Sojourner Truth delivers powerful speech on African American women’s rights

At the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention, on May 29, 1851, the formerly enslaved woman, Sojourner Truth, rises to speak and assert her right to equality as a woman, as well as a Black American. The exact wording of her speech, which becomes famous for the refrain, “Ain’t I a Woman?” has been lost to history. In fact, historians have since challenged whether Truth ever used the famous refrain as she spoke. Nonetheless, her speech becomes widely regarded as one of the most powerful moments of the early women’s liberation movement.

Born into slavery in Ulster County, New York, Isabella Baumfree escaped with her infant daughter in 1826 and chose the name Sojourner Truth. She later successfully sued a slaveowner for custody of her son, becoming the first Black woman to take a white man to court and win. She remained an antislavery activist and, after the Civil War, a crusader for the rights of African Americans for the rest of her life. Her speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention formed much of the foundation of her legacy.

LISTEN: Sojourner’s Truth on HISTORY This Week Podcast

There are two conflicting versions of the speech, neither of which was transcribed at the time Truth actually gave it. An account reported in the Anti-Slavery Bugle was the first to be published and does not actually include the titular phrase. On May 2, 1863, Frances Gage, a white abolitionist and president of the Convention, published an account of Truth’s words in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. In her account, Gage wrote that Truth used the rhetorical question, “Ar’n’t I a Woman?” to point out the discrimination Truth experienced as a Black woman.

Various details in Gage’s account, however, including that Truth said she had 13 children (she had five) and that she spoke in dialect have since cast doubt on its accuracy. Contemporaneous reports of Truth’s speech did not include this slogan, and quoted Truth in standard English. In later years, this slogan was further distorted to “Ain’t I a Woman?”, reflecting the false belief that as a formerly enslaved woman, Truth would have had a Southern accent. Truth was, in fact, a New Yorker.

Regardless, there is little doubt that Truth’s speech—and many others she gave throughout her adult life—moved audiences. Truth straightforwardly described of the predicament of Black women, who were not even afforded the paternalistic treatment their white counterparts received. 

According to the Bugle version, she also facetiously described the predicament of white men, who were “surely between a hawk and a buzzard” with both women and African Americans demanding equality. As Truth deftly criticized not only sexism and racism, but also the racism of her fellow feminists, her speech is now regarded not only as one of the earliest entries in the canon of American feminism but also an early example of intersectionality, more than a century and a half before the term came to prominence.

READ MORE: Early Women’s Rights Activists Wanted Much More than Suffrage

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Fire destroys Thomas Jefferson library


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Year
1851
Month Day
December 24

On this day in 1851, a fire sweeps through the Library of Congress and destroys two-thirds of Thomas Jefferson’s personal literary collection.

Jefferson, who died in 1826, had offered to sell his personal library to Congress after the Congressional library, along with the rest of the Capitol and the White House, was burned by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812. His collection of 6,487 volumes of books and newspapers fetched $23,950 and, in addition to providing an invaluable archive to the nation, the fee helped pay off some of Jefferson’s personal debts. According to the Library of Congress, Jefferson also offered to arrange and number all the books himself. He called his collection, which contained a vast assortment of scientific works, an “interesting treasure” that he hoped would have a “national impact.”

Jefferson was a voracious reader who claimed that he could not live without books. His servants often found him sitting on the floor of his library at Monticello surrounded by as many as 20 open books and newspapers at a time. He studied a variety of subjects, including paleontology, mechanics, classical literature, natural history, agriculture, math, chemistry, philosophy and, of course, politics.

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The Christiana Riot

Year
1851
Month Day
September 11

In Christiana, Pennsylvania, a group of African Americans and white abolitionists skirmish with a Maryland posse intent on capturing four fugitive enslaved people hidden in the town. The violence came one year after the second fugitive slave law was passed by Congress, requiring the return of all escapees to their owners in the South. One member of the posse, landowner Edward Gorsuch, was killed and two others wounded during the fight. In the aftermath of the so-called Christiana Riot, 37 African Americans and one white man were arrested and charged with treason under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law. Most were acquitted.

In February 1793, Congress passed the first fugitive slave law, requiring all states, including those that forbade slavery, to forcibly return enslaved people who had escaped from other states to their original owners. The law stated that “no person held to service of labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

As Northern states abolished slavery, most relaxed enforcement of the 1793 law, and many passed laws ensuring fugitives a jury trial. Several Northern states even enacted measures prohibiting state officials from aiding in the capture of runaways or from jailing the fugitives. This disregard of the first fugitive slave law enraged Southern states and led to the passage of a second fugitive slave law as part of the “Compromise of 1850″ between North and South.

The second fugitive slave law called for the return of enslaved people “on pain of heavy penalty” but permitted a jury trial under the condition that fugitives be prohibited from testifying in their own defense. Fugitive slave trials like the Dred Scott case of 1857 stirred up public opinion on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Meanwhile, fugitive enslaved people circumvented the law through the “Underground Railroad,” a network of persons, primarily free African Americans, who helped fugitives escape to freedom in the Northern states or Canada.

READ MORE: How the Underground Railroad Worked

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U.S. wins first America’s Cup

Year
1851
Month Day
August 22

On August 22, 1851, the U.S.-built schooner America bests a fleet of Britain’s finest ships in a race around England’s Isle of Wight. The ornate silver trophy won by the America was later donated to the New York Yacht Club on condition that it be forever placed in international competition. Today, the “America’s Cup” is the world’s oldest continually contested sporting trophy and represents the pinnacle of international sailing yacht competition.

The history of the yacht America began with five members of the New York Yacht Club, who decided to build a state-of-the-art schooner to compete against British ships in conjunction with England’s Great Exposition of 1851. Designed by George Steers, the 100-foot, black-hulled America had a sharp bow, a V bottom, and tall masts, making it strikingly different from the traditional yachts of the day. In June 1851, the America set sail from its shipyard on New York City’s East River, bound for England. Manned by Captain William H. Brown and a crew of 12, the America raced and overtook numerous ships during the Atlantic crossing.

After being outfitted and repainted in France, the America sailed to Cowes on the Isle of Wight to challenge the best British sailboats in their own waters. At Cowes, America welcomed all comers for a match race, but no English yacht accepted the challenge. Finally, on August 22, the America joined 14 British ships for a regatta around the Isle of Wight. The prize was the Hundred Guinea Cup, a 2-foot-high silver jug put up by the Royal Yacht Squadron.

In the 53-mile race, the America trounced the competition, beating the cutter Aurora by 22 minutes and finishing nearly an hour ahead of the third boat, the schooner Bacchante. Queen Victoria watched the race from her royal yacht, and at one point asked, “What is second?” after seeing the America come over the horizon. Her attendant reportedly replied, “Your Majesty, there is no second.”

A few weeks after its victory, the America was sold to an Irish lord for about $25,000, giving its owners a slim profit over what they paid for it. It later went through a series of other owners, one of whom changed the America‘s name to Camilla. As the CSS Memphis, it served briefly as a Confederate blockade runner during the Civil War. The Confederate navy sunk it in Florida to keep it from falling into Union hands, but it was found, raised, and rebuilt by the U.S. Navy, which renamed it the America and used it as a Union blockade ship.

Meanwhile, the first owners of the America deeded the Hundred Guinea Cup to the New York Yacht Club in 1857 to be put up as the prize in a perpetual international challenge competition. The first race for the trophy, renamed the America’s Cup, was not held until August 1870, when the British ship Cambria competed against 14 American yachts in Lower New York Bay. The Cambria finished 10th. The schooner Magic won the race, and the America, refitted by the navy for the occasion, finished fourth. After service as a navy training ship, the America fell into disrepair under private owners. Today, it exists only in fragments.

From 1870 until the late 20th century, New York Yacht Club-sponsored U.S. yachts successfully defended the America’s Cup 24 times in races generally spaced a few years apart. Since the 1920s, the America’s Cup race has been between one defending vessel and one challenging vessel, both of which are determined by separate elimination trials. In 1983, the United States lost the trophy for the first time in 132 years when Australia II defeated Liberty off Newport, Rhode Island.

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First-ever “Great Exhibition” opens in London

Year
1851
Month Day
May 01

On May 1, 1851, the Great Exhibition opens to wide acclaim in the Crystal Palace in London. Inside the Crystal Palace, a giant glass-and-iron hall designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, more than 10,000 exhibitors set up eight miles of tables. Technological wonders from around the world were on display, but the exposition was clearly dominated by Britain, the premier industrialized nation and workshop of the world. Conceived by Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, the Great Exposition was a rousing success, hosting 6 million visitors before it closed in October. The many goods displayed ranged from kitchen appliances to false teeth, silks to farm machinery.

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Fire ravages Library of Congress


Updated:
Original:
Year
1851
Month Day
December 24

A devastating fire at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., destroys about two-thirds of its 55,000 volumes, including most of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library, sold to the institution in 1815.

The Library of Congress was established in 1800, when President John Adams approved legislation that appropriated $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress.” The first books, ordered from London, arrived in 1801 and were stored in the U.S. Capitol, the library’s first home. The first library catalog, dated April 1802, listed 964 volumes and nine maps. Twelve years later, the British army invaded the city of Washington and burned the Capitol, including the 3,000-volume Library of Congress.

Former president Thomas Jefferson, who advocated the expansion of the library during his two terms in office, responded to the loss by selling his personal library, the largest and finest in the country, to Congress to “recommence” the library. The purchase of Jefferson’s 6,487 volumes was approved in the next year, and a professional librarian, George Watterston, was hired to replace the House clerks in the administration of the library. In 1851, a second major fire at the library destroyed about two-thirds of its books. Congress responded quickly and generously to the disaster, and within a few years a majority of the lost books were replaced.

After the Civil War, the collection was greatly expanded, and by the 20th century the Library of Congress had become the de facto national library of the United States and one of the largest in the world. Today, the collection, housed in three enormous buildings in Washington, contains more than 17 million books, as well as millions of maps, manuscripts, photographs, films, audio and video recordings, prints and drawings.

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Herman Melville publishes “Moby-Dick”

Year
1851
Month Day
November 14

Moby-Dick is now considered a great classic of American literature and contains one of the most famous opening lines in fiction: “Call me Ishmael.” Initially, though, the book about Captain Ahab and his quest to catch a giant white whale was a flop.

Its author, Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. As a young man, he spent time in the merchant marines, the U.S. Navy and on a whaling ship in the South Seas. In 1846, he published his first novel, Typee, a romantic adventure based on his experiences in Polynesia. The book was a success and a sequel, Omoo, was published in 1847. Three more novels followed, with mixed critical and commercial results. 

READ MORE: Was There a Real Moby Dick?

Melville’s sixth book, Moby-Dick, was first published in October 1851 in London, in three volumes titled The Whale, and then in the U.S. a month later. Melville had promised his publisher an adventure story similar to his popular earlier works, but instead, Moby-Dick was a tragic epic, influenced in part by Melville’s friend and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, neighbor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose novels include The Scarlet Letter.

After Moby-Dick‘s disappointing reception, Melville continued to produce novels, short stories (Bartleby) and poetry, but writing wasn’t paying the bills. In 1865, he returned to New York to work as a customs inspector—a job he held for 20 years.

Melville died in 1891, largely forgotten by the literary world. By the 1920s, scholars had rediscovered his work, particularly Moby-Dick, which would eventually become a staple of high school reading lists across the United States. Billy Budd, Melville’s final novel, was published in 1924, 33 years after his death.

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San Francisco vigilantes take the law into their own hands


Year
1851
Month Day
February 19

An angry mob in San Francisco’s business district ”tries” two Australian suspects in the robbery and assault of C. J. Jansen. When the makeshift jury deadlocked, the suspects were returned to law enforcement officials. 

Jansen was working at his store at the corner of Montgomery and Washington when two men beat him unconscious and stole $2,000. Another merchant, William Coleman, then decided to play prosecutor and assembled judges and jury members from a crowd that had assembled at Portsmouth Square. Fortunately for the Australian suspects, the men who defended them got three jury members to agree that Jansen hadn’t been able to see the men who had robbed him clearly. Although some members of the mob wanted to hang the alleged thieves in spite of the verdict, the crowd dispersed.Later, however, local authorities convicted the men at a real trial in court.

Vigilantes were fairly common during the Gold Rush boom in San Francisco. One committee spent most of its time rooting out Australian ne’er-do-wells. They hanged four and tossed another 30 out of town. In 1856, a 6,000-member vigilante group was assembled after a couple of high-profile shooting incidents. This lynch mob hanged the suspects and then directed their attention to politics.

Such vigilante movements were generally popular all over the West in the middle and late 19th century. The San Francisco vigilantes were so well regarded that they took over the Democratic Party in the late 1850s and some became respected politicians.

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