, New York; this approximate birth date is based on the fact that she was said to have been about eighty-five years old when she died in...