Sojourner Truth
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.
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⇒ Sojourner Truth
