Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree)
1797 -
1883
Born:
Isabella Baumfree (Sojourner Truth) in
Ulster
County, New York. 1797
Sojourner Truth was born in 1797 in
Ulster
County, a Dutch settlement in upstate New York. Her given
name was Isabella Baumfree. She was sold from her family
around the age of eleven. She was sold several times and
suffered many hardships under slavery.
Forced
to submit to the will of her third master, John Dumont,
Isabella married an older slave named Thomas. Thomas and
Isabella had five children.
Dumont
had promised Isabella freedom a year before the state
emancipation. When
Dumont
reneged on his promise, Isabella ran away with her infant
son in 1828.
Isabella
eventually settled in
New York
City, working as a domestic for several religious communes.
Isabella Baumfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth and
walked through
Long
Island
and
Connecticut,
preaching "God's truth and plan for salvation” she joined
the utopian community "The Northampton Association for
Education and Industry, "where she met and worked with
abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick
Douglass and Olive Gilbert. Her dictated memoirs were
published in 1850 as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A
Northern Slave.
She
eventually added abolitionism and women's suffrage to her
oratory, often giving personal testimony about her
experiences as a slave. In 1851, she spoke at a women's
covention in
Akron,
Ohio. The legendary phrase, "Ain't I a Woman?" was
associated with Truth after this speech.
After
the Civil War ended, she worked tirelessly to aid the
newly-freed southern slaves. She even attempted to petition
Congress to give the ex-slaves land in the "new West." Truth
continued preaching and lecturing until ill health forced
her to retire.
She died
November 1883 in
Battle
Creek, Michigan
