Mumbet: The Life and Times of Elizabeth Freeman : The True Story of a Slave Who Won Her Freedom (Avisson Young Adult Series)

Wilds, Mary

ISBN 10: 1888105402 ISBN 13: 9781888105407

Publisher: Avisson Pr Inc, 1999

Synopsis

A biography of the eighteenth-century female slave whose court case helped to set precedents that would bar slavery in Massachusetts

About this title

From Booklist:

In 1781, a black slave, MumBet (aka Elizabeth Freeman), heard the Declaration of Independence read at a town meeting in Sheffield, Massachusetts. The next day she went to a local attorney and asked him to file a lawsuit demanding her freedom. Two years later, MumBet won her lawsuit and became a free woman. Her trial helped set the legal precedents that ended slavery in New England. This brief biography gives the basics of MumBet's life and describes the troubled times in which she lived. There are tantalizing glimpses of a remarkable woman of action--a woman who dared to defy her cruel mistress and was scarred for life with a red-hot shovel as a result; a woman who foiled looters during Shay's Rebellion; a woman who made a new life for herself. Young adults will remember MumBet and her passionate outburst: "Any time, any time 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 one minute on God's earth a free woman, I would." Bibliography with primary and secondary sources; end notes. Jean Franklin

From School Library Journal:

Grade 7 UpThis book is, in fact, as much (or more) about Revolutionary American times and attitudes about slavery as it is about Elizabeth Freeman. This is because not much is known about MumBets life and the author has, therefore, filled in with a lot of history. The book is a bit confusing and somewhat dry, but there is a lot of information about the lives of African Americans in Colonial society, all meticulously footnoted within the text. Because there is only one primary account of MumBets personal life, Wilds turns to suppositional statements such as One can safely assume that and must have been to flesh out the lack of detail. When facts are available, MumBet comes across as a woman of strong character. In her portrait, the one illustration in the book, her face bespeaks determination and dignity. An additional purchase for history shelves rather than the biography section.Randi Hacker, Montgomery Elementary School, VT
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Avisson Pr Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1888105402
• ISBN 13: 9781888105407
• Binding: Library Binding
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 104