160 Inventing Americas: 1800–1865and she was a woman.” For Truth, both elements were a matter of profound pride,
and she devoted her life to proclaiming her belief that both were the source of her
dignity, her worth as a human being. Much of what is known about Truth is drawn
from transcriptions of her speeches, records of her public appearances, and her
autobiography, the Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850). She never learned to read or
write. “I cannot read a book, but I can read the people,” she declared. What we have
are the accounts of her and her orations by others; while the Narrative, a contribution
to both the slave narrative and the female spiritual autobiography traditions of
African-American literature, was dictated by Truth to Olive Gilbert, a sympathetic
white woman. In 1875 the Narrative was reprinted with a supplement called the
Book of Life, containing personal correspondence, newspaper accounts of her
activities, and tributes from her friends. This enlarged edition of the autobiography
was reprinted several times in 1878, 1881, and 1884 under the title Sojourner Truth:
A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence
Drawn from Her “Book of Life.” From all this, the reader learns Truth had an “almost
Amazon form, which stood nearly six feet high, head erect, and eyes piercing the
upper hair like one in a dream.” Of her appearance and manner, Harriet Beecher
Stowe wrote in 1863, “I do not recollect ever to have been conversant with any one
who had more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal presence than
this woman.” Her early life, perhaps, had contributed to giving her this presence. She
was born into slavery in New York State, as Isabella Baumfree, sold three times before
she was 12, and raped by one of her masters. She had five children from her union
with another slave, saw one of her children sold away from her, then fled with
another of her children in 1826, so seizing her freedom one year before she was
formally emancipated under a New York law passed in 1827. What also contributed
to it, though, was her sense of mission. In 1843 she received what she termed a
summons from God, commanding her to go out and preach. She changed her name
to reflect her new identity, as a traveler dedicated to telling people what is true, and
she took to the road. Early in her career as an itinerant preacher, Truth met William
Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. She enthusiastically joined the ranks of the
abolitionists, and her commitment to human rights drew her into the growing
feminist movement as well. By the late 1850s she had come to embody a commit-
ment to freedom that both contrasted with and complemented that of Douglass.
With Douglass, the cause expressed itself as masculine, individualist, mythic, and
literary; with Sojourner Truth it was something quite different but equally valuable –
female, communal, part of an oral, vernacular tradition.
The most famous speech given by Sojourner Truth expresses this difference. In
1851, during a women’s rights convention in Ohio, she spoke on behalf of the dig-
nity of women in response to attacks from a group of ministers. Her spontaneous
oration was reported in the Anti-Slavery Bugle. Then, in 1878, a second and more
elaborate version of the speech appeared in the Book of Life section of the Narrative;
this was how the president of the convention, Frances Gage, recollected it. The
rhetorical question that Gage remembered Sojourner Truth asking again and again
in the speech was, “and a’n’t I a woman?” That became the accepted title of the piece.GGray_c02.indd 160ray_c 02 .indd 160 8 8/1/2011 7:54:41 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 41 AM