freedman

Freedman can refer to two related senses. First, a freedman is an emancipated slave—someone who has been legally freed from bondage. In ancient Rome, freedmen (liberti) were former slaves who gained freedom but retained certain legal disabilities; in the United States, the term was used after the Civil War to describe African Americans who had been enslaved and were now free. Freedpeople faced ongoing legal, social, and economic barriers despite formal freedom, and the Reconstruction era saw the creation of institutions such as the Freedmen's Bureau, officially the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, established in 1865 to aid former slaves and refugees.

As a surname, Freedman is an English-language family name that has developed in several communities. It may derive from an ancestor who had been freed from servitude, or be an Anglicized form of similar-sounding Jewish surnames. It is found in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and elsewhere, among people with Ashkenazi Jewish or English roots.

Notable people with the surname include Michael Freedman, an American mathematician and Fields Medalist known for his work in topology and the study of four-manifolds. The name appears across various fields, reflecting its broad diaspora and the diverse paths of those who bear it.