Freeman (also Lu, Lu Freeman) is a free Black man, a physician and sorcerer (“witch doctor”) who practices thaumaturgy and goes armed. He took his free condition as his name: asked “Free name?”, he answers “My name is Freeman.”
| Type | Character |
| Occupation | Physician and sorcerer |
| Spanish entry | Freeman |
Freedom and wealth
“The Black man is free”, and he explains why: “I have worked and they gave me my freedom for also being an intellectual.” He had servants and gave them up: “I had them, I had them. But I have left the servants a bit and now I devote myself to gold.”
Appearance
A mulatto Black man with a painted face and hair “all waxed white”. He wears a “half-powdered” top hat and a black cape that “turned the other way is all red”; worn red side out it reaches the floor, fastened with skull pins. Beneath: a stiff collar with gilt buttons, suspenders and “tight leather trousers”. He carries a cane and a book he opens and closes, and has been seen at the Spire smoking and looking into the bottom of his cup. He also bears “two crossbows in hand”, a magic wand and a large two-handed sword that was given to him.
Equipment
- Skulls hang from his cape, “like stones, and the eyes”; set in two places in a room, they “generate two orbs of light”.
- A tiny vial with “two or three strange leeches”.
Physician and sorcerer
As a physician his word is a contract: “I’ll attend to you. And I’ll cure you”; “I am a physician and I am caring for him”. He is the company’s healer, tending the wounded in mid-combat. As a sorcerer he works thaumaturgy, “some visual effects”, announcing the trance: “my eyes are going to turn white”. The wand fires.
Conflicting accounts
- One account describes the cape as black with a red lining; another speaks of “that red cape with the skull pins”. It may be the same garment turned over.
Open questions
- Where do the skulls come from, and what is in the book?
- What makes the leeches “strange”? No use of them is recorded.
- Who freed him, where and when?
- What are the limits of his thaumaturgy beyond light and illusion?