liberty

In its medieval sense, a franchise, or collection of privileges, granted to an individual or community by the king, and the area over which this franchise extended.

Liberty

Town and administrative headquarters of Union County, eastern Indiana, 21 km/13 mi south of Richmond; population (1990) 2,100. Farm implements and paint are manufactured here. The surrounding area produces livestock, grain, and dairy items, and the town is a transporting point.

Liberty

City and administrative headquarters of Clay County, northwest Missouri, 21 km/13 mi northeast of central Kansas City; population (1990) 20,500. In an agricultural area growing corn, wheat, and tobacco and raising livestock, it has grain elevators and is a commercial and railway transport centre.

In 1838–39 the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith was imprisoned in jail here. In 1866 Liberty was the site of a famous daylight bank robbery by the James gang; the bank is now a museum. The city is the seat of William Jewell College (1849).