That’s a good point, and I fully own my mistake.
Of course Elites understand and understood freedom and slavery, and they had the lexicon to describe and discuss it. 
But they also have and had a counter lexicon that allows them to ignore or even deny their privilege. The [non-“white”, heathen, heretic, poor, woman, etc.] “deserve” a lower station because [of their moral failure, my deity said so, they don’t work hard enough, we are civilizing them, they are too brutish to understand any better, they like it].
The elite have an incentive to ignore the suffering of others to maintain their position of power and influence, which includes co-opting counter culture and resistance movements and banning discussion of inequity. It’s the whole point behind trying to ban “CRT” and books with LGTBQ+ inclusion — see, hear, and speak no challenge to white cis male Protestant privilege.
The point I was trying to make (incredibly poorly) was that it makes sense that concepts of freedom and who it encompasses comes primarily from the oppressed, and not from the oppressors or those indirectly benefiting from oppression.
