Enslaved in Massachusetts; sued for freedom and won (a landmark freedom suit).

Jenny Slew was enslaved in Massachusetts and became one of the important early freedom-suit plaintiffs in New England. She sued for her liberty and ultimately won, demonstrating that Black women used colonial courts to challenge enslavement even before independence.

Jenny Slew’s victory is documentary evidence that legal resistance to slavery was active in the North and that Black women were key agents in that struggle.

Her case is a landmark example of a Black woman using law to secure freedom, foreshadowing later constitutional challenges to slavery.

Details of her later life are not well documented in widely accessible sources. Her legal victory remains the central surviving trace.

Freedom suits in New England depended on procedural persistence and community support. Slew’s case demonstrates how an enslaved woman could navigate a system designed to deny her personhood.

Her litigation shows that the struggle against slavery did not begin in the 19th century. It was fought in colonial courthouses, case by case.

Because many personal records for enslaved women are missing, the court file becomes the most reliable artifact. That limitation is also part of the story: the archive reflects inequality.

For NJ audiences, Slew complements Elizabeth Freeman and Belinda Sutton and provides a contrast to New Jersey’s slower path toward abolition.

Jenny Slew went to court to ask for her freedom. She won her case, showing that courts could be used to fight slavery.

Misconception: Only men used courts to fight slavery. Reality: Jenny Slew and other women brought freedom suits and won.

Her case helps explain how northern states diverged in dismantling slavery; NJ’s timeline was much longer.

Search Tags: Black Women | Freedom Suit | Massachusetts | Legal Resistance | Enslaved then Freed | Revolutionary Era

Massachusetts Historical Society – Jenny Slew (reference): https://www.masshist.org/education/jefferson/antislavery/jenny-slew.php