Born around 1797 near the Wallkill River in Rifton to enslaved parents, Isabella was the youngest child of James and Betsey, who were owned by Col. Johannes Hardenburgh. After Hardenburgh died in 1799, she was inherited by his son Charles, then sold at age 10 to a storekeeper near Kingston, where beatings left lifelong scars because she knew only Dutch and did not understand orders given in English. At age 11 she was sold to fisherman Martinus Schryver in what is now Port Ewen, where she labored at carrying fish, hoeing corn, gathering roots and herbs for beer, and fetching molasses and liquor. At age 13 she was sold to John Dumont in West Park, where she lived and worked for the next 16 years, married a fellow slave, and bore five children while remaining faithful to her mother's teachings of honesty, obedience, and belief in God. Although New York State's 1799 law provided freedom in 1827 for slaves who were 28 or older, Isabella and Dumont agreed she could be freed in 1826, but he broke his promise. Early on an October morning she took her 3 month old daughter, crossed the Esopus hills, and found refuge with Isaac and Maria Van Wagenen in St. Remy. Soon after, she learned that her 5 year old son had been taken illegally into slavery in Alabama, and as a free woman she sued in Ulster County Court at Kingston in 1828 and won his return. She moved to New York City in 1829, became an immensely popular and powerful speaker, and at age 46 took the name Sojourner Truth. Her 1850 Narrative is one of the few first person accounts of the life of a slave in New York State. For the rest of her life she preached temperance, women's rights, prison reform, the abolition of slavery, and equitable treatment of freed slaves. After years of travel, she joined her family in Battle Creek, Michigan, and died there on Nov.26, 1883. In 1981 she was named to the Women's' National Hall of Fame, and in 2009 she became the first Black woman honored with a statue in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Photo: Steve Stoessel

Photo: Steve Stoessel

Kingston, New York · USA