Escapes slavery
Truth escapes with her infant daughter, Sophia, leaving behind her other children because a New York emancipation order did not permit their freedom until they had served as bound servants into their twenties.
I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right.
A family lets Truth move in with them and settles her remaining one year service account with her master, Dumont, for $20.
Sold
Truth’s master, Hardenbergh, dies and her family are separated. Neely, whom Truth remembered as harsh and violent, buysTruth at an auction with a flock of sheep for $100.
By then my father, Bomefree, who had been tall and straight in his youth, had grown old and sickly. No one wanted to buy him. Although my mother could have been sold, they decided to free her so that she could care for my father. The people who bought the hotel allowed my parents to continue to live in the cellar…As the enslaved became old and infirm, they became less useful to their owners, and too expensive to be kept and cared for. They were often, therefore, set free and left to care for themselves. This was especially heartless when their children had also been sold away and were not around to help look after them.