It Happened Here --In Precarious Positions, Part III*

(Isabella in Ulster)

Nineteenth century antebellum New York placed many blacks in "precarious positions."  Charles Nalle, born into slavery in the South, and escaped to New York and freedom a few years before the Civil War had his freedom nearly taken away from him by slave catchers operating under the U.S. Fugitive Slave Act.  Solomon Northrup, born a free black man, had his freedom stolen from him by a pair of kidnappers, nearly two decades before. And Isabella, a slave women battered physically and emotionally by domestic slavery in New York State, in the first decades of the nineteenth century would gradually forge a new identity for herself as New York incrementally freed its slaves, confirming her freedom, but keeping her children in bondage.

Isabella was born a slave to the wealthy Col. Johannes Hardenberg, one of seven he owned, around 1797.  Her parents were Betsey and James "Baumfree," nicknamed in Dutch, "the tree" due to his tall and lean physique. She would inherit these traits from her father. Isabella was the next to youngest of ten or twelve children. Most of the children had been sold away but she would hear the stories told by her parents of her siblings lost to them.  After Colonel Hardenberg died his son Charles kept Isabella, her parents and other slaves in the damp cellar of a hotel he ran until he died in 1806 when Isabella was sold off at age 9 with a herd of sheep for $100.

                " Sojourner Truth
             179? - 1883 Born into 
         Slavery in Swartekill, Then            marker on Ulster Co. Rte 25, Rifton  
        Hurley, She Rose to Become
            A Famous Orator and
         Champion of Human Rights "
               --George Pataki, Governor 

Isabella was purchased by a Kingston store owner and importer of West Indies goods, near the port on Roundout Creek, where it empties into the Hudson River. Growing up in a Dutch speaking household, Isabella could speak only Dutch.  When she didn't understand her new owner's orders, he regularly beat her. Two years later she was sold to a fisherman and tavern keeper, Martinus Schryer in what became Port Ewen. There she hoed his garden, carried fish and hauled jugs of spirits from the port to the tavern.

Rte 9W and River Rd, Port Ewen

"Isabella"

"Jug Tavern" River Rd. Port Ewen

In 1810 Schryvers sold Isabella for $105 to John Dumont, a fellow parishioner of the Klyne Esopus Reformed Dutch Church who lived a few miles south of Schryver.

      Coincidentally, this church replaced an older  church where Schryver and Dumont were members,  the year New York's slaves were freed

Isabella worked as a farm laborer for Dumont, plowing, hoeing and reaping, and he praised her for her hard work. Some biographers believe he may have sexually abused her. His wife disliked Isabella and may have sexually abused Isabella as well. Characteristically, she adored Dumont and when he "married" her off to Tom, one of his older slaves, after several years she expressed feelings of pride of having borne five children that increased her master's property.

Beginning in 1799, New York began planning for the emancipation of its slaves.  More concerned with the economic impact emancipation would have on slave owners, than the effect it might have on the families of enslaved blacks, the State enacted a phased emancipation. Slaves born before 1799 would be freed on July 4, 1827; Slaves born after 1799 but before 1817 would be "free" but would serve their masters as "indentured servants" for 21 years after 1827; Slaves born after 1817 and before 1827 would have to serve 25 years as "indenture servants".**

Several years before the 1827 emancipation date Dumont promised Isabella and Tom if they continued to work hard up to July 4, 1826 he would free them then-- a year early; but 9 months before the 1826 date Dumont reneged on his promise.  Isabella was incensed.  Working extra hard, to accomplish all the work she thought she would owe him in the extra year, she walked away from Dumont's farm on her promised release date, carrying the infant daughter she was still nursing. Tom, fearing to go, stayed behind to care for the other children who still faced years of indentured servitude. 

From a Quaker friend Isabella was given the name of a couple known to be opposed to slavery.  Issac and Maria Van Wagenen in the ancient Dutch community of Wagendaal gave her sanctuary and when Dumont came looking for her they worked out a settlement with him.  They would pay him $20 for her year's services, and $5 for the baby and she would repay them, working as their housekeeper. Isabella took their last name as her own, calling herself Isabella Van Wagenen.

Van Wagenen homes in Wagendaal

Wagendaal
On This Farm is Home of
Jacob Aarsten van Wagenen
Built 1669, First Settler
And Home of Johannes
Van Wagenen, Built 1775

State Education
Department 1932

                                                                           

Monument outside of the Ulster County Court

While living with her new employers, Isabella heard her 5 year old son, Peter, had been sold or given by John Dumont to the neighboring Gedney family and they had sold him to one of their kin who had taken him to Alabama.  Isabella was outraged, especially when she learned the new emancipation law prohibited slave owners from selling or taking their slaves or "indentured" children out of state to circumvent the law. She sought the advise of some Quaker friends who drove her to the Ulster County Court, in Kingston to present her case to the Grand Jury.  Unescorted, the illiterate former slave resolutely marched in and accosted the first man she determined appeared "grand" enough to be part of the jury.  Probably astounded and amused, he directed her to the Grand Jury room and they concluded she had a case.  Next, she hired a lawyer and his partner, by agreeing to work as his housekeeper. The lawyers pressured Dumont and the Gedney's to get Isabella's son returned to Ulster County, by threatening them with prosecution and the heavy fines provided for under the new law. But Gedney resisted summonses to bring the boy into court. As the months dragged on and her lawyers appeared unwilling or unable to compel her former owner's friend to appear in court with her son,  Isabella sought out a new lawyer who agreed to work for free but asked for $5 to engage a man to compel Gedney and her son to appear. Isabella took off walking to return to the Quaker community to go door to door to solicit donations. Soon she had the $5 and more, but refused to keep the surplus,  telling her lawyer "I only want my son.  If $5 will get him, more will surely get him."

Soon Gedney was in court with a small traumatized young boy who had been whipped and beaten from head to toe. He didn't recognize his mother and at first refused to go to her but the judge was affected and despite the law ordered the boy immediately released into the care of his mother.

Peter's trauma had lasting effects. As he grew he was constantly in trouble. He stole and gambled and whored and drank. He was supposed to be in navigation school but he didn't attend. Isabella got him a job as a coachman, but he pawned his livery. She got him a job as a lock tender on the new D&H canal, but he failed at that. In desperation she got him a job on a whaling ship. Two years later the ship returned, but her son was not on board. She never heard from him again!

D&H Canal locks where Peter briefly worked

Locks entering the Roundout Creek

While Isabella was with the Van Wagenens, and in Kingston, she was  growing in assertiveness, learning to present herself in public, and learning, if not to read books, to "read people." At the same time, her new employers encouraged her to attend Methodist meetings/prayer sessions.  Early Methodism, unlike the Methodism of modern times was expressive, estatic, and evangelical.  Isabella's life with the VanWagenens was comfortable, but somewhat boring and she missed drinking, carousing, smoking and dancing with her former slave friends. When John Dumont came by the Van Wagenen's household she almost begged him to take her back, but was overcome by indecision, and guilt and she experienced a powerful conversion experience in which she believed she felt God's presence. Isabella felt a calling to preach. She began ministering in her own social circles.  By 1829 she had decided to leave Ulster County for New York City and new challenges to express her new faith. It would not be until 1843 she would leave New York City as a traveling evangelist, and adopt a new name for herself, "Sojourner Truth"; and it would be fully two decades before she became the mature orator and advocate for Women's Rights and the nationwide abolition of slavery for which she became famous.

 
 *Part I on 3/31/13 concerned Charles Nalle in Troy and Part II on 4/7/13 concerned Solomon Northrup from Saratoga.  Both of those posts  can be brought up by scrolling to those dates on the column on the right.

**For anyone who has done NYS income taxes, or participates in a NYS employees Tier-ed retirement system, do you detect a familiar resonance, even if the substance is foreign?




Marker of the Week --This week, (April 1st) is our main holiday dedicated to the promulgation of silliness (though, New Years Eve comes in a close second). In its honor,  I offer you this historic marker.  It is one of a group of historical ho-hum-ers marking the boundaries between towns, that seemed to have been especially popular in Columbia and Dutchess Counties.

 








Now, if you feel compelled to visit this historic shrine (as apparently I was) It is located at the intersection of Dutchess Co. Rte 199 and --

Happy Holiday!