Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was born into slavery around 1797 in Swartekill, New York, with the name Isabella Bomefree. She escaped in 1826, carrying her infant daughter, and a few years later became the first Black woman to win a court case against a white man when she fought to recover her son. In 1843, convinced that God wanted her to travel and share her faith, she renamed herself Sojourner Truth. Her most famous speech, given off the cuff at the 1851 Ohio Women’s Convention in Akron, became known during the Civil War as “Ain’t I a Woman?”—though the published version used a Southern dialect she never spoke, since she grew up speaking Dutch.

Truth spent the Civil War recruiting Black men for the Union army. Afterward, she pushed the federal government to grant land to formerly enslaved people, a campaign that failed. She kept fighting for women’s and African American rights until her death in 1883. Biographer Nell Irvin Painter noted that Truth embodied a truth many ignored: Black women existed, and women existed among Black people. In 2009, a bust of Truth became the first statue of an African American woman in the U.S. Capitol. In 2014, Smithsonian magazine named her one of the “100 Most Significant Americans of All Time.”

Truth was born between 1797 and 1800, one of ten or twelve children of James and Elizabeth Bomefree. Her father, captured from what is now Ghana, was nicknamed “Bomefree,” a Dutch word for “tree,” because of his height. Her mother, called “Mau-Mau Bet,” was the daughter of slaves from Guinea. Colonel Hardenbergh bought the family and kept them on his estate in Swartekill, New York. When Truth was a baby, her five-year-old brother and three-year-old sister were sold away. Her mother taught the children to pray and told them stories of those lost siblings. Truth spoke only Dutch until age nine.

When Charles Hardenbergh died in 1806, nine-year-old Truth was auctioned off with a flock of sheep for $100 to John Neely, near Kingston, New York. Neely beat her daily, once with a bundle of rods. In 1808, he sold her for $105 to tavern keeper Martinus Schryver, who owned her for eighteen months. In 1810, she was sold to John Dumont of West Park, New York. Dumont repeatedly raped her, and his wife, Elizabeth, made her life miserable. Around 1815, Truth fell in love with a slave named Robert from a neighboring farm. His owner, painter Charles Catton Jr., forbade the relationship because he didn’t want to raise children he didn’t own. When Robert sneaked to see Truth, Catton and his son beat him savagely until Dumont stopped them. Truth never saw Robert again; he died a few years later. She later married an older enslaved man named Thomas and had five children: James, who died young; Diana, born from Dumont’s rape; and Peter, Elizabeth, and Sophia, all born after she and Thomas were together.

New York began phasing out slavery in 1799, with full emancipation set for July 4, 1827. Dumont promised Truth freedom a year early if she remained faithful, but he reneged, claiming a hand injury made her less productive. Furious, she kept working, spinning 100 pounds of wool to satisfy her sense of duty. In late 1826, she “walked off” to freedom with baby Sophia, leaving her other children behind because they weren’t legally free until their twenties. Isaac and Maria Van Wagenen took her in, buying her services for the rest of the year for $20. She lived with them until the Emancipation Act took effect. Soon after, she learned her five-year-old son Peter had been sold illegally out of state. She took the case to court and won his return.