Isabella Baumfree was born in 1797. She is very famously
known as Sojourner Truth. She was born in Ulster County, New York. She was a
Dutch- speaking slave. Born into slavery Sojourner and for a majority of her
life she spent time being beaten, raped, and sold to different slave owners. She
was sold for the first time at the age of 9. The slave owner John Neely bought her
for $100 and a flock of sheep. Then sold to a tavern keeper Martinus Schryver.
There is no documents talking about the third owner, but the last Master she
served was a man named John Dumont.
During her time with the Dumont’s, there was tension that
arose with Truth and the wife of John. Elizabeth, the wife, would be very harsh
to Truth. She believed that there was something between them. This is because
he would rape Sojourner many times. Dumont even promised Sojourner that he
would free her when the time comes but fell short of that promise. She did meet
an enslaved man from the neighboring plantation named Robert. They both fell in
love, but it became forbidden by the neighbors. They ended up having three kids
and one more kid being John’s due to him
raping her. After hearing about the love affair, the neighbors beat Robert to
death. Leaving Sojourner a single mother to several kids. This was Sojourner’s
last straw, and she escaped with her infant Sophia.
She left to a nearby abolitionist family in the year 1827.
This was one year before New York passed a law to free the slaves. She lived
with the Van Wageners that later bought her freedom. They even helped her sue for
the rights back of her five-year-old kid that was illegally sold into slavery.
She then became the first slave to sue and win her case.
After her move to New York, she met two abolitionist William
Lloyd Garrison and Fredrick Douglas. She becomes good friends with these
abolitionists and quickly became inspired to also join the fight against slavery.
Truth became an activist for many other movements, such as Women’s Rights and
even the Temperance movement.
She gave many speeches, but her most famous one being the “Ain’t
I a Woman” speech. This speech challenged both racial and misogyny. This
brought a lot of importance to the notion of intersectionality. The struggles
being black and only being seen as property and then adding on that she is a
woman who are also seen as property. This caused a ripple in the relationship Sojourner
had with her fellow abolitionist Fredrick Douglass. Fredrick Douglass did not
share the same beliefs as Sojourner. He believed that black men deserved voting
rights before any women deserved rights to vote. Truth believed that these
rights should be granted simultaneously. In her eyes, everyone deserved to be heard.
In her final years, Truth spent her time in Michigan. She stayed
to spend time with her three daughters. Still with a heart of Gold, she would
still fight against slavery and would help free slaves. At the beginning of the
Civil War, she urged troops to fight to end the war on slavery. She believed
this war could help officially eliminate slavery and urged men to fight. She even
organized a black man troop to fight alongside the Union. After the War, she
was invited to the White House to meet with Abraham Lincoln to celebrate all
she had done for Black Americans. Truth joined the Freedman’s Bureau to help ex-slaves
find jobs and begin their lives as free people. Even during segregation
Sojourner was a front runner against this cause. She died at the age of 86 an accomplished
but most of all a freed woman.
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