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Sojourner Truth Biography

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Sojourner Truth Biography
Sojourner Truth-originally Isabella Baumfree-was born in Swartekill, New York, around 1797. Truth was born into slavery with eleven other children from James and Elizabeth (Mau-Mau Bet) Baumfree. Elizabeth Baumfree was born to slave parents in Guinea. The Baumfrees were owned by Colonel Hardenbergh and lived in Esopus, New York. Esopus used to be controlled by the Dutch, so the Baumfrees only spoke Dutch.
After being owned by Colonel Hardenbergh, the Baumfrees were given to Hardenbergh’s son, Charles. The Baumfrees were separated after Charles Hardenbergh died, and nine-year old Sojourner, or “Belle” as she was known then, was sold at an auction with a flock of sheep for $100. Her new owner was named John Neely, who was harsh and abusive …show more content…
Robert’s owner didn’t approve of their relationship, and made them break up. Dumont compelled Truth to marry a slave named Thomas. Truth and Thomas had a son, Peter, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sophia.
A law passed in 1817 should have made Truth free by the time she was 25 but John Dumont promised to emancipate Truth in 1826. Unable to wait, she fled with her infant daughter Sophia, leaving Peter and Elizabeth behind. Truth ran to an abolitionist family who later bought Truth’s freedom for twenty dollars. Truth later learned that her son was illegally sold to a man in Alabama. Truth took legal action and regained her son, becoming one of the first black women to win a case against a white man.
Truth converted to Christianity, moved to New York City in 1829, and got a job as a housekeeper for a Christian evangelist Elijah Pierson. She then moved to the home of Robert Matthews (Prophet Matthias). Matthews was a cult leader and was acquitted for the poisoning of Elijah Pierson. The Folgers, cult members, attempted to implicate Truth for the murder.
Meanwhile, Peter took a job on a whaling ship in 1839. He wrote his mother three times between 1840 and 1841. When the ship docked in 1842, Truth could not find her son anywhere on the boat, and never heard from him …show more content…
In 1843, she had a spiritual breakthrough and changed her name to Sojourner Truth. In 1844, she joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts. The association supported many areas of reform including women’s rights and pacifism. Truth met a number of abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass and David Ruggles.
In 1850, her memoirs, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, were written and published. She dedicated her memoirs to Olive Gilbert and William Lloyd Garrison. Truth spoke at the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts the same year. She then went on a nationwide tour where she gave her famous speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” at a woman’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851. Truth continued to tour Ohio from 1851 to 1853, publicizing the antislavery movement in the state. In the 1850s, she lived in Battle Creek, Michigan, where three of her daughters lived. She became active in the Underground Railroad. She helped recruit black troops for the Union Army during the Civil War. She also met with President Abraham Lincoln to thank him for helping to end slavery, and shared with him her beliefs and
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