From the early 1740s to 1829, there lived an African American woman who unexpectedly became an important woman in history. Even though most people have never heard of him, what he did changed the way people looked at other African Americans. She was born in the early 1740s to African parents and raised as a slave with her sister Lizzie in Claverack, New York, about twenty miles south of Albany. Their owner was Pieter Hogeboom, head of a wealthy Dutch-American family. In 1735, Hogeboom's daughter Hannah married John Ashley, son of one of the original landowners authorized by the Massachusetts General Court to organize settlements along the Housatonic River. When Hogeboom died in 1758, she and Lizzie were taken to the home of Hannah and her husband, who was about fourteen at the time. Her slave name was Bett, as an adult she was called Mama Bett and eventually became Elizabeth Freeman. Around this time, John Ashley became a very important figure in Sheffield, Massachusetts, which is a large chunk of Western Massachusetts and would later be known as Berkshire County. In 1761 Ashley was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas, from which he would resign twenty years later. He was known as an honorable and cautious man, "'patriarchal in appearance, of medium size,' according to an early biographical sketch" (Swan). In 1768 he signed a letter drafted by Samuel Adams, as he was a member of the Massachusetts Assembly. The letter disagreed with “several acts of Parliament, imposing duties and taxes on the American colonies” (Swan). Along with her colleagues, Ashley gave in to the governor's request to reject the letter. Hannah Ashley on the other hand was known for her unpredictable character, once she threw... in the middle of the paper... the court costs. The brief court documents do not reveal the legal arguments or evidence presented, but Sedgewick's descendants later boasted that Theodore Sedgewick had invoked the Massachusetts Constitution to argue that the slaveholder could not exist in the state. Bett chose a new name to go with her freedom, and that was Elizabeth Freeman. She left Colonel Ashley's job and became a paid housekeeper in the Sedgewick household, eventually raising her ten children when their mother developed mental illness. Works Cited Roark, James L. "Chapter 8." The American Promise: A Compact History. vol. 1. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. 187-90. Print.Swan, Jon. "The slave who asked for freedom." American heritage. vol. 41. Issue 2. March 1990. Web. February 27, 2012. “The Massachusetts Constitution, Judicial Review, and Slavery.” Supreme Judicial Court. 2010. Network. 28 February. 2012.