Born Isabella Bomefree, Sojourner Truth was an American abolitionist and advocate for women’s rights, alcohol moderation, and African-American civil rights. She lived from around 1797 to November 26, 1883. Born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, Truth managed to free herself and her little daughter in 1826. She became the first black woman to prevail in a legal battle against a white man in 1828 after going to court to reclaim her kid.
In 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth because she was certain that God had called her to move from the city to the countryside, “testifying to the hope that was in her.” Her most well-known address was given spontaneously in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. During the Civil War, the speech gained widespread recognition under the title “Ain’t I a Woman?” This version of the original speech, which was published in 1863, was spoken in a stereotypical Black dialect that was then more prevalent in the South. But Dutch was Sojourner Truth’s first language growing up.
Truth assisted in enlisting Black men in the Union army during the Civil War; following the conflict, she made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain land grants for former slaves from the federal government (summarized as the promise of “forty acres and a mule”). Until her passing, she persisted in advocating for women and African Americans. According to Nell Irvin Painter, her biographer, “At a time when most Americans thought of slaves as male and women as white, Truth embodied a fact that still bears repeating: Among the blacks are women; among the women, there are blacks.”
In 2009, a memorial bust of Sojourner Truth was unveiled in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center’s Emancipation Hall. She is the first statue of an African American woman in the Capitol. Truth was listed among the “100 Most Significant Americans of All Time” by Smithsonian magazine in 2014.
Biographies of Abolitionists
Early Life
According to Sojourner Truth, she was born sometime between 1797 and 1800. James and Elizabeth Bomefree (later also recorded as Baumfree) had ten or twelve children, including Truth. Her mother, known as “Mau-Mau Bet,” was the daughter of slaves taken from the region of Guinea, while her father was a slave taken from what would become Ghana. Because of his height, her father was given the nickname “Bomefree” (which, according to Truth, was Dutch for “tree”; compare boom boom, “tree”).
In the hamlet of Esopus, New York, 95 miles (153 km) north of New York City, Colonel Hardenbergh purchased James and Elizabeth Bomefree from slave dealers and housed their family at his farm in a large hilly area known by the Dutch name Swartekill (just north of present Rifton). Her three-year-old sister and five-year-old brother were sold to a different estate when she was a baby. Her mother taught the children to pray, and her family would share stories about the children who were sold into slavery. Dutch was her first tongue, and for the remainder of her life, she spoke with a Dutch accent. Dutch was her first tongue, and for the remainder of her life, she spoke with a Dutch accent. Slaves remained a part of Charles Hardenbergh’s property after he inherited his father’s inheritance.
Following the death of Charles Hardenbergh in 1806, nine-year-old Sojourner Truth, also known as Belle, was sold to John Neely near Kingston, New York, for $100 (about $2,010 in 2024) at an auction with a flock of sheep. Sojourner Truth had only spoken Dutch up until that point; after learning English, she talked with a Dutch accent rather than a stereotyped dialect. Later, she said that Neely was severe and nasty, beating her every day and once even with a bundle of rods. Martinus Schryver, a tavern keeper from Port Ewen, New York, purchased her from Neely in 1808 for $105 (about $2,067 in 2024) and kept her for eighteen months. In 1810, Schryver sold Truth to West Park, New York resident John Dumont.
There was a great deal of conflict between Sojourner Truth and Dumont’s wife, Elizabeth Waring Dumont, who harassed her and made her life more challenging, while Dumont regularly raped her. Truth met and fell in love with Robert, a slave from a nearby plantation, around 1815. Robert’s master, landscape painter Charles Catton, Jr., prohibited their relationship because he did not want his slaves to have children with non-owners since he would not be the parent of the offspring. Robert sneaked over to visit Truth one day. Robert was brutally beaten by Catton and his son once they discovered him, until Dumont intervened.
After that day, Sojourner Truth never saw Robert again, and he passed away a few years later. Truth was plagued by the incident for the rest of her life. In the end, Truth wed Thomas, an elderly slave. She had five children: Diana (1815), who was raped by John Dumont; Peter (1821), Elizabeth (1825), and Sophia (c. 1826), all born after she and Thomas got married; and James, her eldest, who passed away at an early age.
Sojourner Truth Christian Faith
Although the State of New York started enacting laws to outlaw slavery in 1799, the emancipation of slaves in the state did not take place until July 4, 1827. A year prior to the state’s liberation, Dumont had pledged to free Sojourner Truth “if she would do well and be faithful”. But he then had second thoughts, saying she was less productive due to a hand injury. Despite her anger, she persisted in her labor, spinning 100 pounds (45 kg) of wool to fulfill her duty to him.
Sojourner Truth and her young daughter, Sophia, managed to flee to freedom in late 1826. The emancipation ruling did not provide her other children legal freedom until they had been bonded servants into their thirties, so she was forced to leave them behind. She went on to say, “I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right.”
She made her way to Isaac and Maria Van Wagenen’s house in New Paltz, where they took her and her infant in. Dumont accepted Isaac’s $20 offer to hire her for the rest of the year (until the state’s emancipation took effect). She remained there until a year later, when the New York State Emancipation Act was passed.
Truth discovered that her five-year-old son Peter had been unlawfully resold to an Alabama owner after Dumont sold him. She brought the matter before the New York Supreme Court with the Van Wagenens’ assistance. She sued Solomon Gedney, Peter’s new owner, under the name Isabella van Wagenen. Her son, who had been mistreated by his owners, was returned to her in 1828 following months of court battles. Truth was among the first black women to successfully challenge a white man in court. The New York State Archives personnel recovered the court records pertaining to this litigation in 2022.
She joined the organization in 1833 after being employed as a housekeeper in the community settlement by Robert Matthews, commonly known as the Prophet Matthias, the leader of a sect that connected with Judaism. Due to a paucity of evidence and Truth’s presenting of multiple letters attesting to her dependability as a servant, Matthews and Truth were found not guilty of Elijah Pierson’s murder in 1834. The trial then turned to the alleged beating of Matthews’ daughter, for which he was convicted guilty and given a sentence of three months with an extra thirty days for contempt of court. Truth left the religion in 1835 as a result of this incident. She then retired to New York City, where she remained until 1843.
Peter, Truth’s son, joined the Zone of Nantucket, a whaling ship, in 1839. He wrote her three letters between 1840 and 1841, but in the third, he claimed to have written five. Peter claimed that he never got any of her letters either. Peter was not on board when the ship came to dock in 1842, and Truth never heard from him again.
The Result of Freedom
For her, 1843 was a pivotal year. She changed her name to Sojourner Truth on Pentecost Sunday, June 1. She heard the Spirit of God calling her to preach the truth, which is why she picked the name. “The Spirit calls me, and I must go,” she informed her friends before setting off to tour and speak about the abolition of slavery. With just a few belongings in a pillowcase, she headed north and ascended through the Connecticut River Valley in the direction of Massachusetts.
Truth started going to Millerite Adventist camp gatherings at that point. Millerites adhered to the beliefs of William Miller of New York, who predicted that the world would end when Jesus appeared in 1843–1844. Truth’s singing and preaching were highly valued by many in the Millerite society, and her speeches drew sizable audiences. Truth temporarily withdrew herself from her Millerite companions, as did many others who were unhappy when the expected second coming did not materialize.
She became a member of Florence, Massachusetts’s Northampton Association of Education and Industry in 1844. The group, which was founded by abolitionists, promoted pacifism, religious tolerance, and women’s rights. Throughout its four and a half-year existence, there were 240 members in total, but never more than 120 at any given time. They ran a sawmill, a gristmill, a silk business, and raised cattle on 470 acres (1.9 km2). Truth managed the laundry, keeping an eye on both men and women while living and working in the neighborhood. Truth met David Ruggles, Frederick Douglass, and William Lloyd Garrison there. Truth gave her first anti-slavery speech that year, supported by the community.
She moved in with George Benson, William Lloyd Garrison’s brother-in-law, in 1845. Unable to sustain itself, the Northampton Association of Education and Industry dissolved in 1846. Before John Dumont moved west in 1849, she paid him a visit.
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: a Northern Slave was privately published by William Lloyd Garrison in 1850 after Truth began dictating her memoirs to her friend Olive Gilbert. She paid $300 for a house in Florence that same year and gave a speech at the inaugural National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1854, she paid off her local friend Samuel L. Hill’s mortgage with the money she received from the sale of the story and cartes-de-visite with the caption, “I sell the shadow to support the substance”.
Illness and Death
In her final years, Truth was looked after by two of her daughters. Sojourner Truth was interviewed by a reporter from the Grand Rapids Eagle a few days before to her passing. She appeared to be in excruciating pain, and her face was gaunt and drawn. Even though she had trouble speaking, her eyes were quite bright and her mind was awake.
On November 26, 1883, Sojourner Truth passed away at her Battle Creek home early in the morning. The Reverend Reed Stuart, the pastor of the Congregational-Presbyterian Church, conducted her funeral on November 28, 1883. Nearly a thousand individuals attended the service, and some of Battle Creek’s notable residents served as pall bearers. Truth was laid to rest in Oak Hill Cemetery in the city.
In Washington, D.C., Frederick Douglass gave her a eulogy. “Venerable for age, distinguished for insight into human nature, remarkable for independence and courageous self-assertion, devoted to the welfare of her race, she has been for the last forty years an object of respect and admiration to social reformers everywhere.”
