Sojourner Truth, a slave who grew up in West Park
Sojourner Truth is rarely mentioned in the histories of
Ulster County. Her story highlights an unflattering
underside of the growth of the county, viz. the
reliance on slave and indentured servant labor. The
Dutch and Portuguese were the principal slave
traders from Africa, and by 1800 New York was the
northern state with the most slaves. Important
Dutch-origin persons in Ulster, Kings and Richmond
headed the opposition to abolition of slavery in New
York. To be fair, a statue of Sojourner Truth stands
near the county office building in Kingston.
Northern slavery was substantially different from that in the South,
where large groups of slaves were kept on large plantations. In the North,
slaves rarely numbered more than four or five in any family.
Isabella was born in either Rosendale or Tillson sometime between
1795 and 1799, the most probable date being 1797. Written records were not
kept of the birth, marriage or death of slaves. Most of what we know about
Isabella's childhood comes from her Narrative dictated to Olive Gilbert around
1850, but what few other sources we have seem to corroborate that testimony.
Isabella was born to James (born circa 1760) and Betsy (born circa
1870), two slaves who may have come from Africa, but at the time of Isabella's
birth belonged to Johannis Hardenbergh, of the family associated with the
Hardenbergh Patent.. James was tall and had the nickname Bomefree,
meaning "tall tree"; Betsy was called Mau Mau, a Dutch term for "mother".
The couple had about thirteen children, most of whom were sold away or
donated to other members of the Hardenbergh family. James and Betsy were
favored by Johannis Hardenberg with a separate cabin, but when Johannis
died and his son Charles inherited Hardenberg Hall and the farm, the couple
and their remaining children were moved back into the main house, in the
damp, unheated cellar, lit only by a small window.
Isabella's mother carried out a common tradition for peoples who could
neither read nor write; she told her daughter stories of her older sisters and
brothers. In particular, she told Isabella how a five year old boy and his three
year old sister were grabbed, loaded into the Hardenbergh carriage, and taken
away to other owners. Isabella was too young to know these two, but later in
life she encountered the boy in New York City, her sister having died just a few
years before the encounter. Isabella remembers receiving beatings from the
master, but thought they were probably deserved. Such slave beatings were
common even for young children,
After the death of Charles Hardenbergh, around 1807, Isabella was
sold to the Neely family for $100. The Neelys spoke only English, and Isabella
spoke only Dutch, so communication was difficult. Isabella received beatings
which left welts and scars on her back for the rest of her life. In about a year,
she was sold to the Schriver family. Mr Schriver was a pillar of the Klyne



Esopus Dutch Reformed Church, but he also ran a tavern, where Isabella
learned to swear and smoke.
In 1810, she was sold for $175 to John J Dumont and his wife Sally,
who occupied over 770 acres of land in river lot #9 of the New Paltz Patent,
about 1600 feet south of the Payne lands. She stayed with the Dumonts
almost seventeen years. John Dumont praised her work, maintaining that she
could outperform any of his male slaves or servants. Sally complained that
Isabella got all that work done because she did it poorly. The other slaves
were unhappy with Isabella, for they found no reason for industry -- there was
no incentive.
Isabella had a simple romance with a slave from another property, but
that slave's owner caught them on the Dumont land and whipped the young
man soundly. She was then married to James, who had been married twice
previously. It is probably that James' first two wives were sold to others, as
slave marriages were not considered important. Isabella had five or six
children, that remained on the Dumont land.
Massachusetts, Connecticut and Pennsylvania abolished slavery soon
after the Revolutionary War. while the move to abolish slavery was slow in
New York State. The landowners opposed abolition because they saw it as a
loss of labor. Finally a compromise was reached in 1817. Any slave born
before 1799 had to be released by July 4, 1827. Slaves born after that date
could be kept as slaves until 28 years old if male, and 25 years if female.
(Isabella probably had five children between 1815 and 1826; Diana, born
about 1815; Peter 1821; Elizabeth 1825, and Sophia, 1826. The fifth perhaps
named Thomas, may have died in infancy, and probably came between Diana
and Peter. This meant that Diana would remain a slave until 1840, Peter to
1849, Elizabeth 1850 and Sophia 1851 ).
Masters could free their slaves earlier. However, if they freed them
after the age of 50, they had to post a bond of $200 for their upkeep in the
poorhouse. The pattern developed to free those slaves who had lost their
capacity for full labor before the age of 50, when the bond was unnecessary.
This happened to James and Betsy. Like many others, they lived in the
woods, hoping for some charitable shelter during the harsh winters. Betsy
died about 1809. James lingered on a few years after, blind and lame.
Isabella saw him once more, but learned of his death only after the fact.
John Dumont promised Isabella that he would free her a year before
the deadline. However, Isabella injured her hand which left it deformed, so
John unilaterally decided that she should stay the entire term. After the
agreed earlier date passed, he gave her about 100 pounds of wool to be
woven, which she did at night after her normal chores. This took about six
months. Isabella then decided that she had done enough. Just before dawn,
she set out with her youngest child and a kerchief of clothes, and walked to
the house of Levi Rowe, an old friend, whom she found on his deathbed. He
directed her to the home of Isaac and Maria van Wagenen, who took her in.
Later that morning, John Dumont arrived to take her back. The van
Wagenen's paid Dumont $25, amounting to $20 for a year's work of Isabella,
and $5 for the child. Isabella took their name (often spelled van Wagener) and
stayed with them for about a year. It was common practice for a slave to take
his/her master's last name when freed; taking van Wagener rather than
Dumont showed her appreciation of Isaac and Maria.


A common trick was to sell off slaves to states in which slavery was
legal after 1827, even though this was subject to severe penalties: 14 years in
prison and $600 fine. Towards the end of her stay in Ulster, Isabella learned
that her son Peter had been sent to Alabama. Dumont had sold Peter to a Dr.
Gedney in 1826 who intended to bring him to England, but he found Peter too
young to carry out any of the envisioned duties. Dr. Gedney in turn sold him
to his brother, Solomon Gedney, who gave Peter to his daughter, who had
married a Fowler from Alabama. Peter was taken with the new bride to
Alabama. When Isabella discovered this, she was not content to shrug it off.
After pleading with the Dumonts ( the Gedneys were related to Sally), Isabella
walked to Kingston and visited a lawyer, who told her he would get Peter back
in 24 hours if she gave him $5.
Isabella walked about 12 miles to ask a
Quaker group for the money; she then returned to Kingston and gave the
lawyer the money. Since the young man had already been sent to Alabama, it
took several months to retrieve him. The boy was brought before a judge,
together with Isabella and Fowler. At first the boy denied that Isabella was his
mother, but the judge awarded him to Isabella. When it became clear that
Peter would stay with Isabella, he admitted that he had been severely beaten
by Fowler, and Isabella saw the welts and open wounds on his back. A few
years afterwards, Fowler struck his wife in a fit of anger, killing her. He was
imprisoned, and their children were send north to the Gedneys.
During Isabella's years in Ulster, she became involved with the
Methodist Church, but also believed that she had direct communication with
God. The Methodists group she associated with were part of the perfectionist
movement (today we would call them Pentecostals). Many of the meetings
were spontaneous, and Isabella found she had a gift for speaking or
preaching.
About 1828, Isabella sensed that God told her to move to a larger
audience. She took her son (who had been freed because of the Alabama
episode) and moved to New York City. She lived on Bowery Hill with the
family of James Latourette, a furrier with a shop on Canal Street, who was
also a Pentecostal. Mrs. Latourette was a member of a group of women who
ventured into Five Points to help out.
Isabella got caught up in several
movements, once with the Prophet Matthias, later with the Millerite groups.
Matthias grew up on a farm in Washington County and decided he was the
second coming. Coincidentally Miller grew up on Washington County near
Glens Falls. His careful reading of the Bible led him to discover that the
second coming would occur sometime between 21 March 1843 and 21 March
1844. Later in life Isabella would deny she was a Millerite, but she certainly
participated in many of the camp meetings.
Peter became a discipline problem, and eventually was given the
choice of prison or shipping out on a whaling ship. He chose the latter, and
there are several letters he wrote or dictated while on the ship. But we have
no record of what happened to him.
Despite the falling out between Isabella and Dumont, she returned to
Ulster to care for the dying Sally Dumont. John Dumont left Ulster for
Dutchess County in 1849, and brought Elizabeth and Sophia with him After
this, Isabella did not return to Ulster.
In 1843, Isabella decided she ought to leave New York. She now
called herself Sojourner Truth, indicating that she felt she ought to be itinerant


but always tell the truth about the Lord. She traveled east to Long Island,
where she enjoyed the hospitality of Millerite families and participated in their
camp meetings. She then took the ferry to Bridgeport, and traveled up the
Connecticut River through Hartford, Chicopee and Springfield. When Fall
arrived, she looked for a place to stay the winter. She found it in Northampton.
About this time there were many groups which formed separate
communities based on utopian principles, among them Brook Farm and Hope
Farm. Several of these were in Massachusetts. A common trait was denial of
the usual priestly formats of religion, relying on direct communication between
the person and God. The Northampton Association of Education and Industry
was led by William Lloyd Garrison's brother-in-law. In 1841 the group
purchased a bankrupt Northampton Silk Company along the Mill River. The
property included a large four-story brick factory building 120 by 40 feet on
420 acres of land along the Mill River. In its heyday in 1845 the group
numbered 210 members, mostly from Massachusetts and Connecticut. It
followed egalitarian principles, treating equally men and women, black and
white, which impressed its members and visitors.
Through this group Isabella was introduced to a great number of
abolitionist persons. In addition, she was introduced to Olive Gilbert, a woman
who became Isabella's amanuensis, writing Sojourner's story as a narrative,
completing it about 1850. Sojourner lived for a time with the Bensons, then
purchased one of the houses on the mill property, undertaking a mortgage
commitment which lasted many years. She hoped to sell her Narrative at
meetings when she preached; this took a long time, as she only charged 25
cents per narrative.
There are plenty of accounts of Sojourner's later life. She gravitated to
Washington DC during the Civil War, where she tried to work the camps of the
freed slaves in and around the city. Later, she relocated to Battle Creek,
Michigan, selling her Northampton house and purchasing another. She
remained very active in the abolition movement, which transmuted into the
issue of voting for blacks. Many of the abolitionists wished to downplay the
parallel issue of voting rights for women. Sojourner insisted that the issues
were not divisible.
Her imposing personality and entertaining method of
presentation kept her a popular speaker until shortly before her death in
1883.
While at Battle Creek, three of her daughters lived with or near
Sojourner. Neither she nor her daughters ever learned to read or write, nor did
they profit financially from Sojourner's fame. Elizabeth Boyd died at home of
"nervous prostration" in June 1883; Sophia Schulyer died in the county
poorhouse of "old age" in March 1901; and Diana Corbin died of chronic ill
health in the county poorhouse after being an object of private charity for ten
years.
Sojourner's fame spread slowly by means of her Narrative. She asked
William Lloyd Garrison to write something about it in the preface. But her
fame spread quickly when Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about Sojourner in the
Atlantic Monthly in 1863. Unfortunately, Stowe's work contains many errors,
which simply did not go away as other writers used Stowe as a source.
About the same year Frances Gage, who had chaired the 1851 Ohio Women's
Rights Convention which catapulted Truth to national fame, wrote an account
of Sojourner's speech. The twelve years between Truth's speech and Gages




account gave room for lots of 'poetic license'. There is a short account of
Truth's speech written soon after by the secretary of the Convention, which
differs substantially from Gage's account.
The ideas of Stowe and Gage
remained dominant until the middle of the twentieth century. In the past five
decades more attention was paid to the historical aspects. Unfortunately
Sojourner's influence came from her speeches and preaching; there is nothing
which she herself wrote, and her manner of speaking was considered unique
and entertaining.
References:
Margaret Washington, Narrative of Sojourner Truth, An authoritative,
annotated edition of a landmark in the literature of African-American women.
Edited and with an introduction by Margaret Washington, Vintage Books, a
Division of Random House, Inc. New York, 1993, 138 pp. The introduction
authored by Margaret Washington gives a concise view of Northern slavery,
and slavery in Ulster in particular.
Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol, New York, W. W. Norton
& Company, 1996, 370 pp "This vividly imagined and forcefully written
portrait of the iconographic Sojourner Truth is one of the finest biographies of
recent years. In her dual roles of historian and cultural critic, Nell Painter is
brilliant." --- Joyce Carol Oates Nell Painter separates the history of Truth
from the legend as far as possible, and points out how the erroneous
information became part of the legend.
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