Dr. Michelle Chresfield
speaker
151 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard May 2025
Dr. Michelle Chresfield’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be back. The gang is back together.
That is correct. So the woman that we will come to know as Sojourner was actually born Isabella Bonfrey. And while there is no exact date for her birth, we know that she was born around 1797 in Ulster County, New York, which is a rural area about two hours north of New York City.
Isabella was the youngest of 10 or 12 children born to the enslaved couple James and Elizabeth, and she was nicknamed Belle. And the young Belle was enslaved on a northern farm. Unlike the southern plantations that pervade historical lore, northern slavery was much more small-scale. Most people owned one or two enslaved people who laboured on small-scale farming or domestic work.
Elizabeth and James live on their own in a cottage where they farm a small tract of land that was rented from the Hardenbergs. And in exchange from that land, they would have owed them labor, but also credits towards whatever it cost to cultivate that tract of land. We could conjecture that possibly at some point in time that the parents could have been able to purchase that land outright.
But those dreams are really dashed when he dies and his son takes over. And the son is really trying to make money. And that involves selling the young Isabella away at the age of nine.
Right. That's correct. So she sold for $100 alongside a flock of sheep. And the Neelys are an English speaking family. And Isabella only spoke Dutch. And so she had a hard time, as you might imagine. And so she can't comprehend the instructions given to her.
Right. But her father, so he travels a distance and actually implores the Neelys to sell Isabella. Oh. And so she sold again in 1809 to a tavern keeper in called Martinus Shriver.
She's sold to John and Sally Dumont. And she would spend the longest time of her enslavement with the Dumonts, about 17 years in total. So she arrives around the age of 12, roughly, and she's there until about the age of 30.
So she is actually forced to marry another enslaved man owned by the Dumont family called Thomas. We don't know a lot about Thomas, but they have a general affection for one another and they have five children together. Diana, Peter, Elizabeth, Sophia and a fifth unknown child.
Yes, that's absolutely right. Desiree Birchley remained my best student. Yeah.
She's a credentialed woman. But to get back to your point, you know, Isabella gets her freedom, but it's not an easy feat. In 1799, New York State passes the Gradual Emancipation Act. And according to the act, children born to enslaved women after July 4th, 1799 are born free but are required to serve a period of indentured servitude, ending at 28 for men and 25 for women.
In 1811, the state of New York announces that enslaved people born before 1799 will be free on July 4th, 1827. But it retained the provision of the 1799 Act for children born after 1799. Essentially, Isabella is poised to be free, but not her five children. Isabella tries to bargain for her own emancipation in 1826, an early emancipation, which Dumont grants.
However, when that date arrives, Dumont went back on his word. And so she sets a time, she works into the autumn of 1826, and then she decides that now is the time.
Yes. So she takes her infant daughter, Sophia, and she would later say, I did not run away because I thought that wicked. I walked away because I thought that was all right. And it's, I'm sure, a hard decision. She leaves her children and her husband behind with Dumont in order to make this break and to self-emancipate.
Yes, so her five-year-old son is sold. So Isabella is very concerned about her son. She gets lawyers and she sues. Not only does she sue Getney, so her son is sold to a man called Solomon Getney, for participating in the illegal sale of her son because New York state law prevents the sale of a person who would be free in a place where they cannot ever be free, right?
So by going to Alabama, he's never going to be emancipated. And she sues Albany Supreme Court for allowing the sale to happen. So she sues the man in the state. And she is victorious. So in 1828, the judge rules, quote, And she becomes victorious. and bringing the suit, the first black woman to win a legal victory against a white man to secure a family member's freedom.
So this is hugely, hugely historic.
The Latourettes are as religious as they are wealthy, we could say. And they're followers of a religion that would come to be known as perfectionism. And perfectionism is mostly...
That's why I never get anything done. Right. And so Isabella begins to preach with this club as well. She becomes a housekeeper for Elijah Pearson, who is a successful businessman who would become a leading religious reformer.
And Pearson would claim to be a prophet, and he believed that he could cure illness and prevent death, so much so that when his wife, Sarah, died, likely the result of the extreme fasting that the community had been engaged in, he attempted to pray her back to life, right? So Isabella, yes, is enmeshed in a society of deep religious devotion.
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