Isabella Baumfree, a black Ameerican abolitionist and women`s rights activist, was born in slavery in Swartekill, New York, around 1797. She escaped from slavery in 1826, a year before New York state emancipated all slaves within the state. When her former owner sold one of her sons to a person in Alabama, she sued and successfully recovered him.
After 1843, she adopted the name Sojourner Truth. She lived until 1883.