The Narrative of Sojourner Truth | Page 4

of both sexes, sleeping (as is quite common in a state of
slavery) in the same room. She carries in her mind, to this day, a vivid
picture of this dismal chamber; its only lights consisting of a few panes
of glass, through which she thinks the sun never shone, but with thrice
reflected rays; and the space between the loose boards of the floor, and
the uneven earth below, was often filled with mud and water, the

uncomfortable splashings of which were as annoying as its noxious
vapors must have been chilling and fatal to health. She shudders, even
now, as she goes back in memory, and revisits this cellar, and sees its
inmates, of both sexes and all ages, sleeping on those damp boards, like
the horse, with a little straw and a blanket; and she wonders not at the
rheumatisms, and fever-sores, and palsies, that distorted the limbs and
racked the bodies of those fellow-slaves in after-life. Still, she does not
attribute this cruelty-for cruelty it certainly is, to be so unmindful of the
health and comfort of any being, leaving entirely out of sight his more
important part, his everlasting interests,-so much to any innate or
constitutional cruelty of the master, as to that gigantic inconsistency,
that inherited habit among slaveholders, of expecting a willing and
intelligent obedience from the slave, because he is a MAN-at the same
time every thing belonging to the soul-harrowing system does its best
to crush the last vestige of a man within him; and when it is crushed,
and often before, he is denied the comforts of life, on the plea that he
knows neither the want nor the use of them, and because he is
considered to be little more or little less than a beast.

HER BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

Isabella's father was very tall and straight, when young, which gave
him the name of 'Bomefree'-low Dutch for tree-at least, this is
SOJOURNER's pronunciation of it-and by this name he usually went.
The most familiar appellation of her mother was 'Mau-mau Bett.' She
was the mother of some ten or twelve children; though Sojourner is far
from knowing the exact number of her brothers and sisters; she being
the youngest, save one, and all older than herself having been sold
before her remembrance. She was privileged to behold six of them
while she remained a slave.
Of the two that immediately preceded her in age, a boy of five years,
and a girl of three, who were sold when she was an infant, she heard
much; and she wishes that all who would fain believe that slave parents
have not natural affection for their offspring could have listened as she
did, while Bomefree and Mau-mau Bett,-their dark cellar lighted by a
blazing pine-knot,-would sit for hours, recalling and recounting every
endearing, as well as harrowing circumstance that taxed memory could

supply, from the histories of those dear departed ones, of whom they
had been robbed, and for whom their hearts still bled. Among the rest,
they would relate how the little boy, on the last morning he was with
them, arose with the birds, kindled a fire, calling for his Mau-mau to
'come, for all was now ready for her'-little dreaming of the dreadful
separation which was so near at hand, but of which his parents had an
uncertain, but all the more cruel foreboding. There was snow on the
ground, at the time of which we are speaking; and a large old-fashioned
sleigh was seen to drive up to the door of the late Col. Ardinburgh. This
event was noticed with childish pleasure by the unsuspicious boy; but
when he was taken and put into the sleigh, and saw his little sister
actually shut and locked into the sleigh box, his eyes were at once
opened to their intentions; and, like a frightened deer he sprang from
the sleigh, and running into the house, concealed himself under a bed.
But this availed him little. He was re-conveyed to the sleigh, and
separated for ever from those whom God had constituted his natural
guardians and protectors, and who should have found him, in return, a
stay and a staff to them in their declining years. But I make no
comments on facts like these, knowing that the heart of every slave
parent will make its own comments, involuntarily and correctly, as
soon as each heart shall make the case its own. Those who are not
parents will draw their conclusions from the promptings of humanity
and philanthropy:-these, enlightened by reason and revelation, are also
unerring.

HER RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.

Isabella and Peter, her youngest brother, remained, with their parents,
the legal property of Charles Ardinburgh till his decease, which took
place when Isabella was near nine years old.