Reading Highlight

Henry Louis Gates and Donald Yacovone
The African Americans

April 12, 2023 4:56 am

Source: The African Americans

The significance of the Mum Bett case and the other freedom suits of the 1780s lay more in how they reflected public attitudes in the post-Revolutionary period, rather than in how they shaped opinion or the law. While the various freedom suits did not legally end slavery in the commonwealth, they certainly indicated how juries were likely to decide such cases.