Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was an escaped slave who became an abolitionist and women’s rights activist. She was best known for her speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?,” delivered at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron in 1851. In the speech, she proudly proclaims that she has as much muscle as any man and can do as much work as any man. She talks about how she has plowed, reaped, husked, and chopped as much as any man. She imbues her speech with a little humor, acknowledging she can also eat as much as any man if she can get it.

She was also instrumental in recruiting African-American troops for the Union Army during the Civil War.

Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, in 1797. Her father, James Baumfree, an African, was captured in what is now Ghana, brought to America, and sold into slavery. Her mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of captured slaves from the coast of Guinea. James and Elizabeth were sold by slave traders to landowner Col. Johannes Hardenbergh, who brought them to his estate in New York. Upon Hardenbergh’s death, his son Charles inherited his father’s estate.

With a flock of sheep

In 1806, after Charles Hardenbergh’s death, 9-year-old Truth was sold along with a flock of sheep at auction for $100.

Truth was sold and resold to several owners over the next few years. She was bought by John Dumont in 1810. She met Robert, a slave at a neighboring plantation, and they fell in love and had a daughter, Diana. Robert’s owner, Charles Catton Jr., would not allow the relationship to continue because Dumont owned Diana, the child of his slave. Truth did not see Robert again. In 1817, Dumont forced her to marry an older slave named Thomas, and they had three children, Peter, Elizabeth and Sophia.

After Dumont broke his promise to free Truth in 1826, she escaped to freedom with her baby daughter Sophia. Her daughter Elizabeth and son Peter remained behind. After she escaped, Truth found out that her son had been sold illegally to a man in Alabama. She challenged the sale in court and got her son returned from the South. Her case was one of the first in which a black woman successfully challenged a white man in a U.S. court.

On June 1, 1843, Isabella Baumfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth and devoted her life to Methodism and the abolition of slavery.

Around 1850, Truth’s memoir was published and she began touring with abolitionist George Thompson and spoke to public crowds about slavery and human rights.

Truth died on Nov. 26, 1883, in Battle Creek, Michigan.