Legal Definitions - freedman

A freedman refers to a person who was formerly enslaved but has been legally released from bondage. This term is primarily historical, describing individuals who gained their freedom, often through emancipation, manumission, or the abolition of slavery.

Here are some examples illustrating the term:

• After the American Civil War, when the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, millions of formerly enslaved people in the Southern states became freedmen and freedwomen. These individuals then began the complex process of building new lives as free citizens, often seeking education, land, and the reunification of their families.

  This example illustrates the term by showing how a large-scale legal act of emancipation transformed enslaved individuals into freedmen, granting them legal freedom and the rights associated with it.

• In ancient Rome, a slave might be granted freedom by their owner through a formal process known as manumission. Once freed, this individual would become a libertus, the Latin equivalent of a freedman, and would typically gain certain rights, though they might still maintain social ties or obligations to their former owner.

  This example demonstrates the concept of a freedman in a different historical and cultural context, where an individual slave gained legal freedom through their owner's decision, thereby becoming a freedman within Roman society.

• Following the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 in the British Empire, thousands of enslaved people in colonies such as Jamaica and Barbados transitioned to being freedmen and freedwomen. While many faced a period of "apprenticeship" before full freedom, the legal status of being formerly enslaved and now free was established.

  This example highlights how a legislative act across a vast empire led to the creation of a large population of freedmen, marking their legal transition from chattel slavery to a state of freedom, even if accompanied by transitional arrangements.