What did Sojourner Truth really say at the Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio on May 28, 1851?
Historical Mystery: Read these two accounts of Truth’s speech and analyze their reliability* using the sourcing form. Then answer the question: Did Sojourner Truth really utter the famous phrase: “Ar’n’t I a woman?”
**Reliable: Historians use “reliable” to mean that a source is the most accurate or honest depiction or account of something from the past.
Version 1, written by Reporter, Marius Robinson, for Salem Anti-Slavery Bugle in June 21, 1851:
One of the most unique and interesting speeches of the Convention was made by Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave. It is impossible to transfer it to paper, or convey any adequate idea of the effect it produced upon the audience. Those only can appreciate it who saw her powerful form, her whole-souled, earnest gestures, and listened to her strong and truthful tones…May I say a few words? Receiving an affirmative answer, she proceeded: “I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now…The poor men seem to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do. Why children, if you have woman’s rights give it to her and you will feel better…But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.”
Version 2, written April 23, 1863 for the New York Independent by Frances Dana Gage, who had presided over the convention:
“Well, chillen, whar dar’s so much racket dar must be som’ting out o’ kilter. I tink dat, ‘twixt the niggers of de South and de women at de Norf, all a-talking ‘bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon…Dat man over dar say dat woman needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches…Nobody eber helps me into carriages or ober mud-puddles, or gives me any best place;” and, raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked, “And ar’n’t I a woman? Look at me. Look at my arm,” and she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing its tremendous muscular power, “I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man can head me—and ar’n’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man, (when I could get it,) and bear de lash as well—and ar’n’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen chillen and seen ‘em mos’ all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard—and ar’n’t I a woman?”
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| How are these two accounts similar (facts, tone, etc.)? | ||
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| Based on your comparison of the sources, what do you think the author’s purposes might have been? | ||
| What more do you wish you knew so that you could determine which source is most reliable? |
Analysis: Did Sojourner Truth really utter the famous phrase: “Ar’n’t I a woman?” Explain your answer.
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