Sojourner Truth and How Her Life Affected Afro-Americans

Isabella Baumfree was born in 1797 in Ulster County, New York. Ulster County was a Dutch settlement, and that was the spoken language there. Isabella’s parents were slaves, and she was one of thirteen children.

The Baumfree family was poor, yet her mother instilled her children with a strong Christian faith.

When Isabella was eleven years old, she was sold into slavery and separated from her birth family. As a necessity, she learned to speak the English language, but she spoke it with her Dutch accent.

Isabella Baumfree was sold again many times, and she ended up with different slave masters. One master, a mean-spirited man named John Dumont, coerced Isabella into marrying an older slave named Thomas. The union produced five children.

John Dumont had agreed to free the slave woman some time before New York became an emancipated state in 1828. But, being the cruel man that he was, he welshed on his promise.

So, Isabella took her baby son and escaped from the Dumont farm. She ended up in New York City. To support herself and her son, she worked as a domestic in churchly communes.

Finally, in the year of 1843, Isabella experienced a spiritual enlightenment. She changed her name to “Sojourner Truth.” Sojourner said she believed God had called her “to travel up and down the land, showing the people their sins and being a sign unto them.” She then traveled on foot through Long Island and Connecticut and preached the word of God.

Sojourner’s journey finally took her to Massachusetts. She became a part of “The Northampton Association for Education and Industry “. It was here that she got to know abolitionists such as
Frederick Douglass and Olive Gilbert.

In turn, Sojourner Truth began to preach against slavery. She related accounts of her personal experiences of being a mistreated slave. She also took up the cause of woman’s rights.

Sojourner horrified her listening audiences simply by telling true stories of how she and other slaves were beaten and abused. She also told how slaves were cramped together with no privacy in crude cabins. They were, according to Sojourner, given only bits of leftover food, worked until they practically dropped over from exhaustion, and clothed in rags.

During the Civil War, Sojourner helped the African-American volunteer soldiers by collecting and distributing supplies they needed. President Lincoln honored her for her wartime work by inviting her to the White House in 1864. She then worked for the National Freedman’s Relief Association in order to improve life for African-Americans.

When the Civil War ended, and the slaves in the South were finally set free, Sojourner Truth helped the ex-slaves settle into new lives.

And, as always, she traveled and preached until illness beset her.

Sojourner Truth passed away in Battlecreek, Michigan in November of 1883.