The History of Sojourner Truth
Uploaded by kadavis20 on Mar 07, 2000
Our nation has come about through a series of changes, sort of like an evolution to the powerful nation we have become, and even greater nation we perhaps will be one day. It takes the acknowledgement and courage of people to bring about a change in society from what was known to what will be. Such a humanitarian hero was Sojourner Truth.
Sojourner Truth was born a slave named Isabella Baumfree sometime in 1797 in Ulster county, New York. The exact date of her birth is to this day unknown, but it is believed to have been sometime during the fall. She developed her characteristics of courage and dependability from her mother, Mau Mau Bett, at an early age. Isabella was first owned by a Dutch named Charles, who was happened to be a decent slave owner. At his death, she was separated from her mother and auctioned to another set of plantation owners, the Neelys. Isabella was highly mistreated here as they took their dislike of the Dutch community out on Isabella, who spoke hardly a word of English. She was bought and sold three times within the next twenty-four months, the final purchaser being a man named John Dumont for the incredibly low bargaining price of three hundred dollars.
Dumont needed more slaves for his New York plantation. He always bragged that Isabella was the hardest working slave on the plantation. Seeing this, he forced her to wed a fellow slave known as Tom. Isabella gave birth to five children within the next five years. Two years before the emancipation act of 1828, in which all slaves within New York were freed, Dumont promised Isabella that if she were to extra hard for the next year, he would set her free a year early. She did just that; she was the even harder working already hardest working slave on the plantation. Whenever the time came, though, Dumont broke his promise. Isabella, realizing she had been tricked, escaped with her infant child in her arms in October of 1827 to the refuge of a Quaker family.
Isabella did not wish to have any remembrances of her previous owner, so she adopted the name of her Quaker friends, Van Wagenen. With the help of the Quakers, she won a lawsuit to reclaim one of her sons, Peter, not long after receiving her freedom. She then again changed her name when she left...