Sojourner Truth

As a teenager she fell in love with a slave named Robert who had a different owner. She even had a child with him even though they could not get married as Robert’s owner forbade him to do so.

Her owner Dumont forced her to marry another slave, Thomas, with whom she had four children including one who died as an infant.

She led a very active life and continued speaking and campaigning well into her old age. She died of old age related problems in 1883.

She was one of the several children—historians mention this figure to be either 10 or 12—born to slaves James Baumfree and Elizabeth. Her parents were owned by Colonel Hardenbergh.

After the death of her owners, Truth was sold off at an auction along with a flock of sheep in 1806. She was just nine years old then. Her new owner John Neely was a very cruel man.

She was sold off a couple more times before she became the property of John Dumont in 1810. Dumont was kind towards his slaves but his wife ill-treated them and made their lives miserable.

The work on legislation to abolish slavery had started by 1799 in the state of New York although the legal proceeding for emancipating all the slaves was completed only by July 1827. Truth escaped to freedom with her infant daughter in late 1826; she had to leave behind her other children as they could not be legally freed.

She found work at the home of Isaac and Maria Van Wagener and lived there till the approval of the New York State Emancipation Act in 1827.

Truth’s five year old son Peter had been illegally sold off by Dumont after the passing of the law that freed all the slaves. She went to get back her son whom she learnt was being abused by his new owner. She won the case after months of lengthy legal proceedings and became one of the first black women to win such a case against a white man.

She converted to Christianity and moved with Peter to New York City where she found work as a housekeeper for a Christian Evangelist, Elijah Pierson, and worked for him till his death.

She had a spiritual experience in 1843 and she adopted the name ‘Sojourner Truth’. She started traveling and giving speeches about abolition of slavery. She joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1844. At the association which was founded by abolitionists, she met famous personalities like William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles.

She was one of the foremost feminist leaders of the abolition movement and a campaigner for women’s rights. She was a forceful orator who fearlessly spoke about varied topics like anti-slavery movements, women’s emancipation, capital punishment, prison reforms, and universal property rights, among others.