Sojourner Truth biography

Sojourner Truth was one of the earliest and most passionate female abolitionists, for she herself had once been a slave. She came to be known as the nationally known speaker on human rights for slaves and women. Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree between 1797 and 1800 in Hurley, New York. (There is no exact record of her date of birth.) She was one of 13 children born to slave parents. She spoke only Dutch until she was sold from her family around the age of eleven. Because of the cruel treatment she suffered at the hands of her new master she learned to speak English quickly, but would continue to speak with a Dutch accent for the rest of her life. Still quite a young woman, she escaped from her New York owner in 1826 after being brutally treated. She had to leave all but one of her children behind. She was forced to submit to the will of her third master, John Dumont who denied her the choice of a husband, and married an older slave named Thomas. They had five children. She labored for a succession of five masters until the Fourth of July, 1827, when slavery was finally abolished in New York State. Then Isabella became legally free. After prevailing in a courageous court action demanding the return of her y

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She was very involved in political causes, and strongly supported suffrage. She described how she refused to give him the satisfaction of screaming, by clenching her fists so hard her fingernails drew blood from her palms. There she worked as a housekeeper and became deeply involved in religion. Right up until her death, in Battle Creek, Michigan, she continued to speak out for her race and died in 1883. She would tell listeners of how some slaves were kept intimidated and afraid to act because of the harsh punishments such as beatings, sometimes with spiked sticks and chains. During the Civil War, she gathered supplies for black volunteer regiments, and in tribute to her efforts was asked to be introduced to President Lincoln in the White House in 1864, where he told her that he had heard her speeches long before. She is particularly remembered for the famous “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech, which we read for this class, that she gave at the woman’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851. Although Truth never learned to read or write, she dictated her memoirs to Olive Gilbert and they were published in 1850 as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave.

She also spoke of the living conditions many slaves were forced to endure, crowded together into cabins with no privacy, overworked, fed scraps in many cases, and clothed in tattered hand-me-downs. After the death of her son, she took the name Sojourner Truth, which means quest for truth, to signify her new role as a traveler telling the truth about slavery. The slaves would be forced to endure impersonal and degrading inspections of their teeth, muscles, and other body parts, depending on what the buyer was looking for in the purchase.

Truth was self-educated, and much of her speaking bore the stamp of a deep love of and acquaintance with Scripture.

She lived long enough to see her people brought to freedom, but never stopped in her efforts to win more equality for them. It had been founded in 1841 as a cooperative community dedicated to abolitionism, pacifism, equality and the betterment of human life.

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