[In the following essay originally published in 1863, Dugdale describes his experience with Truth, who stayed with him as a guest, and asks readers to lend her their support.]

To the Editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard.

This extraordinary woman still lives. When the letter of Phebe M. Stickney came to us at our home on the prairies in Iowa, suggesting pecuniary comfort for the blessed old saint in the sunset of her remar[k]able and useful life, I never remember to have regretted more that I had so little at command to bestow. The Standard, however, reports the names of a number of friends who were ready and willing to minister to her necessities. I hope others will do likewise. Few if any in the land are more worthy. Hers has been a life of preeminent devotion to the sacred cause of liberty and purity.

The graphic sketch of her by the author of “Uncle Tom's Cabin” has doubtless been read with interest by thousands. No pen, however, can give an adequate idea of Sojourner Truth. This unlearned African woman, with her deep religious and trustful nature burning in her soul like fire, has a magnetic power over an audience perfectly astounding. I was once present in a religious meeting where some speaker had alluded to the government of the United States, and had uttered sentiments in favor of its Constitution. Sojourner stood erect and tall, with her white turban on her head, and in a low and subdued tone of voice began by saying: “Children, I talks to God and God talks to me. I goes out and talks to God in de fields and de woods.” (The weavil had destroyed thousands of acres of wheat in the West that year.) “Dis morning I was walking out, and I got over de fence. I saw de wheat a holding up its head, looking very big. I goes up and takes holt ob it. You b'lieve it, dere was no wheat dare? I says, ‘God (speaking the name in a voice of reverence peculiar to herself), what is de matter wid dis wheat?’ and He says to me, ‘Sojourner, dere is a little weasel in it.’ Now I hears talkin' about de Constitution and de rights of man. I comes up and I takes hold of dis Constitution. It looks mighty big, and, I feels for my rights, but der aint any dare. Den I says, ‘God, what ails dis Constitution?’ He says to me, ‘Sojourner, dare is a little weasel in it.’” The effect upon the multitude was irresistible.

On a dark, cloudy morning while she was our guest, she was sitting, as she often was wont to do, with her cheeks upon her palms, her elbows on her knees. She lifted up her head as though she had just wakened from a dream, and said: “Friend Dugdale, poor old Sojourner can't read a word. Will you git me de Bible and read me a little of de Scripter?” Oh yes, Sojourner, gladly, said I. I opened to Isaiah, the 59th chapter: She listened as though an oracle was speaking. When I came to the words, “None calleth for justice nor any pleadeth for truth; your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity; they hatch cockatrice's eggs, and weave the spider's web; he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper”; she could restrain herself no longer, and bringing her great palms together with an emphasis that I shall never forget, she exclaimed, “Is dat thare? ‘It shall break out into a viper.’ Yes, God told me dat. I never heard it read afore, now I know it double!” Of course her mind was directed to the heinous institution of American slavery, and she regarded these terrible words of the Seer as prophetic concerning its fearful consequences.

On one occasion, in large reform meeting, where many able and efficient public speakers were present, Sojourner sat in the midst. One man, in defiance of propriety, was wasting the time of the meeting by distasteful and indelicate declamation. Some, in despair of his ending, were leaving the meeting. Others, mortified and distressed, were silently enduring, while the “flea of the Convention” continued to bore it, nothing daunted. Just at a point where he was forced to suspend long enough to take in a long breath, Sojourner, who had been sitting in the back part of the house with her head bowed, and groaning in spirit, raised up her tall figure before him, and, putting her eyes upon him said: “Child, if de people has no whar to put it, what is de use? Sit down, child, sit down!” The man dropped as if he had been shot, and not another word was heard from him.

A friend related the following anecdote to me. In that period of the Anti-Slavery movement when mobocratic violence was often resorted to, one of its most talented and devoted advocates, after an able address, was followed by a lawyer, who appealed to the lowest sentiments—was scurrilous and abusive in the superlative degree. Alluding to the colored race, he compared them to monkeys, baboons, and ourang-outangs. When he was about closing his inflammatory speech, Sojourner quietly drew near to the platform and whispered in the ear of the advocate of her people, “Don't dirty your hands wid dat critter. Let me 'tend to him!” The speaker knew it was safe to trust her. “Children,” said she, straightening herself to her full height, “I am one of dem monkey tribes. I was born a slave. I had de dirty work to do—de scullion work. Now I am goin' to 'ply to dis critter”—pointing her long bony finger with withering scorn at the petty lawyer. “Now in de course of my time I has done a great deal of dirty scullion work, but of all de dirty work I ever done, dis is de scullionist and de dirtiest.” Peering into the eyes of the auditory with just such a look as she could give, and that no one could imitate, she continued: “Now, children, don't you pity me?” She had taken the citadel by storm. The whole audience shouted applause, and the negro-haters as heartily as any.

I was present at a large religious convention. Love in the family had been portrayed in a manner to touch the better nature of the auditory. Just as the meeting was about to close, Sojourner stood up. Tears were coursing down her furrowed cheeks. She said: “We has heerd a great deal about love at home in de family. Now, children, I was a slave, and my husband and my children was sold from me.” The pathos with which she utterred these words made a deep impression upon the meeting. Pausing a moment, she added: “Now, husband and children is all gone, and what has 'come of de affection I had for dem? Dat is de question before de house!” The people smiled amidst a baptism of tears.

Let food and raiment be given her. There are many in the land who will be made richer by seeing that this noble woman shares their bounty; and then, when her Lord shall come to talk with her, and take her into His presence chamber, and shall say, “Sojourner, lacked thou anything?” she may answer, “Nothing, Lord, either for body or soul.”

Detroit Daily Post (article date 1871)

[In the following article originally published in 1871, a lecture given by Truth is reviewed, and her petition to give African Americans lands in the West is briefly discussed.]

A small but select audience assembled in Merrill Hall last evening to listen to Sojourner Truth, whose advent in Detroit and general views on the subject lectured upon have been before given. Her lecture was chiefly a resume of the topics touched upon in the account of herself in Sunday's Post, the principal one being that of the proposed amelioration of the present degraded and pauper-like condition of the colored people of Washington, which she insists should be brought about by the granting of lands to them in some location in the West, and the erection of buildings and schools with that end in view.

She gave a brief review of the state of things existing under the present system in Washington, of feeding, clothing, and caring for a set of indolent “paupers,” as she terms them, and opposed the paying annually of large sums of money to support these dependents and the “leeches” who feed upon them.

She also gave her views upon temperance, favoring prohibition. As to woman suffrage she declared that the world would never be correctly governed until equal rights were declared, and that as men have been endeavoring for years to govern alone, and have not yet succeeded in perfecting any system, it is about time the women should take the matter in hand.

Her lecture was curtailed somewhat, owing to an accident which detained her until toward 9 o'clock. It was full of pith, and in many parts “spicy” enough. The following petition was circulated among the audience for all who were willing to sign:

“Whereas, Through the faithful and earnest representations of Sojourner Truth, who has personally investigated the matter, we believe that the freed colored people in and about Washington, dependent upon Government for support, would be greatly benefited, and become useful citizens by being placed in a position to support themselves;

Therefore, we, the undersigned, earnestly request your honorable body to set a part for them a portion of the public lands in the West, and erect buildings thereon for the aged and infirm, and otherwise to legislate as to secure to the desired results.”

In connection with this Sojourner mentioned that the Rev. Gilbert Haven, of Boston, had volunteered to take charge of all the petitions signed and forward them to Congress in due form, that they might be presented before Congress in such a way as to demand both attention and action. She hoped to find some one among those assembled to hear her lecture, who would also aid her in this respect. The Rev. Charles Foote, chaplain of the House of Correction, thereupon offered to collect and forward all petitions which should be signed, to Washington, which offer was thankfully accepted by the lecturer.

After the lecture several of those interested went upon the platform and interviewed Sojourner, to all of whom she gave cordial welcome and conversed in her characteristic style.

Her views on the question of woman's dress and the prevailing fashion are interesting. They are substantially these: “I'm awful hard on dress, you know. Women, you forget that you are the mothers of creation; you forget your sons were cut off like grass by the war, and the land was covered with their blood; you rig yourselves up in paniers and Grecian-bend backs and flummeries; yes, and mothers and gray-haired grandmothers wear high-heeled shoes and humps on their heads, and put them on their babies, and stuff them out so that they keel over when the wind blows. Oh, mothers, I'm ashamed of ye! What will such lives as you live do for humanity? When I saw them women on the stage at the Woman's Suffrage Convention, the other day, I thought, what kind of reformers be you, with goose-wings on your heads, as if you were going to fly, and dressed in such ridiculous fashion, talking about reform and women's rights? 'Pears to me, you had better reform yourselves first. But Sojourner is an old body, and will soon get out of this world into another, and wants to say when she gets there, “Lord, I have done my duty, I have told the whole truth and kept nothing back.”

Sojourner is to remain a short time only in Detroit, going from here Westward, on the same mission which induced her to come here. In the course of her travels she intends visiting Kansas, in order to prospect the land.