Who was Enslaved at Liberty Hall?: Eve
Eve was a teenage girl who self-emancipated from Susan Niemcewicz’s home in Elizabethtown several years before Niemcewicz moved to Liberty Hall. Only fourteen years old when she was sold to Niemcewicz, she was brought to Elizabethtown alone, leaving behind her family and friends in Newark.
When Eve was brought to Elizabethtown in 1805, Betty was already enslaved in Susan Niemcewicz’s household, along with her young children, Phillip, Sarah, Plymouth, and new baby Violett. Eve probably worked very closely with Betty, who cooked, cleaned, and performed other housekeeping tasks. Perhaps Eve helped Betty take care of her young children. Eve would have also gotten to know Thomas, who was an older teenager or young man enslaved by Niemcewicz a few years earlier. Surviving documentation gives no indication to what their relationship might have been.
By the time Eve was eighteen, she made the decision to self-emancipate. We have a few hints that reveal why she might have chosen to escape from Susan Niemcewicz at this time. Susan Niemcewicz’s husband Julian responded to Eve’s choice to self-emancipate with a curious statement. He wrote, “I am sorry for the Elopement of Miss Eve, I did not think her so romantic” and even blamed novels for her decision to escape, either a joke, an indication that Eve knew how to read, or possibly both (Julian Niemcewicz to Susan Niemcewicz, January 25, 1810, Liberty Hall Collection, Kean University). It is possible that Eve chose this moment to self-emancipate because she found love. Perhaps she saw the challenges that Betty experienced as an enslaved mother and decided to self-emancipate before having her own children. It is also possible that Eve simply desired freedom and finally found the right moment to free herself.
Even if they did not know ahead of time, Betty and Thomas likely supported Eve’s choice. Betty resisted her enslavement in any way that she could and Thomas would also make the decision to self-emancipate two years later. They or other friends may have even helped her to escape.
We do not know what Eve’s life was like after her self-emancipation. It is possible that she married and had children as Julian Niemcewicz believed. What we do know about Eve is that she had courage, loved freedom, and was willing and able to take risks in order to decide the course of her own life.