Early Life

Sojourner Truth was a national figure in the movement of furthering women's rights. Sojourner Truth, previously named Isabella, was born into slavery in Ulster County, New York. When she was young, she heard the cries of her parents grieving over her older brothers and sisters being sold from them which was a very traumatic time in her life. When she was nine years old, she was taken away from her parents and never lived with them again after that. Since then, at the age of thirteen, she herself had been sold twice more. Sojourner Truth was essentially raised by her slave parents and was only able to learn to speak Dutch as this was the language of the early settlers in that region during that time. When Soujourner Truth was sold away from her parents, she had gone into a family that only spoke English. Due to this, she often found herself misunderstanding orders that were given to her. This would lead to her being cruelly whipped and punished. She did not learn to read or write and was not able to get an education. She herself along with her friends have previously stated that slavery was the cause of her not learning to read and write and being robbed of that education factor.

She was not allowed to even hear the Bible or read any other books for that matter at the word of her slave masters. Similarly to Sojourner Truth, her first child Diana never learned to read and write. Sojourner Truth grew up in a rural area which may have been a cause for less freedom, especially in terms of education. Sojourner legally aquired her freedom in 1827. During this time, she also found out that her son had been illegally sold to slavery. This sort of propelled her to put her faith in God. At this time, she attended church for the first time. Shortly after that, Sojourner Truth moved to New York City in order to get opportunities that were new for her. In New York, she was struggling to care for herself and her children as she was only fourteen years old. Her narrative further shared how she was faced with challenges in New York City due to not learning to read and write.¹

¹ Mabee, Carleton. “Sojourner Truth, Bold Prophet: Why Did She Never Learn to Read?” In New York History 69, no. 1 (1988): 55–77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23178487.