Freedman

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For people named Freedman, see Friedman.
Not to be confused with The Freed Man, Freeman (disambiguation), or Freed (disambiguation).

A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from

fugitive slave
is a person who escaped enslavement by fleeing.

Ancient Rome

Main articles: Ancient Roman freedmen and Slavery in ancient Rome
Cinerary urn for the freedman Tiberius Claudius Chryseros and two women, probably his wife and daughter

Rome differed from

Roman citizen enjoyed not only passive freedom from ownership, but active political freedom (libertas), including the right to vote.[2] A slave who had acquired libertas was known as a libertus ("freed person", feminine liberta) in relation to his former master, who was called his or her patron (patronus
).

As a social class, freed slaves were liberti, though later Latin texts used the terms libertus and libertini interchangeably.

senatorial rank. During the early Empire, however, freedmen held key positions in the government bureaucracy, so much so that Hadrian limited their participation by law.[4]
Any future children of a freedman would be born free, with full rights of citizenship.

The

civil servants in the Roman bureaucracy
. In addition, Claudius passed legislation concerning slaves, including a law stating that sick slaves abandoned by their owners became freedmen if they recovered. The emperor was criticized for using freedmen in the Imperial Courts.

Some freedmen enjoyed enormous success and became quite wealthy. The brothers who owned House of the Vettii, one of the biggest and most magnificent houses in Pompeii, are thought to have been freedmen. A freedman who became rich and influential might still be looked down on by the traditional aristocracy as a vulgar nouveau riche. Trimalchio, a character in the Satyricon of Petronius, is a caricature of such a freedman.

Scandinavia

Main article: Leysingi

Arab-Muslim and North African slavery

Main articles: Arab slave trade, Barbary slave trade, and Indian Ocean slave trade
Further information: History of slavery in the Muslim world, Slavery in the Ottoman Empire, and Turkish Abductions
Arab-Muslim slave traders and their African captives in the Sahara, 19th century.

The term "Eastern slave trade" refers to the Arab slave trade that supplied the early Muslim conquests throughout the Arab-Muslim world from the 7th to the 20th centuries,[5][6][7] peaking in the 18th and 19th centuries. This term, which covers the Arab-Muslim slave trade, is symmetrical with the term "Western slave trade", which refers to the triangular trade on the Western coasts of Africa that supplied the European colonization of the Americas, and which includes the Atlantic slave trade.[8]

The slaves of the Eastern slave trade came mainly from

Eurasian steppes.[7][9][10]

The offspring of

Mamluks were regarded as Muslim freedmen, and hence excluded from the Arab-Muslim slave trade; they were known as the awlād al-nās ("sons of respectable people"), who either fulfilled scribal and administrative functions or served as commanders of the non-Mamluk ḥalqa troops, serving the ruling Arab and Ottoman dynasties in the Muslim world.[7]

United States

Main article: Free Negro
Freedman with an old horn used to call slaves photographed in Texas, 1939

In the

wills
) were generally referred to as "free Negroes" or "free Blacks". In addition, there was a population of African Americans born free.

The great majority of families of free

Upper South colonies, and then west into Kentucky, the future West Virginia, and Tennessee.[11]
In addition, during the first two decades after the Revolution, slaveholders freed thousands of slaves in the Upper South, inspired by revolutionary ideals. Most Northern states abolished slavery, some on a gradual basis.

In Louisiana and other areas of the former New France, free African people were classified in French as gens de couleur libres. They were generally born to African or mixed-race mothers and European American fathers of ethnic French or other European ancestry. The fathers sometimes freed their children and sexual partners, leading to the growth of the community of Creoles of color, or free people of color. New Orleans had the largest community of free people of color, well-established before the U.S. acquired Louisiana. The French and Spanish colonial rulers had given the free people of color more rights than most free Black people had in the American South.

In addition, there were sizable communities of free African people in French Caribbean colonies, such as Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) and Guadeloupe. Due to the violence of the Haitian Revolution, many free people of color, who were originally part of the revolution, fled the island as refugees after being attacked by slave rebels, particularly in the north of the island. Some went first to Cuba, from where they immigrated to New Orleans in 1808 and 1809 after being expelled when Napoleon invaded Spanish territory in Europe. Many brought slaves with them. Their numbers strengthened the French-speaking community of enslaved African peoples, as well as the free people of color. Other refugees from Saint-Domingue settled in Charleston, Savannah, and New York.

Emancipation

The

President Andrew Johnson, the formerly enslaved full citizenship in the United States, though this did not guarantee them voting rights. The Fourteenth Amendment made "All persons born or naturalized in the United States" citizens of the United States. The Fifteenth Amendment gave voting rights to all adult males; only adult males had the franchise among European Americans. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are known as the "Civil War Amendments"[12] or the "Reconstruction Amendments
".

To help freedmen transition from slavery to freedom, including a free labor market, President Abraham Lincoln created the Freedmen's Bureau, which assigned agents throughout the former Confederate states. The Bureau also founded schools to educate freedmen, both adults and children; helped freedmen negotiate labor contracts; and tried to minimize violence against freedmen. The era of Reconstruction was an attempt to establish new governments in the former Confederacy and to bring freedmen into society as voting citizens. Northern church bodies, such as the American Missionary Association and the Free Will Baptists, sent teachers to the South to assist in educating freedmen and their children, and eventually established several colleges for higher education. U.S. Army occupation soldiers were stationed throughout the South via military districts enacted by the Reconstruction Acts; they protected freedmen in voting polls and public facilities from violence and intimidation by white Southerners, which were common throughout the region.

Native American Freedmen

See also: Choctaw freedmen

The Cherokee Nation, Choctaw Nation, Chickasaw Nation, Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, and Creek Nation were among those Native American tribes that held enslaved Africans before and during the American Civil War.[13] They supported the Confederacy during the war, supplying some warriors in the West, as they were promised their own state if the Confederacy won. After the end of the war, the U.S. required these tribes to make new peace treaties, and to emancipate their African slaves. They were required to offer full citizenship in their tribes to those freedmen who wanted to stay with the tribes. Numerous families had intermarried by that time or had other personal ties. If freedmen left the tribes, they would become U.S. citizens.

Cherokee Freedmen

Main article: Cherokee freedmen controversy

In the late 20th century, the Cherokee Nation voted for restrictions on membership to only those descendants of people listed as "Cherokee by blood" on the Dawes Rolls of the early 20th century, a decision that excluded most Cherokee Freedmen (by that time this term referred to descendants of the original group). In addition to arguing that the post-Civil War treaties gave them citizenship, the freedmen have argued that the Dawes Rolls were often inaccurate, recording as freedmen even those individuals who had partial Cherokee ancestry and were considered Cherokee by blood. The Choctaw freedmen and Creek freedmen have similarly struggled with their respective tribes over the terms of citizenship in contemporary times. The tribes have wanted to limit those who can benefit from tribal citizenship, in an era in which gaming casinos are yielding considerable revenues for members. The majority of members of the tribes have voted to limit membership. Descendants of freedmen, however, maintain that their rights to citizenship granted under the post-Civil War treaties should be restored. In 2017, the Cherokee freedmen were granted citizenship again in the tribe.[14][15][16]

Australia

Many convicted people from the United Kingdom were sentenced to be transported to Australia between 1788 and 1868. Also, many came from the United Kingdom and Europe voluntarily, planning to settle in Australia, some as pastors and missionaries, others seeking to make a living by trade or farming. When convicts finished their sentence, they were freed and referred to as "freedmen" or "freed men". However, many of these who were freed wanted to claim the label "free men". But those who had come freely to Australia wanted to reserve the label "free men" exclusively for themselves, distinguishing themselves above those who had been "freed".[17]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Freedmen.

References

  1. ^ "Slaves & Freemen". PBS.
  2. ^ Millar, Fergus (1998–2002). The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic. University of Michigan. pp. 23 & 209.
  3. ^ Mouritsen, Henrik (2011). The Freedman in the Roman World. Cambridge University Press. p. 36.
  4. ^ Berger, Adolf (1953). libertinus, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law. American Philological Society. p. 564.
  5. ^
    doi:10.1093/OBO/9780199846733-0051
    . Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  6. early days of Islam. Ibn Khaldun's general observation about the paradoxical nature of slavery brings to mind Hegel
    's reflections on the subject some five hundred years later. The great philosopher observed that, in many instances, it is the slave who ultimately gains the independent consciousness and power to become the actual master of his or her owner. The Mamluk/Ghulam Phenomenon is a good historical example of this paradox.
  7. ^
    Azeris, Uzbec Turks, Mongols, Avars, Circassians, Georgians, Armenians, Greeks, Bulgars, Albanians, Serbs, Hungarians
    .
  8. LCCN 2011015312
    .
  9. Muslim rulers to serve as soldiers in their armies. Mamlūk units formed an integral part of Muslim armies from the third/ninth century, and Mamlūk involvement in government became an increasingly familiar occurrence in the medieval Middle East. The road to absolute rule lay open before them in Egypt when the Mamlūk establishment gained military and political domination during the reign of the Ayyūbid ruler of Egypt
    , al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb (r. 637–47/1240–9).
  10. Rhoda Island
    , also in Cairo.
  11. ^ a b Heinegg, Paul (1995–2005). Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware.
  12. ^ Constitution Annotated.
  13. ^ Walker, Mark; Cameron, Chris (October 8, 2021). "After Denying Care to African Natives, Indian Health Service Reverses Policy". The New York Times.
  14. ^ "Cherokee Nation v. Raymond Nash, et al. and Marilyn Vann, et al. and Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior ruling, August 30, 2017".
  15. ^ "Judge Rules That Cherokee Freedmen Have Right To Tribal Citizenship". npr. 2017-08-31. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  16. ^ "Cherokee Nation Attorney General Todd Hembree issues statement on Freedmen ruling, August 31, 2017 (Accessible in PDF format as of September 8, 2017" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 16, 2018. Retrieved March 26, 2019.
  17. ^ pp. 89-95. Laugesen, Amanda. Convict words: Language in early colonial Australia. Oxford University Press, USA, 2002.
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