S2 – INTERVIEW 2: Margaret Washington

and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Besides speaking at high school, summer institutes, museums, parks, and local libraries, Dr Washington has contributed to numerous documentaries for PBS, the Discovery Channel, and the History Channel. Her book Sojourner Truths America was a guide for us not only in following Sojourner truth story, but in seeing spiritualism within the big picture of American life. Researcher Karl Nellis talked with Dr Washington for this season

of Unobscured. They began their conversation with her perspective on what it meant to be a spiritualist in nineteenth century America. Guy, this is the Unobscured interview series for season two. I'm Aaron Manky. If you were spiritualist in the nineteenth century, you looked upon life after death as a continuation of contact with humans, especially your loved ones. It was a situation where your contact with people who had passed beyond

the veil could be instructive, it could be warnings. But there was this contact with people who had gone on. It wasn't a break with earth life and then life in the beyond. So the first important aspect of spiritualism was this contact between humans who had been left two mourn and people who had passed on into the spirit world.

Sometimes those contacts were loving, sometimes they were foreboding. But the most important thing is that there was this contact, and it took all kinds of forms depending on who the person was or people you were maintaining your contact with who had passed on. When people were coming to a seance, they weren't a medium, say, but they wanted to take part in the spiritualist practices. What kinds of

things were they looking for? What kind of variety or there was there In motivations to attend to seance, everyone had different motivations. Some people went for curiosity, other people went for a specific goal. There was someone in particular whom they wanted to have contact with, and so they were hoping that the medium could channel that individual who had passed on into some kind of consciousness so that the living person could communicate with them. And that was

what the majority of people wanted. They wanted contact with, mostly a loved one, but sometimes it wasn't even a

loved one, it was politician. A lot of spiritualists, especially the more radical ones, for example, had seances in which John Quincy Adams, who in the Late Antebellum era which ends in eighteen sixty one, John Quincy Adams was sort of the champion from a political perspective of abolitionism, so when he died a lot of spiritualists would recall him and get his advice on what was happening in the

world politically. So when you think about it like that, spiritualism is not so much about faith as it is about politics. But those were the kinds of positions that people took. And even with Abraham Lincoln, after he passed away, people channeled him. Then the radical, the white radical John Brown, the person who inspired Harper's Ferry, was also channeled after he was executed. So it took a lot of forms. So that's interesting. When spiritualists were channeling these kinds of

these statesmen political figures. What does that tell us about the way that spiritualists related to the past or to history. Well, spiritualists were radicals. They were people aside from their faiths, and in many cases, I think this is important. In many cases, even though they were I don't want to call them religious because they sort of avoided doctrine, but

they were very spiritually oriented. He Even though that was the case, many of them were not affiliated with any particular church because they felt the churches were corrupt and the churches promoted evil practices such as the practice of slavery. So a lot of people did not see spiritualism specifically as something that was associated with their faith as much as it was associated with social life. One of the most important aspects of having a successful social life was

to have free will. For example, if you were enslaved, you had no free will. You didn't have the free will to go to church, and you didn't have the free will to raise your own children. You didn't have the free will to be with a husband. Indeed, you didn't have the free will to have a legal husband or wife. These were the kinds of issues that spiritualism opposed. With the churches. I guess you would say they were not religious people, even though they were very upright people

and very spiritual people. One of the movements that kind of seated the ground for spiritualism was kind of a utopian or a collectivist impulse among many of these radicals to for model communities or kind of sanctuary communities over the course of her life. So journal is involved in Northampton, Hopedale, and there are others fruit Lands, the United Community, brook Farm. Could you talk a little bit about what was going on with these utopian or communalists kind of impulses that

were bringing people to these places. There were I think a myriad of differences between the utopian communities. Not all of them were spiritualists. Fruit Lands, the one that was founded by Bronson Alcott was not spiritualist, the Shaker communities were, and the ones that Sojourn or Truth became involved in were except as you mentioned. You mentioned Northampton, but Northampton had many spiritualists in it, but it was not a

spiritualist community. It was more of a I guess you'd say it was basically an abolitionist commune, is what it was. One of the things that united these utopian communities was a belief in the power of spiritualism, even if they weren't founded for that particular purpose. The Sojourner when she went to Northampton, she found a home for her spiritualism there, even though it was an abolitionist community. When she moved to Michigan, and I believe it was eighteen fifty seven,

she actually settled in a spiritualist community. And so there were spiritualist community especially in the West or what we call today the Midwest. At that point she did want the spiritual connection in terms of her daily life. So Harmonia, which was outside of Battle Creek, Michigan, was spiritualist community. They all weren't founded on the basis of spiritualism, but they all embraced the ideas of spiritual contact with the other world. At that point in the eighteen forties and

fifties were pretty well into Sojourner's life. Um, let's go back to the beginning with her. She's she's not born Surjourner. Truth of course, taking on both parts of that name is really significant to her life story. But let's start at the beginning. She was born into slavery in New

York before the nineteenth century downed. So she's a generation or two older than many of the other women that were going to be following for this series talking about spiritualism, the Fox Sisters corp A hatched Victoria wood Hall and of Britain. How was the New York of her childhood different from the New York of the eighteen forties and fifties, she would say, And actually she did say that when she was born, there were no ships, there were no steamboats.

It was a whole different world. She pointed out in her talks in the eighteen forties and fifties that she was now living in what she called the modern world, but she had been born and raised in a world that in many ways was not even connected to what she considered modernity in the anti Bellum era. So it was very backward in a lot of ways. So during the truth grew up not wearing shoes. You can imagine living in rural Hudson Valley, New York in the wintertime

and not having shoes. But that was the fate of the enslaved African Dutch people where she grew up, and that was pretty much her fate until she became a Christian and obtained her freedom. She was born in seventeen nine, so basically she's kind of an eighteenth century woman in that sense, and so that makes her quite different from the people who were going to become her comrades in the movements that she became involved in. Also, I it's important to note that her background is Dutch as opposed

to English. That made a difference. At that point, there weren't that many Dutch. Most of the Dutch were centered in New York in the Hudson Valley, but it was a group of people. It was an ethnicity that they kept to themselves, and um they spoke Dutch. She spoke Dutch until she was in her late twenties, and it

was quite a different culture. She was not given religious instruction as a child or even as a young woman, so she didn't have the religious background that a lot of African Americans, even enslaved ones who had English mistresses and masters, had, So in some ways that made her

kind of like a vessel for Christianity. But on the other hand, it gave her a kind of a circumspection about accepting everything, and that along with the we think that at least she said that her grandmother was born in Africa and her husband's grandmother was born in Africa, and spiritualism has interesting connections to what we call africanity. The idea of people connecting to the other world was something that Africans took as just common. It's just the

way it was. There really was no break between the earthly life and the life of the beyond. That made spiritualism something that she essentially gravitated toward. And as she would say, she was practicing it before she even knew that there was something called spiritualism. You write so beautifully in the book about West African traditions that weren't broken by the introduction of Christianity into West Africa, and that

Bell drew on in her early life. Can you talk about them, maybe in particular in relationship to when Belle, because she was born Isabella right m when she lost her father, how did his death shape her life and her spiritual perspective. She was very close to her father, who was the headman for this massive landowning family who at one point in their history, if you can believe this, owned two million acres of New York Land. Her father

was the headman. He was highly respected, he was half mohawk in spite of the fact that he was highly respected by his owners. And as a matter of fact, after his owner died, he wrote that he was called bomb free, which was a combination of the Dutch a word bomb and the English word free free tree bomb

meaning tree. So he was supposed to be taken care of once his owner passed away, and he left instructions for that, and the record shows that for three or four years after the owner passed away, the owner's sons did take care of him. Then it's pretty clear that they're not to get care of him, and then he his wife has died. Belle's mother has passed away, so

he's basically being led around from pillar to post. He loses his eyesight, and she is enslaved by other people and she has to go from one place to another to find him. This goes on for a number of years, and they were very close. She and her younger brother were the only two remaining children that they were allowed to keep, and the others ten or twelve had been

sold away. She was very close to her father. When he was sort of left to offend for himself, she would find him in various places and he would bemoan his fate, and she told him that this was her prediction that they were going to get their freedom pretty soon and she would take care of him. And of course he died before that happened, and she was devastated by his death. He froze to death alone, and the family, the Dutch family called the Hardenburgh's, wanted to recognize his

faithful service. They didn't recognize his service when he was alive and it could have helped him, but after he died they wanted to have a funeral, which was highly unusual. Dutch people didn't have funerals for former slaves, but in recognition of old bomb free service to the family, they wanted to have a funeral. They invited all of the African dues people into the area for the funeral and they had He got a box, that is to say,

he was buried in a coffin a pine box. The funeral consisted of this pine box and lots of rum. And that was sort of a high falutint funeral for a slave. For Bell, it was so disgusting. She remembered that she always said that throughout her life, she and her father talked to each other. She maintained that she was channeling her father on many occasions. She actually when she went to the utopian community. She visited utopian communities in the West, and she gave a talk about her

father at one of them. I believe it was in Wisconsin. Yes, it was a Wisconsin Utopian community where she spoke about what had happened. That's where she gave the story of old Bomfree and how she channeled him when everything's got really difficult for her. It's an interesting story because with her father, according to her, being half Mohawk, then you've got the indigenous spiritualism involved in it too. But that was very important to her. He was her shining light.

She makes this very clear in her narrative of how important he was to her. Would you tell the story of Belle emancipating herself and walking to freedom. She was a hard working young woman. She worked in the house, She worked in the yard, She worked in the fields. She milked cows, she fed the chickens, she cooked, she cleaned. According to her owners, the man who owned her for eighteen years, John Dumont. According to his daughter, she was

the champion cradler wheat cradler in their neighborhood. She could throw the weed up in the air and have it wrapped before it hit the ground. That was Belle, and we get a sense of that from her famous Akron Ohio speech where she talks about all the works she did that was very important. She was a hard working person and her owner used to say that she was better to him than a man, and he promised her

her freedom early because she worked so hard. In her zeal to continue to work hard under this promise of freedom, she cut off her index finger with a scythe while she was working. That meant that she couldn't work as hard, but she continued to work. The time came for her owner, Dumont, to honor his promise of freedom to her. The state of New York had decreed that in eighteen seven, all adults enslaved people would be free. He had promised to

free her early a year early before that. So she went to him in to claim her promise, and he said, oh, no, I can't do that because you didn't work as hard as you were supposed to. She said, well, I had a diseased hand I couldn't as well. You still didn't do it, so I'm not going to honor my promise. So Belle was distressed, and she had created a little island in the middle of the river, and that was

where she would go and talk to God. She had no religious instruction except what her mother gave her, and her mother's religious instruction was a kind of mysticism, where you speak to God and God speaks back to you. She went to her little island area and she asked God what she should do because he had broken his promise, and God told her she should leave. She said, well, how can I leave? They'll see me, and God told her to leave. Just before daybreak, when everyone was still asleep.

She did. She had an infant, a nursing infant. She took her infant and she fled. She went to the home of a Quaker who was unable to help her, but he sent her to someone who did help her, who was also a Dutchman. He said that he would intercede on her behalf. And so when Dumont came for her and told her that she had to come back, she said, I'm not going because you broke your mus

and you owe me this year of service. He threatened to take her to jail, and she said, okay, I'll go to jail, but I will not go back with you. And then the Dutchman who had offered her sanctuary, whose name was Isaac van Wagenen, interceded and he said, how much does Bell owe you? He gave him twenty dollars for the remainder of Bell's year and five dollars for

Bell's baby. That is how she got her freedom, and she took the name of van Wagenen, and so she became Isabella van wagon and until she became so journal truth. Can you describe how the role in her life, that her faith, that her talking with God, that her following, her guiding light, her father. What role did that faith, that spirituality, that special practice play in the course of the next year or two when she was fighting to get her son back. That was probably she would call

that her moment of sanctification. She had been converted. After she left Dumont and she went to live with the van wagon Ins, she had, uh, well what what we call in the Baptist church. She backslid. God had helped her obtain her freedom, and she was very thankful, but now she wanted to go back to bondage to basically participate in a festival called the Pinkster Festival. She was willing to go back to her former owner's farm to

participate in this revelry. The very very Uh important festival among the African Dutch people actually comes out of Dutch religious culture, but the African Dutch made it their own. This was essentially her not being thankful for what God had done for her, and so at that point when she was trying to go away to celebrate with her friends and drink and party and have a good time, that's when she had her first epiphany and her first conversion, when God struck her as she said, God burnt me

and made me wilt like a cabbage leaf. She didn't go, but she did realize that her conversion meant that there were certain activities that she no longer engaged in. So that was her conversion. Her sanctification came after the conversion when Uh, the man she was staying with, Mr van Wagen and came home and told her that he had heard that her child, her son, five year old son, who was still in bondage, had been sold. And this

was something that was very common in New York. New York children were still enslaved and so New York slave owners so that they wouldn't who's their profit, We're selling these children to the South, which was illegal, and that's what had happened to her boy. And she was outraged. And this is this is our second sense of what a powerhouse this woman is going to be. The first

one is when she challenges her owner and flees. The second one is when she will not accept the fact that her son has been sold and and she basically campaigns all over the neighborhood of Ulster County, rilling people about this, and especially the Quakers because it is against the law. Um. But what enslaved woman has the wherewithal to challenge the slave power? Well Bell did and um, and she got help from the Quakers, and she eventually was able to get her son back. But she raised

a huge ruck buss. A lot of the slaveholders were angry with her for having done this, and so she felt very she felt very compromised, very vulnerable. Um. But she had told them that she was going to get her son back, and um, the owners had said, you can't get him back. But she with the help of the Quakers. So it's a very convoluted story. But the Quakers were adamantly anti slavery, and they helped her get

a lawyer and eventually get this boy back. Within a year he was back, and when she got him back, she went to court and got him back. He was covered with bruises. He told her that the man who had purchased him, who was also a New Yorker who had moved to Alabama, had had had his horse hoof

the boy. The boy her son's name was Peter. In the face, he had a big gash in his forehead where the man's horse had hoofed him, and and he showed her all the bruises on him, and she was so angry that she asked God for retribution, and she told him to render unto them double for everything they had done to her son. That was, as far as she was concerned, that was her curse that she was

leveling against this family. And within a few months, this is this was her sanctification, as far as she was concerned, She had asked God to curse this family. But in a few months, the woman who was married to the man who had sold her son and brutalized him, was killed by her husband and in a very brutal way he Basically, according to uh the narrative, he had cut her wind pipe out in a drunken fit. He was

an alcoholic. It was a double whammy because her son, Peter Bell's son, had told her that the only person who was nice to him while he was there in Alabama was this young woman, miss Eliza, who was also a New Yorker, But she had tried to help the little boy and had said she wished that he could go back to his mother. In a way, you know, she was innocent. I mean, she had married a New Yorker who had become a slaveholder, and they were living

in Alabama, but she was trying to help Peter. Nonetheless, when Peter was brought back to New York, the owner, the the former owner, her husband was so angry, and he was an alcoholic anyway, that he took it out on her and killed her. And when Isabella, when Belle heard this, she said, this is what God is doing on my behest. But I didn't mean for good to

go that far. And the fact that this young woman had died and that Belle had asked God to curse the family to her was God's way of I guess giving her a a special dispensation, even though she said, the language of my heart was I didn't mean for you to do so much, God, but I couldn't question God. So for her, that put her in a higher state of spirituality. So she went from being converted to being sanctified.

And she told this story on the lecture circuit in New York City where she she she left uh Ulster County, UM the Hudson Valley within a year after her son was returned, and she told that story over and over again, and it made her a pot pular preacher in New York City, a revival preacher. So even before she became so journal truth is Isabella van Wagon, and she was preaching in New York City and telling her experience of

conversion and sanctification. So that was her her background before she became the woman whom we would come to know well. And I'm interested more in that time because as she's working and preaching in New York City through the eighteen thirties, Um, she's working with people like she meets people like David Ruggles, UM, and she's really preaching social reform. Um. Can you talk a little bit about what life in New York City was like at that time, who was so journal addressing?

Who is she preaching too? Well? When she went to New York, the Methodists heard her preach in um Ulster County, where she was born and raised, and they essentially said, you know you're your message is too important for you to be here, So they took her there. Uh, they found a Methodist. I can't call him a preacher because he was not accepted by the church. These people were out. There were Methodists who were shunning the Methodist Church because

they felt the Methodist Church was becoming too respectable. So these were the people that she hooked up with as soon as she got to New York City, people who were dissenting from the Methodist Church, Methodists who were dissenting from Methodism. And so that's where um she got her contact.

And New York City was a vibrant place for African Americans, but it was also a tragic place because it was a situation where African American adults were converging onto the city UM because that represented freedom and it represented mobility and a represented opportunity. But they had to leave their children, just as Bell had to leave her children. She left her daughters but she took her son, She took her

a little boy with her. But the others uh remained in Ulster County, and so New York Black population, which was very large, found that there were opportunities to learn to read, there are opportunities to set up your own churches, but there were very few jobs other than domestic work. UH. And so that's what that's what they did, a lot, a lot of domestic work. But it was a very impoverished situation for free black people in New York City

at that time, UM. And in many ways it would only get worse as far as the socio economic situation was concerned, but that would give rise to a very vibrant political culture on the part of Africa Americans to challenge this. So it was a time of hope uh. And it was a time in many cases of despair. People in belt situation, that is, women coming out of the farming areas trying to get jobs, often found themselves

sometimes doublings as sex workers. UM. It was sometimes living uh in slum situations and if they were domestics, almost always of the time living in the home of their employer UM, which meant that they were on call all the time, so it's very confining life. As a matter of fact, a lot of the black leadership encouraged people black people to stay in the countryside and not come to the city because they were crowding into the cities. There weren't enough job I was a kind of hopelessness.

But people were determined to make a better life, and so they were coming anyway. And so she was part of that movement of people coming into the city. And so she was determined to make a better life for herself. And I guess I should point out that she did have a husband, but she left him Um when he wouldn't come with her because he was an adult, he was free. He would not come with her. So she left UM and she was determined to not be a casualty of the city. And she says that I refused

to bow to the filth of the city. And she had in a way, she had sort of a a protective group around her because these Methodists were so interested in her that they helped her find a position, and then she also worshiped with them, so um her I guess she had a kind of specialness about her because of her experiences, because of her capacity to communicate, keeping in mind that her English is not very good, but she's able to communicate with him even with her broken

English and her Dutch brogue, in a way so that they find her incredibly inspiring. Uh. And she becomes a Revivalist preacher. Uh. And I don't know how many African Americans she reached, um, because she was a countrywoman and so there wouldn't be much respect and and of course she couldn't read and write, and she was Dutch, um,

so there wouldn't be much respect for that. But as far as these Methodists who were coming into the city were concerned, her witness was so powerful uh that, as one person said it, everybody in the city was running after her. So so Um, how does she go from being a Methodist revival preacher to joining the Kingdom of Matthias? Um. The Kingdom of Matthias members, we're Methodists, Um. They were French Methodists. The Methodist Church, as I mentioned before, was

becoming respectable. Um. And the people who were involved in cult groups like Matthias, and Matthias group was not the only one. UM. A lot of the we called these people perfectionists. Uh. And a lot of the Perfectionist. Organizations that grew out of this started in the Methodist Church. None of them went as far as the Kingdom of Matthias. But if you consider the Oneida Community UM in Oneida, New York, they had many of the same religious principles

that Matthias had. They had multiple marriage UM, which was really the hallmark UH in terms of outrage with the Matthias Commune, but that was not unusual with these French cults. So they all started out as Methodists. The Methodist religion was, they called themselves when it was first founded, the religion that warms the heart. And when it was initially founded, it was opposed to slavery. UH. They believed in salvation being open to everyone, so it was it was an

egalitarian denomination. By the Lady eighteen twenties, the Methodists wanted to become just like High Church. They wanted to become like Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and so the features of Methodism that had made it a religion that warms the heart, they wanted to divest the church of those so there would be no clapping, no loud singing, all the things that made Methodism a religion of expression. Those UH were left by the wayside, um and concerned for the poor those

were left by the wayside. And so people who were Methodists objected to this, so they left the Methodist Church uh and founded these uh little perfectionist cells, and the Matthias Kingdom grew out of one of those. And so Belle was a Methodist and she was the kind of person. I think it's she was the kind of person who

she lived on the fringe. UH. And so when her friends begin and to question the Methodist Church in favor of helping like wayward women, um, going into the slums of Five Points and helping people these kinds of activities that the church had been involved in previously, they wanted to continue that. And so uh, it's her early reform and it is it is important to see these French groups as reformists, because they were and they were also

opposed to slavery. So UM the Matthias Commune was an extreme of dissension within the Methodist Church, but it wasn't the only one. They went farther than a lot of others. But um still you have to see them within the tradition of people like um. The founder of Oneida, John Humphrey Noise UM, his organization, which grew out of the Methodist and the Congregational Church, also believed in a multiple marriage and spirit matching UM, and Bell was a spiritualist.

So the idea of UM, which was Germane to a lot of these French organizations coming out of the churches, the idea that your spirit match is more important than your legal marriage. They felt that this was supported by scripture, and Matthias took it to another level UM. But he wasn't the only one who did that. Can you describe the way that her experience in the Kingdom of Matthias Uh influenced Bells thinking going forward? What did she take

away from that experience? UM? For one thing, I think it further empowered her UM because she was targeted UM by the the woman in the Matthias commune who UM basically owned the mansion that they lived in, and Uh was the one who was actually sleeping with father Matthias UM. She had targeted Bell as the person who was responsible for the death of one of the other cult leaders, when in fact he had died of a fit. But she did this to deflect blame Uh from and to

cover up her sexuality with Matthias. So she wanted to put the blame on the colored woman, and that would make sense to the average white New Yorker because part of the attitudes toward black women was that they were loose women. I mean, that was just common Um thought. And so that's what she played on. So bell was in a vulnerable position. She essentially had not done anything except believe in the significance of the the cult. The

woman who had basically committed adultery. UM was trying to deflect the blame, and Belle had the wherewithal to see what was going on, and she was undaunted, and she says, it's a wonderful quote. I've got the truth on my side, and I can crush them with the truth. And so

she was prepared to go to court. They were going to have a trial because Um, after exhuming this man's body, Uh, they believed he had been poisoned, and the victim the poison the culprit appared appeared to be Belle, according to the adulteress and her husband Um. Until Belle was completely ready to follow that trajectory because she knew where it was going to lead. It was going to lead to the city of New York, seeing that one of their

own upper class women was actually the adulteress UM. And so she was prepared And one of the ways in which she got prepared is UM. She went to an editor and told her story of the commune UM, which which I'm in the process of UM re re reproducing, republishing UM. Her story of what happened UM, and it

is a main easing the kinds of her. Her recall is impeccable UM, and it can be borne out by historical fact that what was going on in this this particular common communits the newspapers are also important in this. But she is adamant that she can prove that she has done nothing wrong UM, and that UM this was something that was planted because of race and UH and the cultural opprobrium that African American women experience in American society. So she was up to the task. She sued them

for defamation of character and she won. And so when she says, I can crush them with the truth, that's exactly what she did UH, this UM narrative of the goings on in the Kingdom where the narrative was published. UM. She won the suit and the adultresss husband who had basically slandered her, had to pay uh, I think twenty five or thirty five dollars to her for slandering her and apologize. UM. But on the downside, this was in all the newspapers and and she was a revival preacher,

so she was known in the community. And UM that affected her reputation, There's no question about that. UH. And even though she was the trial that occurred, UH, they stopped it and dismissed the charges before they allowed her to testify. UM, and she never she was never charged with anything because they didn't want her to go to the witness stand after this book came out, and so they dropped the charges on everyone. So she was exonerated,

but her reputation had suffered. And more importantly, what she found out and what she basically articulated, was that she had allowed the Charlatan two dictate the words of the scripture to her, and UM, he would read and then he would interpret the reading, and she believed his interpretation and UH, and she never forgave herself for that. And as a result of that, she decided that she would never first of all, never ask an adult to read

the Bible to her only children. And secondly, she would never accept anyone's interpretation of the Bible except her own. M So that the situation with Matthias was over by eight it was still gonna be almost five years before she was going to claim her name of Sojourner Truth. So she stayed in the city Uh and UH and did her preaching and her prayer meeting and her working, but she was never as engaged in reform efforts as she was before that. Yeah, so when does when does

Isabella van wagon and becomes Sojourner Truth? And what's that process like for her? Um? Part of it has to do with her son Peter, who grew up in the city UM with her and became like, oh, I guess you'd say, you just really really was. Peter was a little gangster UM and that caused her a tremendous amount of angst it uh and one way he landed on his feet. In another way he ended tragically. But in

terms of landing on his feet. The pastor of a prominent UH Episcopal church who was also a very important Black activists. His his role in the community was to help young black boys UM get a foothold in life. And one of the ways in which young black boys did that was to go to see forty of the seamen in America at this time. We're black and so um. It was a way for parents to get their sons out of harm's way while they matured. And then when they came back, if they came back um, then uh,

they would be able to handle life. So Peter Williams job was to find seaman positions for boys who would be were in trouble. And so that's what saved Peter um. And he went off to sea in eighteen thirty nine, wrote his mother beautiful letters, UM and um was coming back a changed man. But he never came back. He was due to come back in eighteen forty three and he did not come back. Um. I traced the ship that he was on and it had some issues. One

of the issues was smallpox. Another issue was a mutiny. And he wrote her and said that he had been disciplined for trying to help people on the boat and um he um was had gotten in trouble, but he was okay now. And that was the last letter she got from him. So he either succumbed to smallpox, maybe he was beaten, we don't know. But he never came back. He was due to come back in eighteen forty three.

And I think that that is telling because that is the same time when she leaves the city and becomes Sojourner Truth. So I think it's a she's already very distressed. Um, she's not making as much spiritual progress as she was, Like she's confused, but she's there waiting for her son,

and her son does not come back. And uh. In May of eighteen forty three, denoted literary um author who is now the editor of the New York City anti slavery newspaper, The Anti Slavery Standard, writes this little article in the Standard about a colored woman giving a speech at the Colored Method Church and it she says that it is the most profound speech you could imagine. And she says that the colored woman was born in New York slavery um and she talked about her experiences as

a slave and it was extremely powerful. Well, two weeks later, so Journer Truth is in Brooklyn as Sojourner Truth, and so I am positive that the woman that Lydia Mariah Child is writing about. And the Standard is so Journer Truth. Um. And by the way, Lydia Murria Child and Soldier her Truth become very good friends in the anti slavery movement, in the women's rights movement. Um. So these events Peter's uh scheduled return earn which doesn't happen. That's in the

spring of eighteen forty three. The little speech at the Colored Methodist Church is in May of eighteen forty three. And in May of eighteen forty three she takes the Brooklyn Ferry to Long Island. Uh. And that's there she meets the Quaker and tells the Quaker her name is so Journal, and the Quakers is will do you have another name? And she says, well, uh, no, I don't see. Well everybody has two names. Um. And after a lot of consideration, she settles on the name of Truth, because

that is truth is another name for God. Mhm mhm, Um, you mentioned the power of that. Uh, that's sermon. What do we know about so Journal is preaching? I mean she starts really traveling when she takes the name Sojourner, and she's an itinerary preacher through the forties and fifties and and really for the rest of her life. Even when she has kind of a home base, she's she's traveling to to preach and teach. Can you describe what it would have been like to hear Sojourner preach in

eighteen fifties, Well, um, I guess. Let me think about some of her speeches. Um. We have some because people would write them down on the newspapers. She was a powerful woman in the sense that she used. First of all, she used examples from her background, keeping in mind that she couldn't read and write, UM. And so to be a powerful speaker, first of all, you had to you had to have pathos, you had to have humor, You had to sing, and she had a beautiful singing voice.

And she would often begin with a song and UM, and then she would be then she'd have a prayer, and then she would speak. And her speaking was instructive. She would always talk about her life as a slave, um, and her experience. I mean her her pat speech had to do with how she got her freedom and how she got her son back. Um. But then as she became more and more experience. One thing we don't have any record of her ever having talked about was Matthias.

But as she got more and more experience, then her speeches would often when she got into the meat of it, UH would reflect things she had heard other people say that she would pull apart um. And one of the some wonderful examples she also because she knew so much scripture. I mean, for a woman who couldn't read and write, she could quote scripture. Um. And there's a wonderful story. Um. She's in the area of western Massachusetts is an antislavery meeting.

She's living in Northampton at that time. And the person who's in charge of the meeting is Lydia Mariah Child UM. And and Sojourner is in the audience. Now she's not hasn't spoken, but she's she's there in the audience and Um. One of the speakers is a man named an abolitions named Stephen Foster, and he speaks UM. And then one of the men in the audience is a minister, and he stands up and UH, and he be rates the abolitionists and and says that you know, I haven't heard

anything moving here at all. And everyone told me that I should come and hear the abolitionists speak because I will be very, very moved. And I haven't heard anything moving. All I have heard is a bunch of words from women and jackasses. And of course the crowd is shocked. And then so Journer stands up and this is this is one of her This is not a speech for this is this is an example of her amazing uh biblical knowledge and and her capacity to just change the tone.

So she stands up and and and walks to the front and she says, Mrs Chairman, I'd like to have a word. And um, and she says, this man is very angry, and uh, I know the story. I've heard the story. He's an intelligent man. He can read the Bible. I've heard the story of another minister who got very

angry at an ass who could talk. And and then she told the story out of I think it's the Book of Numbers between Baalim, who's uh a mohab priest who is uh supposed to go someplace, and God doesn't want him to go, so he puts the angel Gabriel in the road, and Bilim keeps whipping his h jackass to go on the road, and the jackass can see the angel, but Bialem can't, and he keeps whipping the jackass whipping him, and the jackass won't go And finally, Um,

the angel is revealed to Baalim And so, what's so, journal Truth says as she tells the story, she says, I knew another man who got mighty mad at an ask and talk who could talk? Uh? And I would, And she tells the story, and she says, so, I just want to remind the man and the audience that it was the ass and not the minister who saw the angel. And the crowd just went wild. So this is an example of one of her ways of getting the attention of the crowd. And and the other thing

is that's interesting to me. I've i've when she spoke to African Americans, UM, as she did in the eighteen fifties, for example, in New York City. By eighteen fifty she's well known and people who sort of took exception to her in the eighteen thirties in New York City are now going to hear her. And so she speaks one talk that she gives an abbess any in Baptist Church,

which is recorded in UM the New York Tribune. She it's it's a long speech and uh, and she begins in the usual way with the prayer and singing and so on, and then she is very personal and talks about what it's like to speak to her own people. And she reminds them that when she lived there, nobody black people paid any attention to her. That most of her work that she did as a reformer as Isabella was in the five points among sex workers and drunks

and people like that. UM. And but that's what she did. And she says, you know, I'm um, and she talks about her background from rural Dutch background UH, and that she was not accepted UM. So she basically sort of critiques them for kind of their elitism UM. And then she gets on the black ministers and she because at this point in the eighteen fifties, the Methodist Church has denied the pulpit to black women UM and has denied UH ordination to anybody who cannot read and write, and

so UM people like her. There are a few black women preachers who UM can't preach in a building. They preach out in the open air. That's why they do it. So she criticizes them at these black managers with their UM Greek crammed heads, UM will not allow the word of God to be uh spoken by somebody like me. So she criticizes them um in that speech. And then she also talks them about the city um and how important it is not to bow to the filth of the city. Um. And and then and and this is

really the I think it's really the punchline. She talks to them about activism and how important it is and and you get the sense from what she's saying that even though there's a huge abolitionist movement going on in the eighteen fifties, um, and the lots of black abolitionist speakers and so on in cities, people are not on on a daily daily basis, are not as active as as they could be or should be. And so she

critiques them on that too. UM. And and that's important because there's an underground railroad after eighteen fifty when the fugitive flat laws passed, Uh, the underground railroad is very vibrant. Uh. And so she and speaking to her own people, is honest in them for not taking a more activist role um and Um. It's a long speech, so that's her with her own people. UM. But yeah, there were these elements in an anti slavery, speech, humor, pathos, experience um

and uh and you had to tell a story. So um she was she was really, she was a master at this. Let's talk about one of those places where she did feel at home, uh in the Northampton Association UM, which is such an interesting episode of her life, in part because of all the people she meets there. And you write about the isms that were in the air

at Northampton in the eighteen forties. What was that community like and what were some of those is ms, the ideas, the what was it like to be in Northampton in that period? Northampton was a very special place. I mean, all of the utopian communities. We don't know much about Harmonia, the one that she was involved in in Michigan, but we do have a lot of information on Northampton, and

of course that's where she wrote her narrative. But Northampton had, first of all, it was founded by William Lord Garrison, the head of the American Anti Slavery Society, founded by his brother in law. UM. And and that made it sort of an entrepole for anti slavery. UM. It was a Northampton, Massachusetts was a place that slaveholders like to go for a vacation. UM. And so the commune was sort of on the outside, I guess you'd say it

would be uh, north of the city of Northampton. UM. And the people who founded it were from southeastern Connecticut. That's where Garrison's brother in law was from, and then a number of his in laws UH went to Northampton

as well. And UM it was founded by abolitionists. They wanted a commune where they could have open discussions, and they also wanted a sort of a region that would be in between the East and the West, with the west being not I mean not not even the Midwest that this that is to say, not Ohio and Michigan, but west meaning western New York. UM. That's sort of the way they saw the anti slavery dichotomy. So you

had Boston and then you had New York. But New York was in the hands of a more conservative anti slavery group who did not allow women to speak. So the next headquarters after Boston was really Rochester. So Northampton was in between. UM. And for individuals leaving Boston in that area to go into the Midwest to speak, then Northampton was a stopping place UH for them going that way. It was also a stopping place if they were going

to go north. Um. It was also an important underground railroad entrepos So all of the reasons that someone would want to be in Northampton as a sort of the the core of anti slavery in the east. Uh, we're there for for Soldier Earner. So um, everybody stopped there. M Frederick Douglas, Charles Lennox, Rieman, Abby Kelly. Uh. It was the place where you went for all kinds of

of activities. It was also a place that had I guess you'd say the core of reformism there more than any other of the utopian communities, because even though it was founded by abolitionists, they welcome other reforms as well, so that it wasn't specifically a spiritualist commune, it wasn't specifically a transcendentalist commune. Um, it was sort of a commune's commune. So everybody was there. The Graham Bread people were there, you know, the food reformers, the health the

water Cure was there. David Ruggles had his water cure a concern there. John Brown's wife was at the water Cure with so Journer truth Um. So north Hampton was the entrepo of communalism. Everybody stopped there. Um So that's I mean, that's that's the way I would explain it. And it was if you look at the Northampton records, uh and and the kind of people who came was also integrated. That's another important part of Northampton. Most of

these communes were not integrated. And that wasn't because they uh did not allow African Americans. It's just because African Americans didn't go there. Um So journal when she left New York, she was headed for fruit Lands, and the people in um one of the Quaker places where she stopped in Long Island, told that she didn't want Fruitlands was not the place for her. And then she said, okay, well then I'll go to the Shakers and they said, no,

that's not the place either. Um. The Shakers is thoroughly religious and it has a religious, a very doctrinaire religious impulse. Um Brook Farm was intellectual. The Oneida community was in a multiple marriage for men. So they all had their causes. North Hampton you didn't have to have a specific cause, but you had to be an abolitionist. Um So it was really the center of the communes. And and everybody

went there, even people from UM Europe. The first thing they wanted to do when they were studying utopian ism must go to Northampton. So it's in Northampton where she meets people like Amy Post from Rochester. It's in this this web of relationships from Northampton where she meets Amy Post, who's at the beginning with the Fox Sisters and what's often pointed to as the beginning of modern spiritualism. There. But she also meets Andrew Jackson Davis. Right, that's right.

Can you remember what their conversations were like, UM, I don't know. I know she was very close to his wife. Um, she and he wasn't there that long. Actually she met Amy Post. She didn't meet Amy Post in Northampton. She met Amy Post in Rochester. In UM, there was some friction between Andrew Jackson Davis and UM. People who sort of got into spiritualism through the Fox Sisters. They thought that Davis is UH spiritualism was more self serving, is

not as authentic. UM. But that was just just differences. UM. The Fox Sisters were from western New York, and so people who UH came to spiritualism as a practice as a reform through that venue just sort of gravitated towards her her well, there were two of them, the Fox Sisters UM and then Andrew Jackson Davis. That was a different venue. So it really depended on who you got your your spiritualism through. And the Fox Sisters were right outside of Rochester, so that was sort of the beginning.

But even before that, I mean even even before she met so Journer met the Fox Sisters, she had met Andrew Jackson Davis because he would come to UH to Northampton, so she was already into the spiritualist network. UM and UM they said her you know, so journal was the what was her role? She was the head of the laundry at Northampton, even though as as one UM person who was taking her place, she was hardly ever there.

One of the things about her being ahead of the laundry was that when she wasn't there, a lot of the men would do the laundry for her because she was often gone giving speeches. But one of the things that UH she did was in the community hall, which is where they all met, is that she had, as far as I can remember, two conversations on spiritualism with Davis. UM that and this comes from a group of letters from the steps and family, who are one of the

founding families of Northampton. Uh that, and she says something to the effect of Andrew Jackson Davis and the soldiurn and really went at it um tonight. And she doesn't say what they went at it on um, but who knows?

Mm hmm. And I know there are records of Andrew Jackson Davis later being disdainful of what he calls, you know, the spirit rapping and it's not the embrace of his harmonial philosophy, and it's not you know, the embracing translectors, but people looking for the wrappings and the table turnings and the kind of physical manifestations. And he in some cases pushes back against that as being a kind of

a true spiritualism. So that's an interesting point you make about um people on that side, Amy Post, who is good friends with the Foxes and and so journal and their network of spiritualist believers, that they would find Davis to be I'm trying to remember the word you used. Was it disdainful or something? That's interesting? Well, they were more there. Their spiritualism, as far as every concerned, was more authentic. Um, he was not so much into mediums UM.

And so Journal was a medium. UM. I mean she she was adamant about that, and UM so was Isaac Post. So they believed very strongly in in that that the medium part that the rapping. And they also believed in that that their seances included rappings. UM. And you know, I think also some of it was their political orientations between Davis and and UH. And Davis was certainly a reformer UM. But and aside from political and by political

mean that they were basically in competition UH, spiritualism. For the practicing abolitionists, the activist abolitionism was not something that consumed them. It had its place, but it was not um the end all the way it was for Andrew Jackson Davis. UM. They certainly took it seriously. They had their seances. UM. It was actually I think it was Isaac Post who channeled John Quincy Adams UM. And so they did strongly believe in it. But but they had

other causes as well. One of the most important ones was, of course the breaks within the Quaker Church that they were dealing with. So UM, their causes were much more diverse than Andrew Jackson Davis. You mentioned that Sojourner's vision was an as narrowly confined as Andrew Jackson Davis's. Um, how important were women's conventions and anti slavery conventions for sojourn Or during the eighteen fifties, because Yeah, she's not

just following these the spiritualist circles. She's preaching abolition. She's preaching, Um, she's part of the women's movement, and and and she's doing religious teaching at the same time as these other things. How important were these conventions for the life of the movements she was involved in. Well, the conventions were her network. They were very important. Um, I mean that was her life.

Spiritualism was part of her very being. It later, you know, like when this she starts regularly attending spiritualist conventions after the Civil War, m Um, before that, she's I mean, she's she's at all of the women's rise conventions when she's in town, when she's in the area. Uh and of course at every anti slavery convention until she moves to the east to the west. Sorry, and then Uh,

so she is deeply involved. And and I think it's important to understand that spiritualism was so germane to her. That um as as one um UM newspaper asked her when did she join the spiritualists, and she said, but there's nothing to join, you know, it's it's just me um. So. But then they started having spiritualist conventions and she would go to those. M Hum, there's a section and and my book where they are. Uh. There's an anti slavery

convention in Michigan. It's in the eighteen fifty seven and UM. It gives you a sense of how important spiritualism was. This is an anti slavery convention. Uh. It's being run by Sojourner and her friend from Ohio, Josephine Griffin, and her friend from Rochester, Lucy Coleman. So they're running this and then the progressive friends in Michigan are also involved, UM. And they're making speeches and they're singing and so on. And then an anti slavery UM activists. A woman gets

up and she gives a spiritualist speech. UM. And the newspaper editor, whose name is Marius Robinson, really tries to write it down in the anti slavery bugle. I can't understand a word of it, but there it is in print. UM and UM and she's channeling all of these p well right in the middle of this anti slavery convention. Uh. And then you know, she sits down and and then so Jenna Truth gets up and speaks, and um, she does not mention the woman's spiritualist speech. She talks about

anti slavery and her her own children and um. But then the next speaker, and I think it's uh right, I can't remember his first name, Henry C. Wright. Uh. He goes back to the whole spiritualist outpouring that this woman had um. And so it's it's really it's kind of like embedded in there. Even though I don't know when they had the first Spiritualist convention. Um, I'll have to look and look at because this this new book that I'm working on, Spiritualism is is very much a

part of it. I'm spending a lot of time looking at Cora Hatch. Yeah. I mean, she's she's she's amazing. But but it was, you know, it was just something that they all accepted. I mean, everybody except Frederick Douglas. Um, they couldn't. He couldn't. He would go to that. He started going to the conventions after the Civil War. But I read a few letters that you wrote to Amy Post. It's just like in the late eighteen forties, and he's you know, saying, I just I just can't, I can't

get into it. M hm Um. But he's one of the few. I mean, the other blackmail abolitionists are many of whom are ministers, are are very devoted to it. You mentioned Josephine Griffin. Um after well after so journal cells or Northampton property in eight seven and moved out to Battle Creek, the Harmonia community there. Um. She again

is still traveling. It's not like she she listened, but she Yeah, she has an illness during the Civil War years right, Um, but then she comes back and many years after the war she's very involved with Josephine Griffin in the Freedmen's Village and the National Freedman's Relief Association. Can you talk about the work that she was doing there.

She was a counselor for the freed people. Um. And she was both in Washington when Josephine Griffin was the assistant director of the Bureau for Washington and and and they had that house on Capitol Avenue or Capitol Hill. They and just um so Journer worked there as a counselor for the freed freed women and then before that, so that was like that was that was after the death of Lincoln. Before that is when she meets Lincoln.

That's when she's at Freedman's Village and she's she's doing She's very important there because these are all women and men and children who were slaves. And um, they needed uh someone who could talk uh the language that they could understand that as someone who had been enslaved. Uh. And she was a counselor at Freedman's Village for about

a year and a half, and that was important. That was when the Freedman's village they built homes a little they weren't really homes, but they were, um, well, I guess they were village homes for them. Um. And and so jouring her truth set up a church. Um. She asked people, congressmen to come when they had celebrations they and they would they would come and and see the progress that the freed people were making. Um. And she also was because she was you know, she was she

was an African Dutch woman. She was kind of a taskmaster. She was sort of no nonsense. So um, she would chestise the freed people UH for their behavior UM and UM. At some point it made her unpopular with them. But she was very very strict UH in terms of what you should and shouldn't do. And also they were very religious, so there was never any question about them going to church. But so Journer wanted UH circumspect behavior UH and UM.

The difference between enslaved people who were born and raised in the North and enslaved people who were born and raised in the South could be considerable and um and and so Journer also was raised in a very sort of industrious type of UH, a home life where everything is all cleanliness and UM. She promoted that and sometimes

they didn't like it. They thought she was too officious. UM. So she stayed there for a year and a half and then she went to help with Josephine and the UH in the city in Washington City, and that was I mean, I think that's where she really thrived because she taught sewing and UH and other domestic arts to the women. And then she went to Freedman's Hospital and worked at Freedman's Hospital UM, which was going to become Howard University's medical school. She did that for a year

and a half. At the same time, she is, along with Josephine, setting up this employment office. I just found that was that was so fascinating. Um, that their their commitment was such so that they were looking at every avenue possible, uh two place people and I mean just all kinds of ways. She was active in the court system with the the apprentice system. I I they took this out of the book, but the apprentice system in the state of Maryland, uh provided that planters could take

people's children and uh and put them to work. And so she went to court to challenge that. And of course she challenged the street car arrangements um, because Lincoln had desegregated the street cars before he passed away, and um, the conductors were not honoring it. Um. And so she had a big court case with that because she gets thrown off right. She gets thrown off right yeah, um, and and has dislocates her shoulder and the Freedman Hospital

doctors go to court with her to testify. Um. So she's and and then she she's once they are transporting people trying to get them settled elsewhere, because the city of Washington has forty tho African Americans in it as a result of the war. Um, and there are not enough jobs for them, there's not enough space. Um, they're living in alleys. Uh. You know, basically they have nothing,

nothing over their heads. So she and Josephine are trying to get them out of Washington and so she takes um trainloads of them two Rochester and even to Michigan. Um when they call them so journals trains. So I mean she's she's really amazing during this period, after after

having almost died being so sick during the Civil War. Yeah. Yeah, Um, you also found some fascinating you describe them wonderful letters between Cora Hatch and Amy Post when Cora comes and stays with or or visit Sojourner at the Freedoman's Hospital. Do we know much about her relationship with Cora? In the book, I talked about this uh abolitionist singing group, the Hutchinson's. Um. The Hutchison's were the most popular folk singers in America, but they were also radical abolitionists and uh,

and they were good friends of Sojourners. They spent a lot of time at Northampton, and there there's one abbey, Abby Hutchison is the one, uh young lady in the group there from there there from New Hampshire, and Abby married uh maybe right after or during the Civil War, maybe just before she married a wealthy guy in um, New Jersey, I think. And after so Journer moved to the west. When she would go east, she had a certain certain places where she would stay and one of

them was Abbe Hudgison's home. Uh. And Abby was a spiritualist and UH and Abby uh had Cora hatch at her house a lot and Cora and so Journer met at Abby Hudgson whatever her married name was, I can't remember, uh, at Abbey Hudgison's home, and they met there several times, uh that I've found because when so Journer was after she got well and she said, I'm determined to go to Washington and see the freedom of my people. She

stayed with Abby Hudson's and Cora was also there. And then Cora went to Washington and and so journal was there. It's a big African American church, um, and the African Americans loved Cora hatch Um and so she spoke a lot of their churches and so journey was there when she spoke, Um, so they and then well then when the conventions began, when the spiritual Spiritualist conventions began after

the Civil War. There's one in Rochester that I I'm recalling. Um, both Cora Hatch and so Journal Truth were on the platform and the Amy post papers at the University of Rochester. There are three or four letters from Cora to Amy. Yeah, and those are the ones you describe in the book. I just loved finding that detail. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, they were, they were very close. It's amazing network of people mm hmm in the in the in the later

sixties and then in the seventies. Uh. One of the things you write about the sojourn and was doing a lot was traveling with petitions for land for the freedman um in the midst of the other conventions and the preaching that she continues to do. It seems like those petitions became really the focus of kind of her final years. Um. The energy that she was putting into those. Is that how you would describe kind of the last decade of her life. I think it's really important, um. And the

I mean the especially taking the people to Michigan. Um. That was I mean, they remembered her, uh and and they even they even talk about where she let them off um and who she you know, set them up with, and her network. But I think the culminating part of her life was, uh, the Kansas movement. I think when she was trying to get it was one thing that was for sure. It was always about the betterment of the freed people. And and that's why she wanted to

get them out of Washington. That movement to get them settled in UM places like Michigan and New York is one movement. And so she does that until eighteen sixty seven, eighteen sixty eight. Then she goes home because the thing is is that she's old and she doesn't have a home. She's got her house in Harmonia, but her daughter and her family, uh, they're living there. So she goes home

because she's going to try and build a house for herself. Um. And then then when that's settled, then she starts the movement to Kansas. And that's when the petitions come m So um, the petition movement is about Kansas, and that is I think that is the culminating point of her life. Although she continues to be active. She's very active in

the anti capital punishment movement and the temperance movement. H. But I think that UH, in terms of her service to African Americans, it is the petition UH movement to create a black homeland in the West, because black homeland is is the mantra, right, And then it first starts with trying to get them settled in UH and in the west that is the Midwest, western New York, and then UH Michigan. And also I should point out that another group of of these women take people to the

East as well. So the idea is to provide a homeland. And then when that's not as viable, then they focus on the Kansas movement. And that's in the eighteen seventies, and so that that occupies her for the most part in the eighteen seventies, and then in three she dies. Yeah, but when she dies. Before she dies, she gives a speech to the Michigan legislature m hm um, and that is on it's either I think it's it's either on capital punishment or temperance. I can't remember. I think it's

capital punishment. UM. Yeah, Because she has that great UH statement where Um, she speaks out against executions, and she says, if you want to hang some and hang whiskey, because that causes more damage than anything else. Um. And uh, and then two years later she she passes away. I'm so glad you mentioned that and even that quote, because with the life of the Fox Sisters in particular, we're going to be talking about how bedeviled they were by

alcoholism towards the end of their life. Yeah, even in that period, Um, we're coming to the end of our time. Um. The one question that I really forgot to ask you was about the Acroing Convention, which becomes so kind of mythologized with you know that kind of the misquote, the misquoted line. Um, can you give a brief account of the Acuring Convention and how so Journal's kind of most famous line actually falls short of expressing her amazing, really

defiant character. Yeah. Well she went to akron um after well before she she was in western New York for the eighteen fifty one Anti Slavery Convention, which was held in Syracuse. And and then um, then she stayed in the area and she was living uh and spending her time with the Post family and Amy told her that

there was going to be a convention. And then the Ohio women who were at the Syracuse convention, they were just blown away by her, and they said, would you come to Ohio and UH and give some anti slavery lectures? And that along with what Amy told her about the Woman's convention, because you know, the UH year before eighteen fifty, they had had the first national Woman's Convention and she was a speaker. UM. And so you know, she was

already on the network. And there was a lot of controversy because some of the white women felt that UH they were turning the woman's rights movement into an anti slavery movement. UM. So there was that conversation going on.

And UM she went to uh Ohio at the behest of UH the abolitionists, but also to go to this convention that Amy had told her about UH and she UM and she wrote that or had someone write that beautiful letter to Amy, you know, saying that you know what she did, she wouldn't hung out with the colored people in Cleveland, and then she went to UH Ohio Akron and UH and met wonderful people just like UH Amy said she would. UM and and you know, as far as she was concerned, there was no controversy so UM.

But it was it was very telling, UM, especially in terms of the attitudes towards abolition and merging abolition and women's rights UM, which it's hard to believe, but that was the problem is UM that women, some women saw that they should the two causes should not be connected. That's what UH was the conventional wisdom at the Akron meeting.

Because the person who had arranged it was James swiss Ham, who's the same person who had criticized the First Woman's National Convention for UM talking about abolition there UM and so and so Journer went she UM was there with her books. She her book had just been published, so she was gonna sell books. And it's really interesting when she got there, the secretary of the meeting UM saw her claim they didn't have any idea who she was,

were embarrassed that there was a colored woman there. UM. And when she saw them, she being so jouring her truth and went right over to them, introduced herself and said, you know, I'm here to attend the convention and to sell some books and UM. And so they bought her

books and they were kind of embarrassed about her. Um, but they bought her books anyway, And the next day they had the convention, and so Journer when she wasn't on the platform, she liked to sit at the foot of the platform, and that way, Uh, she could interject things, and and also she could say can I say something? Um, So that's what she did. This went on for a day, and uh, it was quite a volatile meeting because a

lot of the men. There were a lot of men there and they were a woman's rights was a very unpopular cause and uh, and so they were challenging the women, and so journal was answering and giving good answers to and so finally on the second day she couldn't stand it, and so she asked Francis Gage, who was the moderator and the president of the convention, if she could speak, and um, Gauge. Gauge was a good abolitionist, a Westerner

and good abolitionist. But you know, abolition women abolitionists have to be divided a lot and into various categories. And she was a good political abolitionists, um, which meant that basically she was a free soil person. Uh. And she hesitated, but finally let her speak. UM. And we know, in spite of what France as Gage says, and and uh and also what's in the history of women's suffrage um,

that she changed the whole tone of the meeting. UM. And in spite of what what I should point, in spite of what my colleague Carson maybe says, is that you know, none of this really happened. It did happen, um. And she did change the tone of the meeting. One of her friends soon to be friends, who was a student at Oberlin, New Yorker, she and a couple of her girlfriends rented a buggy and drove to the meeting.

So they gave an account of what happened. Uh. And that's the firsthand account and and also Marius Robinson's account of it. But we at the time um that this was that the history of women's suffrage Um, discussion of sojournal truth and the speech came out, which was at the turn of the twentieth century. That was the only record of it we had, aside from what Frances Gage wrote twelve years later in eighteen sixty three, in which she published UM. But we had no first hand account.

So when sojourner spoke. I mean it was it was really profound. Uh. And she basically established Jesus Christ as a feminist um and basically put on record her own labor as a woman and as a woman who worked like a man. Um and essentially said that you know, women had as much right two everything that men had. Um. And she put it in practical terms, but she also put it in spiritual terms and um, and it was it was a profound answer to these men as um.

What is her name, the Oberlin student um who actually after the meeting went on an anti slavery tour with soldour in her truth um and she gives an account of it and um. And we know, in spite of what um the professor who disagrees that it was a powerful speech. Um. And and we also know that men were opposed to women having their rights. So it is controversial because of that theme. Aren't I a woman? Which is Francis Gauge's rhetorical phrase. But Francis Gauge and fairness

to her was a novelist, a short story writer. Uh. And she was competing with Harriet Beaterstow, so she wanted to give this a rhetorical flourish um. But basically what she says in her speech in eighteen sixty three, when she the first time she articulates it is so close to what sojourn the Truth said that you can't argue with that. The only thing you can argue with is the phrase ain't I a woman? Um? And the newspapers of the time, who uh, basically recounted what happened, I'll

say something very similar. She said she was a woman. Um. I think that's what the New York Tribune says. Um. But they all have some phrase in there, some passage where she addresses, well, I'm a woman and I do this and I do that. So you know, I mean Engauge uh simplified it and you know, gave it repetition. But you know, to me, that's kind of harmless, um,

because the idea is the same. If you read Francis Gauge as speech and then you read the article in the Anti Slavery Bugle um that Marius Robinson wrote, you really want other than that phrase. Uh. The spirit is still and they're no. There are a couple of things, um the um. And I know she got this from Stow. She says that so Journal had thirteen children. That's right

out of here in beach Stow. Um. And and and when when Stowe wrote that, so Journer said, you know, Mrs Stow lazy and yeah, so she she took that, I mean, Francis Gates took that, uh, that passage from the article that Stowe had written about So Journal Truth. But other than that, it's you know, it is the same you know, the same spirit, same information. Um. But what's interesting most of all to me is obviously there weren't any black women there, otherwise they would not have

been so shocked when they saw her. Uh. And the other thing that seems clear is that there's not a whole lot of it wasn't not a whole lot of contact regionally speaking between black and white abolitionists as well as women's rights activists, because they didn't seem to know who So Journal Truth was. That and I found that really shocking. Um. But that may be why the abolitionists in Ohio wanted her to come. And one thing we know, when she left Acarin, everybody knew who she was. Yeah,

well it's been two hours. I want to be respectful of your time, Okay, Yeah, Can I ask you one final question to wrap up, Uh, and you kind of touched this at the top of our conversation too. But just as we're thinking about sojourn her truth life, how important is studying spiritualism to understanding sojourn ther truth And how important is studying sochour in truth to understanding spiritualism. Um.

Spiritualism was very dear to Sojourner. Ah. So Journer was a woman who was born uh at the tip of the eighteenth century. UM, and she was part of a different world. I mean in a way, she's almost part of the colonial world Mum. And for her spirituality, and that makes her very close to africanness or what we call africanity. And and africanity is the core of it, is spirituality. So it to me it it's almost like

a no brainer. UM. And spiritualism, how is that different from spirituality except that people people want to get in touch uh with loved ones who have gone on and an African spirituality that is taken as a given Uh, that your loved ones not only do they not leave, they protect you, they surround you, so they're part of you. UM. And so spiritualism for her was an extension of that UH.

And some of the differences I suppose people would say, UH would be the the spiritualists in America tact on certain responsibilities to spiritualism um and and certain social problems to spiritualism. The spiritualism that arose UH in America, a lot of it had to do with, as I would say,

pain and loss UM. I mean, I think that's how a lot of it began is especially with women, because it's important to understand spiritualism is very much a part of women's rights and the amount of death and society, the fact that your child was just as likely to die as it was to live. Um. One of the abolitionists had ten children, and the first five died. And

and that's a tremendous amount of UH of stress. And one of the things that spiritualism allowed was it was the release of that stress because you have the capacity to think that you were in touch with these uh children, And not only were you in touch with them, but they were happy, uh, no matter how they had suffered from these horrible childhood diseases that they died from. So it was spiritualism was connecting life and death um and

and and I think that that that's important. Spiritualism was important to life and women I think needed that, and not only women, but men as well. You know, Abraham Lincoln, after his son Willie died, went to a spiritualists um. His wife convinced him to go. And she became interested in spiritualism because her um, what would you call this woman dressmaker? Uh, she was more than a dressmaker, she

was a confidence. She was a dressmaker, she dressed her hair, but she was a former slave and um, and her son had passed for white so he could join the Union Army at a time when they weren't taking black people. And and he was killed almost immediately. And that was her only child. And so spiritualism was very important to her.

And then after Willie Lincoln died, then she introduced Mary Todd Lincoln to spiritualism and and and Mary Todd Lincoln took it very seriously and even got Abraham Lincoln to go to one. Um. It didn't relieve him, but it was a form of relief, was a form of solace, It was a form of faith. Uh. And so I think that spiritualism is really important to understanding the lives of these people and their activism. Thank you, that's beautiful. Hey, folks,

it's Aaron here. I hope today's interview helped you deepen your understanding of everything involved in the world of spiritualism. But we're not done yet. We have more interviews to share with you, so stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear a preview of next week's interview. Next time on un Obscured. The Catholic Church in New Orleans

supports the Confederacy very strongly. During the Civil War, there's this one very outspoken abolitionist priests who's threatened with excommunication and has his church shut down. Priest regular literally would refuse to give Eucharist to black Catholic men in Union uniforms. There would be ceremonies, the spirits would refer to the

ceremonies blessing Confederate flags during the Catholic Mass. So the Catholic Church locally is in support of the Confederacy even during the Union occupation of the city and the spirits delivered tons of messages about the materialism and greed of the Catholic Church and its priests, that the Catholic Church and wants money and secrets, money and secrets, money and secrets. A lot Obscured was created by me, Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thayne in

partnership with I Heart Radio. Research and writing for this season is all the work of my right hand man Carl Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed the brand new soundtrack. Learn more about our contributing historians, source material and links to our other shows over at history unobscured dot com, And until next time, thanks for listening Unobscured as a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey.

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