Statue honors enslaved woman who won freedom in Mass. court
The story of an enslaved woman who went to court to win her freedom more than 80 years before the Emancipation Proclamation had been pushed to the fringes of history.
A group of civic leaders, activists and historians hope that ended last Sunday in the quiet Massachusetts town of Sheffield with the unveiling of a bronze statue of the woman who chose the name Elizabeth Freeman when she shed the chains of slavery 241 years ago.
Her story remains relatively obscure.
State Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli grew up not far from Sheffield in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts yet didn’t hear her story until about 20 years ago. He found that many of his colleagues in the Statehouse were also largely in the dark about the significance of her case, which set the legal precedent that essentially ended slavery in Massachusetts.
“She’s clearly a hidden figure in American history, and I really believe Black history is American history,” said Pignatelli, a Democrat. “But unfortunately, Black history is what we haven’t been told and taught.”
The enslaved woman, known as Bett, could not read or write, but she listened.
And what she heard did not make sense.
While she toiled in bondage in the household of Col. John Ashley, he and other prominent citizens of Sheffield met to discuss their grievances about British tyranny. In 1773, they wrote in what are known as the Sheffield Resolves that “Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other.”
Those words were echoed in Article 1 of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, which begins “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights.”
It is believed that Bett, after hearing a public reading of the constitution, walked roughly 5 miles
In District 4, “only a DeSantis-supported candidate would have won,” said Penelas. The district covers a large swath of northwest Miami-Dade, including Miami Lakes and the GOP stronghold of Hialeah.
But, Penelas added, when it comes to Alonso’s decision-making, “Time will tell whether he’s only going to be a spokesman for the governor or if he’s going to be an independent thinker, and we’ve expressed those concerns.”
Penelas, who’s been a friend of Alonso and his family for more than three decades, said Alonso has broken with the party in the past and proven on various occasions to act independently. Alonso, he added, has “earned a chance to prove his skeptics wrong.”
Hochkammer, however, was more hesitant.
“These are not grassroots candidates. These are ideological candidates,” she said. “To expect ideologically indebted people on the board to suddenly discover their backbone when faced with the deep pockets of Gov. DeSantis is beyond naive.”
ALONSO’S CONNECTIONS TO MANNY DIAZ
In addition to his relationship with DeSantis, Alonso also has a longstanding relationship with from the Ashley household to the home of attorney Theodore Sedgwick, one of the citizens who drafted the Sheffield Resolves, and asked him to represent her in her legal quest for freedom, said Paul O’Brien, president of the Sheffield Historical Society.
Sedgwick and another attorney, Tapping Reeve, took the case.
Women had limited legal rights in Massachusetts courts at the time, so a male slave in the Ashley household named Brom was added to the case.
The jury agreed with the attorneys, freeing Bett and Brom on Aug. 21, 1781.
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr., who celebrated Alonso’s victory Tuesday at Paraiso Tropical in Hialeah. At the party, the commissioner told the Herald he and Alonso were good friends and that he wasn’t surprised by the election’s outcome.
When asked on Thursday how the commissioner would balance his personal and professional relationship with Alonso to ensure there would be no conflict, Alex Lanfranconi, the director of communications for the Florida Department of Education, said in an email, that “all school board members serve as constitutional officers elected by the people. Any insinuation of a conflict of interest based upon personal friendship is both comical and shameful.”
COLUCCI’S CONNECTIONS TO LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
Colucci has the political backing of Nuñez, the Florida lieutenant governor.
Nuñez’s aligned political committee, Jobs for Prosperity for Florida, paid for political mail advertisements sent to voters to promote Colucci’s candidacy and contributed $1,000 to Colucci’s campaign, according to campaign finance records. Colucci left teaching to work in the governor’s executive office from February 2019 to August 2020 as the special assistant to Nuñez, but the two have been friends since their college years at Florida International University.
For their part, both Alonso and Colucci have maintained they will act independently from the governor.
Colucci couldn’t be reached on Friday, but in an interview with the Herald’s Editorial Board in June, she said she prides herself on being an independent
Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and his wife, Diane, are residents of the Berkshires and have been instrumental in fundraising and organizational efforts. They led Sunday’s ceremony.
“What I love about the story is that this remarkable woman, enslaved, sometimes brutalized, unable to read, listened carefully to the conversation around the table as the men she was serving discussed the concepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as ‘inalienable rights,’” Patrick, the state’s first Black governor, said in an email. “I love that this thinker “because that’s what I instill in my students. [But] If I agree with someone, that’s what it is, and I am in agreement with the governor’s platform.”
Alonso rejected that he will be beholden to the governor’s agenda, he told the Herald on Friday. The only group of people influencing him will be those in District 4, who lean conservative and often align with the views of DeSantis, he said. Moreover, he defended his relationship with Tallahassee and said it will benefit the school community.
There’s never been a governor in Florida as invested, or involved, in education, he said, and while some can argue the political nature of it, he believes the interest from Tallahassee can be wielded to improve schools, increase teacher pay and provide schools with the latest technology.
Many have strongly criticized the governor’s involvement in schools.
In March, several politicians — including MiamiDade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava; State Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Miami Gardens Democrat; and former Florida governor and U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, who won his primary race Tuesday to challenge DeSantis in the November election for governor — condemned DeSantis for signing the “Parental Rights in Education” bill. Critics have dubbed the measure Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which bars discussions of sexuality and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade in Florida public schools.
More recently, teachers across South Florida raised concerns that a new state civics initiative spearheaded by the administration and designed to prepare students to be “virtuous citizens” was infused with a Christian and conservative ideology. powerless woman could imagine these powerful ideas as her own, and could persuade others to test that question. And I love that the Massachusetts courts had the integrity of purpose to take her question seriously.”
Pignatelli was inspired to raise a statue of Freeman last year when he attended the unveiling of a statue of Susan B. Anthony in Adams, the Berkshire County community where the suffragist was born.
He brought together stakeholders and raised about $280,000, enough money for the roughly 8-foot statue, as well as a
DESANTIS’ EDUCATION AGENDA
Tuesday’s election results follow DeSantis’ decision to make education — and controversial education issues — part of his political platform.
In addition to signing the “Parental Rights in Education” bill in the spring, the governor also signed a law that limits how race and racism is taught in universities and in workplace training. A federal judge earlier this month blocked the restrictions related to workplace training, saying that portion of the law violates the First Amendment.
The measures have been particularly troublesome for many teachers, who fear they inhibit their teaching and strip away their creativity.
Despite the two new board members’ political connections, Gallon, the board’s vice chair, told the Herald he isn’t “looking to anticipate one’s personal or political ideology.”
Instead, he has the “utmost confidence” both Alonso and Colucci will aim to serve in the best interest of their communities and the district, he said. “I maintain the premise and believe that those who choose to serve, especially in education, do so on behalf and in the interest of students. The outcome of [the] election has not changed my optimism and outlook in this belief.”
THE FIGHT OVER THE SEX-ED TEXTBOOK
The election comes just weeks after the board flip-flopped on a decision to adopt a comprehensive sexual-health textbook to which a small group of parents raised objections over the age-appropriateness of the sex education content.
The board first adopted the book, but after concerns were raised — an effort led by by Alex Serrano, scholarship fund in Freeman’s honor for area high school students.
Gwendolyn VanSant, the CEO of BRIDGE, an area nonprofit that fosters racial understanding and equity, is overseeing the scholarships.
She called Freeman an icon and a trailblazer. “For me as an African American woman, it’s amazing to be walking in her footsteps,” she said.
After the court case, Ashley asked Freeman to return to his household as a paid servant, but she refused and instead went to work for Sedgwick, where she helped raise his children and was known by the affectionate name Mumbet.
She was a healer, a nurse and a midwife who bought her own property in nearby Stockbridge, VanSant said.
The Sedgwicks had such a deep respect for Mumbet that when she died in 1829 at about the age of 85, she was buried with them, the only non-family member in the family plot. Much of what historians know about her was written by one of Theodore Sedgwick’s daughters, novelist Catharine Maria Sedgwick, O’Brien said.
The statue, cast by renowned sculptor Brian Hanlon, was placed on the property of the First Congregational Church in Sheffield, not far from the Sedgwick home.
“We don’t know if Elizabeth Freeman went to the church, but we know Ashley did, and it was common for enslavers to bring enslaved people to look after their children at church,” said O’Brien.
Organizers of Sunday’s event have been unable to find any of Freeman’s descendants.
VanSant hopes a permanent memorial will spur interest into Freeman’s story. “Maybe her descendants will find us,” she said.
the county director for County Citizens Defending Freedom, a national organization with ties to conservative and politically active Christian groups — an independent review process was conducted by a district hearing officer, who later recommended that the
School Board adopt the book.
The School Board rejected the recommendations of the hearing officer, whom Superintendent Jose Dotres had appointed to review the matter, and voted 5-4 at the end of
July to essentially ban the sex-ed textbook. (District officials said Friday
Dotres was not available to comment.)
A week later, Tabares Hantman, whom Alonso is succeeding, switched her vote in favor of the book. Pérez, however, remained against the book.
Despite Tabares Hantman switching her vote, she and Pérez have had a conservative voting record during their decades-long tenures.
That’s why, for this election, Penelas argued, the issue wasn’t so much about their politics, but whether or not the two candidates backed by DeSantis — Alonso and Colucci — were willing to support the governor’s agenda or break free from him if they disagreed.
“When it comes down to issues in Miami-Dade County that impacts schoolchildren here, are they going to be sufficiently independent to stand up and vote the way they should on that particular issue or will they have to vote the way the governor wants them to vote?” asked Penelas, who was once a rising star in the Democratic Party of Florida. “And that worries a lot of people.”
Sommer Brugal: @smbrugal