Revive Us Again a Sojourners Story
I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance
I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance (Card de Visite), 1864. New-York Historical Lodge Library.
Sojourner Truth was built-in into slavery around the twelvemonth 1797. Her parents, John and Elizabeth Bomfree, were enslaved by a human being named Charles Hardenbergh who lived in Esopus, New York. John and Elizabeth named their new daughter Isabella.
Esopus was a predominately Dutch expanse, so Isabella grew up speaking Dutch. She never learned to read or write. When Isabella was five years old, she started to piece of work for her enslaver alongside her mother, learning all of the domestic skills that would brand her a valuable enslaved woman when she was grown. Isabella was i of 10 or twelve children. Many of her siblings were sold away from the family when she was immature, a trauma that stayed with her for the rest of her life.
When Isabella was ix, Charles Hardenbergh died. Isabella was separated from her parents and sold to a farmer named John Neely. The Neely family was very brutal to Isabella. They beat her frequently and mocked and punished her for non understanding English. When Isabella'southward father visited her new home, he was horrified to come across her injuries. He fabricated arrangements for Isabella to be bought by an innkeeper. But the innkeeper had money problem and sold Isabella again a few months later. Inside a yr of beingness separated from her parents, Isabella had three different enslavers.
Isabella's new enslaver was John Dumont. John was a prosperous farmer who fabricated Isabella work in his home and fields. Isabella grew up tall and strong, and John bragged to his neighbors that she worked harder than any of his male person workers, enslaved or complimentary. Within a few years of her arrival, when Isabella was withal a teenager, John initiated a sexual relationship with her. Isabella, who was young and powerless, bore him at to the lowest degree ane child. Isabella then married an older enslaved homo. Ultimately, she gave birth to five children, 4 of whom lived to adulthood. She later recalled that she could never properly feed her babies because she was expected to breastfeed John's white children.
During Isabella'southward early life, New York passed a series of gradual emancipation laws that would ultimately abolish the practice of slavery in the land. Co-ordinate to these laws, Isabella was supposed to gain her freedom on July 4, 1827. John promised her that he would gear up her gratuitous 1 year earlier, but failed to go along his promise. Angry with John and tired of living with enslavement, Isabella took her youngest girl and left John'due south subcontract in 1826, claiming her own freedom.
Isabella institute shelter and safety nearby with the Dutch Van Wagenens, a family she had known as a child. The Van Wagenens were abolitionists, and they helped her buy her freedom from John. To mark her new condition as a gratuitous woman, she changed her name to Isabella Van Wagenen.
Soon after Isabella left, John sold her son Peter. New York law required that Peter be kept in the country until he earned his ain freedom under the emancipation laws, merely Peter's new owners took him to Alabama, where he could be enslaved for life. This kidnapping reminded Isabella of the trauma of losing her siblings. She sprang into action, enervating that local law enforcement go her son back. She gave public speeches in Kingston, New York, explaining the cruelties of slavery to any white person who would listen. She finally succeeded in regaining custody of her son, only Peter never recovered from the cruelty and terror he experienced while enslaved in the Deep South.
While she was fighting for custody of Peter, Isabella experienced a spiritual awakening. Her mother taught her spiritual traditions from Africa when she was a kid, and she'd been exposed to Dutch Reform and Methodist teachings, but she had not committed fully to religion. In 1827, while she was because returning to John'southward farm, Isabella claimed God reprimanded her for not living a better life. She defended herself to doing God'south work in the future.
In 1851, Sojourner gave the famous speech unremarkably titled "Ain't I a Woman" at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. The text of the speech was later inverse past a white publisher to make Sojourner sound more than Southern, changing the public's image of her.
In 1828, Isabella moved to New York City. She joined the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, which allowed her to run across and speak with many Black community leaders. She connected to explore her new religious calling and learned more than about the abolitionist movement. She also found new causes to champion, including temperance, women's rights, Blackness uplift, and pacifism. She took upward teaching and preaching in New York's poorest neighborhoods, boldly going places other women activists feared to visit.
For the adjacent 11 years, Isabella worked every bit domestic servant earlier undergoing a 2d spiritual transformation. She believed God was calling her to travel and preach about the causes she believed in. To mark the start of this new chapter in her life, Isabella changed her proper noun to Sojourner Truth. She was virtually 45 years old.
Sojourner traveled throughout the Northeast, telling her story and working to convince people to cease slavery and support women's rights. She had fiddling money, so she often walked from place to place and sometimes slept outdoors. She met abolitionist leaders like Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and David Ruggles forth the fashion. She never shied abroad from challenging these celebrities in public when she disagreed with them. Sojourner's lack of instruction and her Dutch accent fabricated her something of an outsider, but the power of words and her conviction impressed all those effectually her.
Sojourner dictated her autobiography to a friend in 1850. So she traveled west to proceed her teaching. In 1851, she gave the famous speech commonly titled "Ain't I a Woman" at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. The text of the speech was later changed by a white publisher to make Sojourner sound more Southern, irresolute the public's paradigm of her. That version of the speech is all the same the most widely known today.
Sojourner encountered fierce opposition from pro-slavery groups wherever she traveled. She was often attacked, and on one occasion, she was beaten so severely that she was left with a limp for the balance of her life. All the same, Sojourner never stopped travelling and pedagogy, sure that God would protect her.
When the Civil War began, Sojourner dedicated her considerable talents to recruiting soldiers for the Union Ground forces. Although she was a pacifist, she believed that the war was a fair punishment from God for the crime of slavery. She as well knew the Union needed fighters to win. In 1864, she moved to Washington, D.C., and worked for the National Freedman's Relief Association, striving to improve the lives and prospects of costless Black people. That autumn, she was invited to meet President Abraham Lincoln. But fifty-fifty in the midst of a war, she found time to ride the capital'southward streetcars to force their desegregation.
After the state of war, Sojourner lobbied the U.S. government to grant country to newly costless Blackness men and women. She understood that Blackness people could never be truly free until they achieved economic prosperity, and she knew that owning land was an important first stride. She also continued to travel throughout the U.s.a., giving speeches about women'southward rights, prison reform, and desegregation. She was a passionate champion of all aspects of social justice right up until her death on Nov 26, 1883.
Vocabulary
- abolition: The motion to finish slavery in the United States.
- African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church: A historically Black Christian church building founded in New York City in 1821.
- Black uplift: The idea that educated Black people are responsible for helping to ameliorate the atmospheric condition of all Black people.
- commune: A grouping of people who live together and share possessions and responsibilities.
- desegregation: Catastrophe the policy of keeping different races separate.
- dictate: Speak aloud then someone else can tape that person'south words.
- domestic: Chores related to running a habitation.
- emancipation: Setting people free from slavery.
- lobbied: Deport activities to influence regime officials.
- National Freedman'southward Relief Clan: An organization dedicated to helping Black people after the Civil State of war.
- pacifism: The conventionalities that whatever violence is unjustifiable.
- temperance: The motility to outlaw liquor in the United States.
- women'southward rights: The cause of promoting women'due south equality to men.
Discussion Questions
- How did Sojourner Truth'south babyhood experiences bear upon her adult life?
- What does Sojourner Truth's story reveal about slavery and emancipation in the Northern states?
- Sojourner Truth inverse her name twice in her lifetime. What events prompted these changes? What do these changes tell united states of america about the power of names?
- Why did Sojourner Truth speak out about then many different issues?
Suggested Activities
- Include this life story in whatsoever lesson about prominent leaders of the abolitionist movement.
- Sojourner Truth, the Grimké Sisters, and Harriet Jacobs were all part of the aforementioned abolitionist circle. Read and compare their life stories to achieve a more holistic understanding of the community and the style women operated inside information technology.
- Sojourner Truth was ane of many Black women activists operating in the antebellum period. After reading her story, invite students to learn more about the experience of other Black women activists in this period, and compare and contrast the challenges and experiences of each: Elizabeth Jennings, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Salem Female person Anti-Slavery Society, Resistance, Harriet Robinson Scott, and Harriet Tubman.
- Sojourner Truth was able to establish herself as a successful free Blackness woman despite many struggles. For more examples of free Blackness women succeeding against hard odds in the antebellum period, see: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Daughter, Salem Female Anti-Slavery Guild, Freedom Bonds, Fighting Segregation, Life Story: Letitia Carson, and Life Story: Elizabeth Keckley.
- To learn about the activism of Black women after the Civil War, explore any of the following: "All Bound Upward Together," Challenge Political Power, Laundry Worker'due south Strike, Life Story: Elizabeth Keckley, and Life Story: Susie Baker King Taylor.
- The fight for social justice issues continues today. Ask your students to pick one of the causes Sojourner Truth championed and enquiry a modern-day activist who has continued the fight. How has the movement evolved since Sojourner Truth?
Themes
ACTIVISM AND SOCIAL Modify
New-York Historical Society Curriculum Library Connections
- For more about the history of slavery and emancipation in New York, see Slavery in New York and New York Divided .
Source: https://wams.nyhistory.org/a-nation-divided/antebellum/sojourner-truth/
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