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First Time Sold at Auction
Sojourner was sold at an auction for $100 along with a flock of sheep when she was nine years old. She was sold two more times by the time she was 13 years of age prior to settling on the property of John Dumont in Happy Park, New York. Her experience as a slave at a young age may have had a heavy influence on Sojourner’s fight for the abolition of slavery. -
Escape to Freedom
John Dumont (Sojourner’s owner) had promised to grant her freedom, but he later took his word back. After years of cruelty on his farm, she walked to freedom with her infant daughter named Sophia, her other daughter and son stayed behind. Sojourner’s abuse by her owner may have had a heavy influence on her fight for the abolition of slavery. -
First Black Woman to Sue White Man
After Sojourner escaped from John’s property, she later learned that John had illegally sold her 5 year old son Peter to a man in Alabama after the New York Anti-Slavery Law passed. With the help of the Van Wagenens, she filed a lawsuit against John and regained custody of Peter. Sojourner became the first black woman to sue a white man in a United States court and win the case. -
Abolition and Women’s Rights
In 1843, Sojourner devoted her life to abolition of slavery. She joined an abolitionist organization in Massachusetts called the Northampton Association of Education and Industry where she launched her career as an equal rights activist. In May 1851, she delivered a speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention that would become the ‘Ain’t I a Woman’ speech on racial inequalities. Sojourner was a very strong woman who fought hard to abolish slavery after years of abuse and cruelty. -