Theophilus Freeman

[3] Theophilus Freeman appears in the 1830 census of Prince William County, Virginia—which is just outside the District of Columbia in northern Virginia—with one enslaved man in his household.

[8] 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.

[14] 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.

[14] 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.

[20] 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,[21] A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin,[22] Five Thousand Strokes for Freedom,[23] and an anti-slavery tract by Samuel Wilberforce.

[Theophilus Freeman; Richmond, Sunday, September 21, 1839] Brother Garrison: This last is an extract from a letter of one who has evidently been largely engaged in trading in slaves and souls of men in Virginia and North Carolina.

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.

He knowingly sold free men of color as slaves, stabbed business partners in the back, and hid assets from creditors.

"[29] At the time of 1850 census, Freeman lived in a household, likely a boarding house, with several other slave traders and with Sarah Conner.

1840s–1850s) was a mixed-race man who worked as the jailor of Theophilus Freeman's slave pen in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the antebellum United States.

Brown spent a fair amount of time accompanying Freeman on errands, such as taking enslaved people to and from the blacksmith to have fetters put on or removed.

[37] Paul Giamatti played the role of Theophilus Freeman in 12 Years a Slave, the 2013 film adaptation of Northup's memoir.