born of slave parents about 1798 in Ulster County, New York. In her
later years she remembered vividly the cold, damp cellar-room in which
slept the slaves of the family to which she belonged, and where she was
taught by her mother to repeat the Lord's Prayer and to trust in God.
When in the course of gradual emancipation she became legally free in
1827, her master refused to comply with the law and kept her in bondage.
She left, but was pursued and found. Rather than have her go back, a
friend paid for her services for the rest of the year. Then came an
evening when, searching for one of her children who had been stolen and
sold, she found herself a homeless wanderer. A Quaker family gave her
lodging for the night. Subsequently she went to New York City, joined
a Methodist church, and worked hard to improve her condition. Later,
having decided to leave New York for a lecture tour through the East,
she made a small bundle of her belongings and informed a friend that
her name was no longer _Isabella_ but _Sojourner_. She went on her
way, speaking to people wherever she found them assembled and being
entertained in many aristocratic homes. She was entirely untaught in the
schools, but was witty, original, and always suggestive. By her tact and
her gift of song she kept down ridicule, and by her fervor and faith she
won many friends for the anti-slavery cause. As to her name she said:
"And the Lord gave me _Sojourner_ because I was to travel up an' down
the land showin' the people their sins an' bein' a sign unto them.
Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, 'cause everybody else
had two names, an' the Lord gave me _Truth_, because I was to declare
the truth to the people."
On the second day of the convention in Akron, in a corner, crouched
against the wall, sat this woman of care, her elbows resting on her
knees, and her chin resting upon her broad, hard palms.[1] In the
intermission she was employed in selling "The Life of Sojourner Truth."
From time to time came to the presiding officer the request, "Don't let
her speak; it will ruin us. Every newspaper in the land will have
our cause mixed with abolition and niggers, and we shall be utterly
denounced." Gradually, however, the meeting waxed warm. Baptist,
Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Universalist preachers had
come to hear and discuss the resolutions presented. One argued the
superiority of the male intellect, another the sin of Eve, and the
women, most of whom did not "speak in meeting," were becoming filled
with dismay. Then slowly from her seat in the corner rose Sojourner
Truth, who till now had scarcely lifted her head. Slowly and solemnly
to the front she moved, laid her old bonnet at her feet, and turned
her great, speaking eyes upon the chair. Mrs. Gage, quite equal to the
occasion, stepped forward and announced "Sojourner Truth," and begged
the audience to be silent a few minutes. "The tumult subsided at once,
and every eye was fixed on this almost Amazon form, which stood nearly
six feet high, head erect, and eye piercing the upper air, like one in a
dream." At her first word there was a profound hush. She spoke in deep
tones, which, though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and even
the throng at the doors and windows. To one man who had ridiculed the
general helplessness of woman, her needing to be assisted into carriages
and to be given the best place everywhere, she said, "Nobody eber helped
me into carriages, or ober mud puddles, or gibs me any best place"; and
raising herself to her full height, with a voice pitched like rolling
thunder, she asked, "And a'n't I a woman? Look at me. Look at my arm."
And she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous
muscular power. "I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns,
and no man could head me--and a'n't I a woman? I could work as much and
eat as much as a man, when I could get it, and bear de lash as well--and
a'n't I a woman? I have borne five chilern and seen 'em mos' all sold