Truth, Sojourner

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TRUTH, Sojourner

Born circa 1797, Ulster County, New York; died 26 November 1883, Battle Creek, Michigan

Daughter of Elizabeth and James; married Thomas; children: five

Sojourner Truth, born a slave approximately 30 years before New York State abolished the institution, was originally given the name Isabella. From 1810 to 1827, she belonged to John Dumont, but left him when he broke his promise to manumit her one year before he was legally required to do so. She took the surname Van Wagenen from a family with whom she subsequently resided. In 1843 she adopted the name "Sojourner Truth" after hearing a call to become an itinerant preacher.

Much of Truth's early life is undocumented. Her first language was Dutch, and she spoke with a Dutch accent throughout her life. As a slave, she gave birth to a minimum of five children, one of whom likely died in infancy and two of whom were sold as children. Truth's eventual public commitment to justice was foreshadowed when her son Peter was sold, contrary to New York law, to an Alabama plantation owner. Despite her inexperience with the judicial process, Truth sued successfully for his return.

After attaining her freedom, Truth moved to New York City and worked as a domestic. She participated in several churches, eventually aligning herself with Robert Matthews, who, calling himself Matthias, founded the Kingdom of Mathias. In 1833 he organized a short-lived and scandal-ridden communal society of which Truth was a member. After this organization foundered, Truth lived more quietly and conventionally until she became Sojourner Truth in 1843.

Despite her lifelong illiteracy, Truth spent the summer of 1843 walking across Long Island and through Connecticut, singing at revivals and speaking at various church meetings, and acquiring the beginnings of her reputation as an orator. She spent the subsequent winter in Northampton, Massachusetts, within another communal society, this one organized by George W. Benson, the brother-in-law of William Lloyd Garrison. Through this association she became a resolute abolitionist. After several years in Massachusetts, she began to travel throughout the Midwest, sharing public speaking responsibilities with such other abolitionists as Frederick Douglass.

Her autobiography, Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850), an as-told-to narrative transcribed and edited by Olive Gilbert, was published in 1850. This narrative is comparatively brief; it is at its liveliest when Truth describes her determination to take her freedom from Dumont despite his attempt to renege on his promise and when she anxiously pleads for the return of her son Peter. Later she describes her distress after Peter goes to sea; he rarely wrote and didn't return home when expected. At the time the Narrative was composed, Truth hadn't heard from Peter in nearly 10 years; he never reappeared in her life. During her speaking tour after its publication, Truth lived primarily off the profits from the book's sale.

She became a women's rights advocate at this point, a decision that permitted her to continue her career as an orator during the years following the Civil War. Although Truth lived as a free woman for over 50 years, including nearly 20 following the Civil War, she would die two generations before passage of the woman suffrage amendment.

Truth is perhaps most well known for her "Aren't I a Woman" speech, which she also delivered in 1850. The exact text of this speech is unknown, for although it was transcribed by a newspaper reporter, he portrayed Truth's accent and diction as stereotypically Southern rather than the Dutch-accented English she spoke. This speech was prompted by a rumor that Truth was in fact a man, an accusation made in part because of her physical appearance, particularly her height, and her voice. When someone asked her to prove she was a woman, she did by lifting her blouse and baring her breast. The speech interrogates stereotypes regarding gender—she is strong, hard-working, and muscular, but she has also borne and raised children and suffered the anxiety and grief mothers suffer. Although men have not treated her as a "lady," she refuses to conflate the definition of "lady" with "woman" and continues to insist on her own femininity. She concludes with the assertion that if the first woman was strong enough to disrupt all of human history, then a crowd of contemporary women should be able to accomplish at least as much in the way of good.

After her Narrative was published, Truth moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where she would eventually settle permanently. She worked during the Civil War to see that African-American regiments were adequately supplied, and worked with newly freed slaves for a year in Virginia. In 1864 she was received by President Lincoln in the White House, an unusual honor for African-Americans even during the Lincoln presidency. Back in Battle Creek, she received flocks of visitors until she died in 1883. She is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek.