Freedom
In 1856, Robert Smith, Mason's owner, planned to move to the slave state of a Texas. As part of the Compromise of 1850, California was a free state and any slave brought into the state was free. However, Smith had refused Church leaders' counsel to set his slaves free and maintained that Bridget and her children were his property. He planned to take them with him overland to Texas.
Bridget, helped by friends, attempted to escape from Smith. She and a group of Smith's other slaves traveled towards Los Angeles before Smith caught up with them. A local posse caught up with Smith before he could leave the state.
Bridget petitioned a Los Angeles court for her freedom. A California judge, Benjamin Ignatius Hayes, granted her freedom as a resident of a free state, as well as the freedom of the other slaves held captive by Smith (Bridget's three daughters, and ten other African-American women and children). In 1860, Mason received a certified copy of the document that guaranteed her freedom.
Bridget had no legal last name as a slave. After emancipation, she chose to be known as Bridget Mason. Mason was the middle name of Amasa Lyman, Mormon Apostle and mayor of San Bernardino. She had spent many years in the company of the Amasa Lyman household.
Read more about this topic: Biddy Mason
Famous quotes containing the word freedom:
“The Cossack eats Poland,
Like stolen fruit;
Her last noble is ruined,
Her last poet mute:
Straight, into double band
The victors divide;
Half for freedom strike and stand;—
The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The only freedom supposed to be left to the masses is that of grazing on the ration of simulacra the system distributes to each individual.”
—Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)
“The American adolescent, then, is faced, as are the adolescents of all countries who have entered or are entering the machine age, with the question: freedom from what and at what price? The American feels so rich in his opportunities for free expression that he often no longer knows what it is he is free from. Neither does he know where he is not free; he does not recognize his native autocrats when he sees them.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)