According to a United States census record, Freeman was born about 1800 in the
U.S. state of
Georgia. Daniel Freeman was a pensioned veteran of the
American Revolutionary War. :
George Washington Parke Custis, step-grandson of
George Washington and father-in-law of
Robert E. Lee, sold a teenager named Henry Johnson to Freeman (
Washington National Intelligencer, December 28, 1833) Theophilus Freeman appears in the 1830 census of
Prince William County, Virginiawhich is just outside the District of Columbia in northern Virginiawith one enslaved man in his household. There was a letter waiting for Theophilus Freeman at the
Monticello, Georgia post office in 1831. There was a letter waiting for Freeman at the
Augusta, Georgia post office in 1832. In the 1830s, Freeman seems to have been a partner with
N. C. Finnall in the trading firm Finnall & Freeman, which exported slaves from the Virginia area to New Orleans for sale. In December 1833, he placed a
runaway slave ad in the
Washington Intelligencer looking to recover a teenager named Henry Johnson whom he had recently purchased from
George Washington Parke Custis (step-grandson of
George Washington and father-in-law of
Robert E. Lee).
Frederic Bancroft found that Freeman was one of the consignees whose name appeared most frequently in records of the
coastwise slave trade for 1834–1835. It is through a newspaper ad placed during the period of Freeman's partnership with
Benjamin Eaton at the
Forks of the Road slave market in
Natchez, Mississippi that we know that an early name for that place was Niggerville, "which meant Slaveville, but was more contemptuous." Eaton and Freeman may have remained in partnership until the 1840s. were stolen from me on the 24th June, at the Bell hotel in Richmond, Va. I publish the particulars as full as I can from recollection...I hereby caution all persons trading for said notes or receiving the same in any shape, and I caution all persons whose names are on said notes not to pay them or recognise them, as I will hold them responsible for the amounts. THEOPHILUS FREEMAN"
The Natchez Weekly Courier, July 7, 1837 According to historian
Calvin Schermerhorn, Freeman ran a multi-state slave-trading network beginning the late 1830s. He worked with freelance or contract traders to collect enslaved people from across the Upper South, including in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, and then deliver them to the lower
Mississippi River valley, often by way of a shipping company called Haskins & Libby. Once in New Orleans, Freeman and his partner, a cotton merchant named John Goodin, resold the "cargo" to planters and other capitalists of the Delta region. The John Goodin and Theophilus Freeman partnership of the 1840s began August 1, 1842, and was styled John Goodin & Co. and had offices on Poydras in New Orleans at one time. The partnership expired and was dissolved on August 1, 1844, in part due to "difficulties existing between the Partners." Freeman appears in the 1842 city directory of New Orleans, occupation "trader," as one of at least 200 traders operating in the city that year. Also in 1842, the Northern abolitionist newspaper
The Liberator published a cache of letters written by and to Theophilus Freeman about his slave-trading business. Excerpts from this tranche of correspondence were later reprinted in
William I. Bowditch's
Slavery and the Constitution, ''
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Five Thousand Strokes for Freedom, and an anti-slavery tract by Samuel Wilberforce. The initial publication of three columns of text in The Liberator'' began as follows:
Orleans, October 14, 1840 to Theophilus Freeman, consignee (New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S., Slave Manifests, 1807–1860,
NARA) In his 1855 memoir dictated from freedom in London,
fugitive slave John Brown described Theophilus Freeman's
slave jail as home to "three tiers of rooms with heavily barred windows. On the top floor of the building was a 'flogging room' in which obstreperous articles of property might be subdued. Young, handsome female slaves were given a separate room, for they were to be sold for use as concubines. The other slaves were quartered indiscriminately." According to Brown, the pen could hold 500 people and "was usually full." Brown recalled being surprised by the number of people per
coffle delivered by slave speculators connected with Freeman, including "
Williams from Washington, and Redford and Kelly from Kentucky, and
Mac Cargo from Richmond, Virginia." In recounting the story of Freeman's involvement with a woman named Sarah Conner, historian Alexandra Finley said of Freeman: "...a less reliable narrator is difficult to find...Freeman was willing to do just about anything to protect his economic interests, and this often meant lying to courts, creditors, and customers. He knowingly sold free men of color as slaves, stabbed business partners in the back, and hid assets from creditors." At the time of 1850 census, Freeman lived in a household, likely a
boarding house, with several other slave traders and with Sarah Conner. Freeman was seemingly beset by lawsuits and legal troubles. In 1852 the
Natchez Free Trader reported on one of these cases (involving Sarah Conner) and described Freeman as "a celebrated negro-trader who once fixed his head quarters or African harem at the forks of the road Natchez...He has a large fortune, a fortune safely concealedthe lawyers will enjoy the benefits of it." In 1858 the
New Orleans Crescent reported that charges had been dismissed in the case of Theophilus Freeman, who had been "charged with assault and battery on Susan McNally." In April 1860, the New Orleans
Daily Delta reported, "Theophilus Freeman, an old, gray-haired fellow, whose reputation is below par, even among the police, was arrested last evening fer drawing a knife upon citizen Dayton Daniels, on Baronne street—It appears that Daniela complained about a row going on in Freeman's house, and a woman calling herself Mrs. Freeman was arrested. It was in consequence of this that Freeman made the assault upon Daniels." Freeman died in poverty in New Orleans on May 18, 1860. == Bob Freeman ==