Sojourner Truth's journey away from bondage and her travels between different geographic locations roughly correspond with her emotional and intellectual growth. Her journey also generally illustrates the gains in freedom made by blacks and by women in the nineteenth century.

Slavery has been a part of American history for nearly two hundred years before Sojourner is born on Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh's farm in Ulster County, New York, in about 1797. Although slavery is economically impractical in New York, and the state is gradually phasing it out, Sojourner spends her first twenty-eight years as a slave. At birth she is named "Isabelle," but most people simply call her "Belle."

Sold to Mr. and Mrs. John Neely when she is about twelve, Belle lives with these cruel shopkeepers for a year. Mr. and Mrs. Martin Schryver, tavernkeepers and farmers, then own her for a year before selling her to John J...