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Webster 1913 Edition

Noun.

;

pl.

Freedmen

A man who has been a slave, and has been set free.

Noun.

A man who has been a slave and is manumitted.

freedman ‎(plural freedmen)

A man who has been released from a condition of slavery.
"Education was a high priority for Appalachian freedmen and freedwomen just as it was for blacks throughout the Reconstruction South." (John C. Inscoe, Appalachians and Race: "Introduction" 7, 2001)

person who has been released from slavery