In America, the Rule of Law is a cherished notion, as is the concept that it applies equally to everyone. But for a part of American history, it didn’t. Still, even those whom the law didn’t protect were able to use it to attain justice, and occasionally when they did they rewrote the American story.
This is the Forgotten History of the Slave who Sued for Freedom.
In June of 1780, bells across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts rang in celebration. The colony's new constitution had been ratified.
"All men are born free and equal," the document began, "and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness."
Four years after the new nation declared its independence from Great Britain and while the War for Independence raged, one of its colonies established a governing structure that would have as its guiding principle the absolute freedom of its people. So powerful was this idea and so eloquent its phrasing that the Massachusetts Constitution served as the model for the U.S. Constitution seven years later.
But on a warm summer's day in 1780, one resident of Massachusetts wasn't as overjoyed as the others. Bett was downright irritated. She wasn't born free and equal. She didn't have unalienable rights or, for that matter, any rights at all. She wasn't even legally a citizen of Massachusetts. She was property. She was a slave.
And when she heard the bells ringing in the new birth of freedom for all in Massachusetts, she knew that those bells didn't ring for her. And she knew that they should.
Bett served in the home of Colonel John Ashley. In 1773, three years before America declared its independence, Ashley hosted the Town of Sheffield's leading citizens in drafting a powerful rebuke against the tyranny of the hated British.
"Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty, and property," they wrote in what became known as the Sheffield Declaration. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson used this as the basis for the opening of the Declaration of Independence.
Four years after that, when Bett heard the new Massachusetts Constitution read aloud in the Sheffield town square, she declared her own independence and walked purposefully to the offices of a young lawyer named Theodore Sedgwick, who helped draft the Sheffield Declaration eight years earlier.
"I heard that paper read yesterday, that says, all men are created equal, and that every man has a right to freedom," she told him. "I'm not a dumb critter; won't the law give me my freedom?"
Bett could neither read nor write, but she had just initiated the country's very first Constitutional Law case.
Sedgwick thought for a while. This was a slave--she didn't have any legal rights and, technically, since she had run away from her master's home, Sedgwick could get in trouble for harboring her. Then again, she was right. "All men are born free and equal" was pretty unambiguous. Bett was as free and equal as he or any other person in Massachusetts.
He took her case and, enlisting the help of Tapping Reeve--one of the colony's most famous attorneys--pursued a novel legal strategy. They sued Colonel Ashley and filed a writ of replevin demanding the release of property that Ashley illegally possessed, namely Bett and a fellow slave named Brom. Since Massachusetts' Constitution provided that all men are born free, then it would be illegal for Ashley to deprive Brom and Bett of their freedom by enslaving them.
Unsurprisingly, Ashley ignored the writ and their case went to trial. Astonishingly, Brom and Bett won.
"Brom & Bett are not, nor were they at the time of the purchase of the original writ the legal Negro of the said John Ashley," the jury ruled, awarding the two newly freed citizens fair wages for the work they had done for Ashley and ordering him to pay 30 shillings in damages plus court costs.
Later that year, Brom and Bett v. Ashley was cited in the case of Quock Walker--another slave who sued for his freedom by arguing that the Massachusetts Constitution made slavery a legal impossibility. Following two civil suits and a criminal case against the master who beat him, Walker won his freedom and slavery in Massachusetts--which had become incredibly unpopular as the colony fought for freedom in the Revolution--was gradually abolished.
There was no formal declaration, but the revolution that Bett had started effectively ended when Walker won his freedom.
Boosted in part by the notoriety of his work on Bett's case, Theodore Sedgwick launched a career in politics, serving as a state representative, Congressman, and Senator before being appointed to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
All the while, Bett was with him. After she had won her freedom, she worked as a free woman in his home for years, raising his children, who lovingly called her "Mum Bett." But as a free woman, she needed a proper name, and when it came time to pick one for herself, the choice was obvious.
She became Elizabeth Freeman.