As a slave Sojourner Truth went through a lot of masters and all gave her varying degrees of agency. She was born into the employ of the Hardenbergh’s but he died before she every truly had to work. During her stay with her family on the Hardenbergh estate her family suffered great loss in the loss of almost every child Sojourner’s parents had. By the time Charles Hardenbergh died all but Sojourner, then Isabella, and her brother, Peter, had been sold at varying ages, most never to be seen again.
This took away almost all major agency of her parents. When Col. Hardenbergh died his sons auctioned off all his slaves except James and Mau-Mau Bet who they let stay on the property in peace if they helped with the chores of the land here and there. Sojourner was sold, at nine years old, to the Neely’s who only spoke English while Sojourner spoke Dutch.
Under the Neely’s roof Sojourner was consistently physically and mentally abused until Sojourner was sold to Martinus Schryver. Under Schryver’s ownership Sojourner worked in a tavern and did the women’s work inside as well as the men’s work in the fields. Sojourner is then sold to Thomas Dumont who keeps her until she escapes to freedom. Being sold so many times took away much of her agency in life. But she still decided small things such as her religion and agreeing to be sold to Schryver. While living on the Dumont’s property Sojourner fell in love with a slave from another plantation. Although Dumont did not mind the other slave, Robert’s owner would not let him marry outside the plantation.
Robert resisted for a while but eventually gave in and married a slave on his own plantation. This is another example of how agency was taken away from Sojourner when she was unable to marry the man she loved. Sojourner eventually was married to an older slave and had five children. She had some agency with her children by teaching them her religion and not to steal what did not belong to them. During Sojourner’s time at the Dumont place it seemed that she had a lot of agency. She would choose to work all day and night and even tell her master when she did something wrong of her own accord. While it seemed that Sojourner had agency it was truly just superficial.
In reality Dumont controlled her entire psyche, which caused her to treat him like a god. The only true agency Sojourner had was when she decided to run away and become a free black. As a free black Sojourner took real agency in her life. She left slavery with her daughter Sophia and became a maid in the house of a kind family where she stayed until she learned the fate of her five-year-old son Peter.
Peter had illegally been sold down South and Sojourner decided to sue to get him back. This was true agency as she took control of the legal situation, appealed to a judge, got a lawyer, and won her son back legally. After Sojourner won her son back she moved to the city and was a maid there for some time until she decided to travel America as a sort of pilgrimage.
During this pilgrimage she spoke at many different religious gatherings and showed agency in the fact that she chose what she would do with every moment of her life. She had control of every decision that controlled her life after she went on her pilgrimage. As a woman, Sojourner never let gender roles hold her back from what she wanted. Even as a slave her masters would continually boast that Sojourner did the work of both men and women better then either gender could do individually. Sojourner would do field work as well as the cleaning and cooking for most of the masters that owned her.
After she became free Sojourner went outside the women’s gender roles when she sued a white male landowner for her son’s freedom. Most white women of that day would not have dared such a bold move, let alone a recently freed slave. When on her pilgrimage across America Sojourner travelled alone, which was almost unheard of for a woman in that time period, and also spoke to large crowds.
One time she even spoke out against the male preachers in a church for making the crowd to excited. Sojourner might have been a black woman in a society where she was the lowest on the social ladder but she never let that stop her from ignoring all the stereotypes and expectations and saying exactly what she thought, especially about Jesus and God.
Growing up Sojourner’s mother taught her that only God could help her while she was enslaved. Sojourner took this to heart and every time she found herself in trouble she called on God for help to fix it for her. While Sojourner was kept in slavery her religion was the only thing she could look towards when she was hurting or scared. As she advanced in life it became clearer to Sojourner that God was not only there for when life was bad but also when it was good. She became obsessed with learning all she could about this higher power and had people read the bible to her, mostly children. When Sojourner was free she joined a sort of cult in New York that ends up taking most of her money.
This starts Sojourner on her pilgrimage across America speaking of slavery and religion to the masses, which eventually made her quite well known for her amazing speeches that truly seemed to touch people and make them understand her views. This truly changed her life as she was happier living for God as well as people opening their doors for her to stay if she would only speak to them her thoughts.
I think what most impressed me about Sojourner Truth is that she did not let anything stop her in her beliefs. Throughout slavery she was one of the hardest working people in the entire plantation, even when she got nothing from it. She stayed with her faith through everything that she went through and in the end she made people listen to her about God and slavery and truly made a difference.
She did great things for America all because she stuck with what she believed in and never wavered. In the end Sojourner never let gender roles or slavery keep down her spirit. As soon as she was free she allowed herself full agency in her life and made her own decision. Even with her religion she kept strong in her faith even when she realized she might not fully understand all that God was. This amazingly strong woman broke down barriers and helped to modernize America’s way of thinking about both slaves and women.
