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- Not to be confused with Friedman
A freedman or freedwoman (gender-neutral: freedperson) is a former slave who has been manumitted or emancipated. Freedmen are a feature of all slave-holding societies.
Ancient Rome
Freedmen formed a large social class in ancient Rome. It was the exceptional feature of ancient Rome that almost all slaves freed by Roman owners automatically received Roman citizenship. As citizens, needing a Roman name for the first time, freedmen customary took the nomen of their former owner, who now became their patronus.
A precedent was set under the Claudian Civil Service where freedmen were used as civil servants in the Roman bureaucracy. In addition, Claudius passed legislation concerning slaves, including a law that stated that sick slaves abandoned by their owners became freedmen if they recovered. The emperor was extensively criticized for using freedmen in the Imperial Courts.
Slaves were able to earn their freedom in more than one way. Some were freed in the wills (and therefore at the death) of their owners, some owners manumitted slaves themselves, and other slaves bought themselves from their owner. A freedman was able to buy his own freedom through his peculium, or personal possessions. Freedmen were also able to own his own land.
United States
In the United States, the term referes to former slaves emancipated before or during the American Civil War. (Some American historians employ the term "freed person" or "freedperson" as a gender neutral alternative.)
Four million people went from bondage to freedom as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. To help them transition from slavery to freedom, President Abraham Lincoln created the Freedmen's Bureau. President Andrew Johnson vetoed its continuation in 1866 during Reconstruction.
Sources
- Berlin, Ira, ed. Free at Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the Civil War (1995)
- See Freedmen's Bureau Online
- Slave Emancipation Through the Prism of Archives Records (1997) by Joseph P. Reidy
See also
"Freedman"