Sojourner Truth

One of Queen’s College’s founding trustees Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh owned the parents of Sojourner Truth. Truth who was born shortly before the death of Hardenbergh was later owned by his son Charles. In her autobiography Truth describes the living conditions her family and other slaves were subjected to in the Hardenbergh hotel basement where they “slept on mud and board floor with minimal straw and blankets”. When Charles died Truth’s father Bomefree became a burden to the Hardenbergh heirs because of his old age and blindness. Instead of caring for the elderly slave the Hardenbergh family freed his wife Mau-Mau Bett to care for her husband. Unfortunately Mau-Mau passed away and it is believed that Bomefree died alone in a cabin from either cold or starvation.

Reading Between the Landscapes

Scarlet and Black is a project undertaken by the Committee on Enslaved and Disenfranchised Populations in Rutgers History in 2015 to highlight and discuss the University's dark past with the Native American and African American community. Why is it important for Rutgers and other universities to publicly acknowledge their past with oppressed communities? What does telling these stories do for the New Brunswick community and future of the university?

White, Deborah G., and Marisa J. Fuentes. Scarlet and black. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016.