Documents Rediscovered: Sojourner Truth's Historic Fight to Save Her Young Son from Slavery

[appalachiablue]

- Sojourner Truth sold cartes-de-visite and cabinet cards, such as this one, to raise money for her work. The text above her name reads "I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance."
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- AP News, June 13, 2022.

In 1828, years before she took the name Sojourner Truth, a Black woman who had escaped slavery with her infant daughter won a court fight in New York’s Hudson Valley to bring her son, Peter, home from Alabama. It was a historic case of a Black woman seeking the release of her son from slavery prevailing in court against a white man. Isabella Van Wagenen, as she was known then, would gain enduring fame as an outspoken abolitionist and women’s rights advocate.

As for her deposition and the rest of the court documents, they were boxed up and eventually stored among a million other records, unseen and unrecognized for their significance. Until 194 years later. An eagle-eyed state archivist searching for something else spotted the court records in January. Now, they will briefly be on public display Wednesday at the Ulster County Courthouse in Kingston, New York, the same building she walked into almost two centuries ago seeking justice. The eight hand-written pages offer new details about a significant turning point in her eventful life.

“This was extremely brave of Isabella,” said Nell Irvin Painter, author of “Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol.” “Just the fact that she was a woman going up against powerful men, that’s extraordinary right there. And then you add in race, and then you add in class. So it’s an amazing story.” Painter will be among the people in Kingston on Wednesday, eager to glimpse the historic documents found by happenstance. For the past 40 years, the papers have been safely, if anonymously, stored at the climate-controlled New York State Archives in Albany.

They were uncovered there by Jim Folts, head of researcher services at the archives, who had been looking for habeas corpus examples from that era for a history book on New York’s courts. Combing through boxes of documents, he found one from 1828. It had a woman’s name on it, which was unusual for the time. Interest piqued, he read the yellowed paper and saw the woman, Isabella Van Wagenen, was trying to recover her son from slavery. “That rang the bell,” Folts said recently in an interview at the archives, “because Isabella Van Wagenen was then the name of the person who became known as Sojourner Truth.”...
https://apnews.com/article/new-york-education-slavery-kingston-government-and-politics-3b0d38ed6e556d77ba074f58dfb3c131
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- Sojourner Truth, born Isabella Baumfree (c.?1797 – Nov. 26, 1883) was an American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son in 1828, she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man. - More...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truth



- Isabella Van Wagenen, who would later take the name Sojourner Truth, has her named signed with an "X" on her court deposition on a document shown at the New York State Archives. in Albany N.Y., Thursday, June 9, 2022. Recently found court records from 1828 detail her fight to be reunited with her young son, who had been sold into slavery in Alabama. The papers will be on display Wednesday, June 15, 2022, in Kingston, N.Y.

[Deuxcents]

1. This is an amazing treasure

That’s for posting..

[appalachiablue]

4. The life & work of Sojourner Truth was exceptional, an

inspiration for hope and perseverance in these difficult times.

[niyad]

2. An amazing find. Thank you for sharing.

[appalachiablue]

3. A truly remarkable and inspiring woman of strength & determination.

[niyad]

5. Would you consider cross-posting this in Women's Rights And Issues? Thanks in

advance.

[appalachiablue]

6. Got it, thanks for the suggestion!