Sojourner Truth never said the line “Am I not a woman?” in his famous speech

Sojourner Truth was an outspoken abolitionist and women’s rights activist in the 19th century. In 1851, Truth delivered one of the most famous women’s rights speeches in American history, known as “Am I not a woman?”

In early February, during Black History Month, a viral tweet argued Truth never said the phrase “Am I not a woman?” in his famous speech. It also claims that Truth did not speak a southern black language, as the text of the speech suggests.

Did you know that the first language of Sojourner Truth was Dutch? The version of her speech we are taught today: “Am I not a woman?” there was a version recorded many years later by a white woman who gave her speech in what she believed to be a black southern language. Truth didn’t say that.” tweet said.

Did Sojourner Truth say, “Am I not a woman?” in her famous speech?

No, Sojourner Truth didn’t say, “Am I not a woman?” in his famous speech.

There is no evidence that Sojourner Truth said the line “Am I not a woman?” during his famous speech on women’s rights in 1851. A newspaper article published a few weeks after Truth gave her speech does not mention this famous refrain. Instead, the transcription of the speech shows that Truth could actually say, “I am a woman’s rights.”

Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in Ulster County, New York, in 1797. Her name was Isabella Baumfrey. She spent her early childhood on a New York estate owned by a Dutch-American named Colonel Johannes Hardenberg. Because she was enslaved by a Dutch family, her first language was Dutch and she spoke English with a Dutch accent all her life.

In 1826 Truth fled to freedom with her young daughter and moved to New York. She gained her freedom in 1827 when slavery became illegal in New York State. Truth worked as a housekeeper in the city until 1843, when she said she felt a call from God to become a preacher. After leaving New York, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth and went on tour as a public speaker and advocate for women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty.

On May 29, 1851, Truth delivered what would become known as her most famous speech at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio. At the time, the speech had no title, but it later became known as “Am I not a woman?”

The Reverend Marius Robinson, an abolitionist who served as one of the convention clerks, were good friends on June 21, 1851, and it is documented that they reviewed his transcription of her speech before he published it, according to the Library of Congress and The Truth About Sojourn Project.

Nearly 12 years after Truth gave her 1851 speech, Frances Gage, a white abolitionist and women’s rights activist, wrote and published her own version of Truth’s 1863 speech. Gage changed much of Truth’s words and falsely attributed the southern slave dialect to her version. speech.

“While Truth was enslaved and fled, this happened in the North. She never lived in the South and only spoke Dutch until she was nine years old,” Arlene Balkansky, a retired Library of Congress reference librarian, wrote in 2021.

“She could have retained some kind of Dutch accent when she spoke English, but it wouldn’t be like the dialect Gage gave her,” Balkansky continued. “However, a focus on southern slavery would have proved a more useful tool for Gage in 1863 than a reminder of the already abolished slavery in a Northern state loyal to the Union.”

In 1996, historian Nell Irwin Painter examined both Robinson’s and Gage’s versions of Truth’s speech in her biography The Wanderer’s Truth: A Life, a Symbol. Painter concluded that Robinson’s version was more reliable than Gage’s.

“The accounts of the words in 1851 vary, and are considered more reliable by historians today—because it was written shortly before the time Truth spoke—these are the words of Marius Robinson,” Painter wrote. “Gage had carefully crafted her The Truth About the Timer, and her sensibility was remarkably contemporary. Her account is still convincing. But this is by no means the real Truth of Sojourner.”

According to Balkansky, there is no evidence that Trut, who never learned to read or write, challenged Gage’s account. She wrote that Gage’s report added prominence to Truth as she continued to lecture until 1880.

“After the death of Sojourner Truth on November 26, 1883, many obituaries were published, but one of them, which appeared in several newspapers, emphasized that her mind was “astute, clear, logical and original”, her language was “grammatically correct”, and her “pronunciation and pronunciation was flawless,” Balkansky wrote.

You can listen to Robinson’s transcription of Truth’s speech at The Sojourner Truth Project website or below.