Sojourner Truth (l. c. 1797-1883) was an African American abolitionist, women's suffrage advocate, and civil rights activist who famously "walked away" from slavery in 1826, sued in court for the return of her son and, between 1843 and her death in 1883, became one of the most popular lecturers and preachers in the United States.
Truth was born into slavery in Ulster County, New York State, and given the name Isabella Bomefree (also given as Baumfree). When her master refused to free her, as promised, in 1826, Isabella walked off his land and found refuge with a neighbor. In 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth, believing the Holy Spirit had ordained her to speak the truth about slavery. She later became involved with the women's suffrage movement in the United States and was active in recruiting Black soldiers for the Union during the American Civil War.
Today, Truth is honored throughout the United States through statuary, place names, monuments, and is the first African American woman to have a bust of herself installed at the United States Capitol (in 2009).
Early Life & Sales
Isabella Bomefree was born in Swartekill, New York (modern-day Rifton, near the Town of Esopus), Ulster County, c. 1797, the daughter of James and Elizabeth Bomefree, who were the property of one Colonel Charles Hardenbergh (also given as Charles Ardinburgh and Johannes Hardenbergh). She was one of ten or twelve children, almost all of whom were sold to other slaveholders when she was an infant, except her brother Peter.
James had been taken by slavers in Ghana, and Elizabeth was the daughter of slaves taken from Guinea, and, as Esopus had been settled by the Dutch and still had a large Dutch population in the late 18th century, learned Dutch as their second language, which they taught to their children.
Their mother also taught Isabella and Peter to pray and to always rely on God and to remember their brothers and sisters when they looked up at the stars and moon at night, recognizing that their siblings were seeing that same sky, and so they were all still together, even though separated.
When Hardenbergh died in 1806, nine-year-old Isabella was sold at auction in Kingston, NY, to one John Neely. Peter and her mother were also to be sold, but, because James Bomefree was old and infirm, it was decided she would be freed to care for him because no one else wanted that burden. What happened to Peter at this point is unclear. Her mother, and then her father, died a few years after she was sold to John Neely.
In her 1850 as-told-to autobiography, she relates how she had a difficult time from the start with the Neelys because she only spoke Dutch, which Neely knew only a little of and Mrs. Neely none at all. Mrs. Neely would become enraged when Isabella (Belle) would bring a wrong pan to the kitchen or make some other mistake due to the language barrier, and then John Neely would beat her.
She repeatedly prayed for a better master and, in 1808, was sold to the tavern keeper Martinus Scriver (also given as Schryver) of Port Ewen who, in 1810, sold her to John Dumont of West Park. At the Dumont house, she had the same problem with her mistress but for a different reason: Mr. Dumont was sexually attracted to her and raped her on more than one occasion.
In c. 1815, Isabella fell in love with Robert, a slave on the neighboring estate, but Robert's owners forbade the relationship because, if Isabella became pregnant, they had no claim on the children and so there was no profit in the relationship for them. When Robert ventured to see Isabella without his master's permission, he was caught and severely beaten, later dying.
She was married to a fellow slave on the Dumont farm, Thomas, and, with him, had five children (though one, Diana, is thought to have been fathered by Dumont through rape). In her autobiography, she depicts Dumont as a kind master who protected her from his wife and would even assist with her children but, still, she was considered his property without any agency of her own.
Walking Away from Slavery
New York State began the process of abolishing slavery in 1799, with a set date of 4 July 1827 for full emancipation of all slaves. Dumont promised Isabella that he would free her one year before that date in gratitude for her faithful service, but, when the time came, he refused, claiming that an injury to her hand had made her less productive and she would have to stay the course for another year.
As with many slaves throughout the United States, Isabella had been taught the concept from Ephesians 6:5: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ," and so she spun Dumont a quantity of wool, out of respect, but resolved to leave when this was done.
Early one morning in the fall of 1826, Isabella took her daughter, Sophia, and her few belongings, and walked away from the Dumont farm. As she later said, "I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right" (Delbanco, 142). Not knowing where to go, she paused to feed Sophia and pray for direction and then remembered a friendly couple, Levi Rowe and his wife, who lived nearby.
Mr. Rowe received her warmly and directed her to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Van Wagener, who took her in. When Dumont tracked her to their home to bring her back, Mr. Van Wagener purchased her services for the rest of the year and set her free. She then became known as Isabella Van Wagener. By this point, she had learned to speak English, but always with a Dutch accent.
Reclaiming Her Son
She had been unable to take her other children when she left because, according to state law, due to their ages, they would need to serve a time as indentured servants before being fully emancipated. Shortly after arriving at the Van Wageners, she learned that her son, Peter, had been sold by Dumont to a relative, who had sold him to one Solomon Gedney, who then gave him to another relative, who took him south to their plantation in Alabama.
With the help of the Van Wageners, Isabella sued Gedney for the return of her son and, in 1828, won her case on the grounds that Peter had been illegally removed from New York. She and Peter remained with the Van Wageners until 1829 when they moved to New York City. Between 1833-1834, she became involved in the religious movement of The Kingdom in Sing Sing (modern-day Ossining, NY) led by Robert Matthews (l. 1788-1841, known as "Matthias"), a messianic cult referred to in her autobiography as "The Matthias Delusion." Isabella was Matthews' housekeeper and was implicated, with Matthews, in the murder of the businessman Elijah Pierson, but both were acquitted for lack of evidence.
Isabella worked as a domestic, and Peter eventually found work on whaling ships. He sent her letters from various ports until 1841 when the letters stopped.
Isabella Becomes Sojourner Truth
Isabella continued working as a domestic in New York City until Pentecost Sunday 1843, when she felt called by the Holy Spirit to "preach the truth" about slavery, changed her name to Sojourner Truth and, packing a few belongings in a pillowcase, set out to do what she felt God had been directing her steps toward all along.
Truth spoke wherever she felt the call to do so and gathered small crowds, making her way across New York toward Massachusetts. She was drawn in by the preaching of the apocalyptic minister William Miller (l. 1782-1849) and his Millerites. Miller predicted the Second Coming of Jesus was to happen on 22 October 1844, and when that did not happen, he lost many of his followers, including Truth.
She joined an abolitionist community in Florence, Massachusetts shortly after leaving the Millerites, met some of the most famous abolitionists of the day there – including Frederick Douglass (l. c. 1818-1895) and William Lloyd Garrison (l. 1805-1879) – and delivered her first speech against slavery in front of a full audience. Garrison was especially impressed by Truth, as was another abolitionist, Olive Gilbert. In 1850, Truth dictated her autobiography to Gilbert, and Garrison paid for the publication of The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave.
In support of the book, and now with greater backing from the abolitionist community, Truth began a series of speaking tours, advocating for women's suffrage and against slavery. In 1851, she joined the abolitionist George Thompson on a joint lecture tour, which brought her to the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, the event that gave birth to Truth's most famous speech.
Ain't I A Woman
"Ain't I A Woman?", sometimes given as "Aren't I A Woman" is commonly performed today at events honoring Sojourner Truth, Black history in general, or the commemoration of the history of Juneteenth, among other events. The version usually recited, however, is not what Truth said in 1851 in Akron, Ohio, but an 1863 rewrite by the abolitionist and feminist Frances Dana Barker Gage (l. 1808-1884). Leslie Podell, of The Sojourner Truth Project, writes:
The popular but inaccurate version was written and published in 1863 (12 years after Sojourner gave the "Ain't I a Woman" speech) by a white abolitionist named Frances Dana Barker Gage. Curiously, Gage not only changed all of Sojourner's words, but chose to represent Sojourner speaking in a stereotypical 'southern black slave accent', rather than in Sojourner's distinct upper New York State low-Dutch accent. Frances Gage may have believed that her actions were well intended and served the white suffrage and women's rights movement at the time, at the expense of Black women's agency and self-determination; however, her rewrite was a gross misinterpretation of Sojourner Truth's words and identity…The most authentic version of Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman" speech was first published in 1851 by Truth's good friend, Rev. Marius Robinson in the Anti-Slavery Bugle and was titled, "On Women's Rights."
(1)
Marius Robinson (l. 1806-1878), abolitionist, writer, editor, and publisher, was present when Truth gave her speech in 1851, wrote it down, and published it in his anti-slavery newspaper. This speech, however, is almost never heard. The famous "Ain't I A Woman" speech has become accepted as Truth's when, in fact, it is Gage's rewrite. Truth spoke a careful, concise, and witty English in her low-Dutch accent, as noted by scholar Nell Irvin Painter:
A woman of remarkable intelligence, despite her illiteracy, Truth had great presence. She was tall, some 5 feet 11 inches, of spare but solid frame. Her voice was low, so low that listeners sometimes termed it masculine, and her singing voice was beautifully powerful. Whenever she spoke in public, she also sang. No one ever forgot the power and pathos of Sojourner Truth's singing, just as her wit and originality of phrasing were also of lasting remembrance.
(3)
Gage's version of her speech obliterates Truth's voice and replaces it with that of a caricature of a stereotypical, southern "Black mammy" of the 1850s that a White audience would be more familiar with. This version not only removes Truth from her own speech but distances her from the North and perpetuates the myth that slavery was a "peculiar institution" only of the southern United States. Both versions of Truth's "Ain't I A Woman" speech may be read and heard at The Sojourner Truth Project site.
Civil War & Reconstruction
Between 1851 and 1856, Truth spoke before more and more audiences on slavery, women's suffrage, and temperance. In 1856, she purchased a property in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she planned to make her home, but, in 1857, she sold it and moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where she aligned herself with the Seventh-day Adventists, the new incarnation of the Millerites.
She helped recruit Black troops for the Union during the Civil War, which, as scholar James McPherson notes, transformed the conflict:
The organization of black regiments marked the transformation of a war to preserve the Union into a revolution to overthrow the old order. Lincoln's conversion from reluctance to enthusiasm about black soldiers signified the progress of this revolution. By March 1863, the president was writing to Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee: "The bare sight of fifty. Thousand armed and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once."
(565)
Truth's efforts were acknowledged when she was invited to the White House to meet President Lincoln in 1864 when she was in Washington, D.C., working with the National Freedman's Relief Association. The famous print of their meeting, Sojourner Truth examining the Bible with Abraham Lincoln, commemorates their meeting, though it was not made at the time, but many years later in 1893.
During Reconstruction, Truth advocated for land grants for former slaves, arguing that they should be given parcels out west. Primarily because of Truth's advocacy, many former slaves took it upon themselves to leave the East Coast and head west to stake land for themselves. Throughout this time, she continued to draw large crowds to her lectures and never seemed to tire, even though she was also involved in, or spearheading, many different initiatives regarding equal rights for women and Blacks. Painter comments:
Only Truth had the ability to go on speaking, year after year for thirty years, to make herself into a force in several American reform movements. Even though the aims of her missions became increasingly secular after midcentury, Truth was first and last an itinerant preacher, stressing both itinerancy and preaching. From the late 1840s through the late 1870s, she traveled the American land, denouncing slavery and slavers, advocating freedom, women's rights, woman suffrage, and temperance.
(4)
Sojourner Truth continued her crusade until failing health and age slowed her down and then confined her to her home in Battle Creek, Michigan. Two of her daughters cared for her until she died, 26 November 1883, of natural causes.
Conclusion
Sojourner Truth was a revolutionary in every sense of that word. After her initial understanding that Dumont was not going to keep his word to free her and that, if she wanted freedom, she would have to win it for herself, she never stopped fighting to overturn the unjust and cruel institution of slavery and the racist belief system that supported it.
Ninety years before activist Rosa Parks (l. 1913-2005) was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in protest of discriminatory policies, Sojourner Truth was hitching rides on the segregated streetcars of Washington, D.C., advocating for desegregation and open public transportation for everyone, regardless of skin color.
She fought for her rights and those of others all her life, and many of the issues Truth took a stand against are still presenting challenges to equality for all in the United States today. For those continuing her struggle, Truth stands as an inspiration and among the greatest American heroes.
