The Nursing Work of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman

Both Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman are known for their courageous struggles against slavery, their humanitarian work, and their support of suffrage. They are not known as much as they should be, however, for their role as nurses. (Editor’s note: this is the third in a series about important Black nurses of the past that we are publishing during Nurses Month 2023. Previous posts are here and here.)

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

Isabella Baumfree was born into slavery in 1797 in New York State and grew up speaking Dutch. While still enslaved, she provided nursing care to the Dumont family. These nursing skills were used after she escaped slavery in 1826 with her infant daughter. In 1828, she became the first Black woman to sue a white man in a U.S. court and win, thereby recovering her son who had been sold into slavery in Alabama. In 1843, Baumfree’s religion convinced her that it was her mission to travel and testify. She changed her name to Sojourner Truth and throughout the rest of her long and complex life was to fight for the rights of African Americans and women.

During the Civil War, the U.S. War Department appointed Truth to Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, DC, the first hospital that offered medical care to freed Black slaves. There she used her nursing skills to tend to wounded Black Civil War soldiers. Knowing the risk, she also cared for people with dangerous infectious diseases such as smallpox.

An effective public speaker, Truth addressed the U.S. Congress to urge the financing of training programs for nurses and for more sanitary conditions at the Freedman’s Hospital. In 1850, while literacy was still illegal for Blacks in the United States, she dictated a memoir to Olive Gilbert that was published as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Northern Slave: Emancipated From Bodily Servitude by the State of New York, in 1828.

Harriet Tubman (c. 1820-1939)

Well-known for her work in the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman is not known as much for her work as a nurse. Born into slavery as Araminta Ross in 1820, Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849 by fleeing to Philadelphia. When the Civil War broke out, Tubman went to union-occupied Port Royal, South Carolina. She served as a nurse, cook, scout, and spy for the 1st South Carolina Volunteers Regiment. She also worked at Freedmen’s Hospital for a time. A highly skilled herbalist, Tubman is credited with extracting substances from roots and herbs to treat soldiers for battle wounds and infectious diseases such as smallpox and dysentery. In 1865, Tubman was appointed matron of the Colored Hospital at Fortress Monroe, Virginia.

After the war, she founded the Tubman Home for Aged and Indigent Negroes. The home was rebuilt as a museum and can be visited at the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, New York, where it has been designated a national historic landmark. Despite a 30-year battle to receive a military pension for her service, it was never awarded in her lifetime. In 2003, congress authorized payment for Tubman’s service and $11,750 was donated to help preserve the Harriet Tubman Home.

When she died in 1913, she was buried with military honors. The U.S. Maritime Commission named its first Liberty Ship the SS Harriet Tubman. The ship was launched by Eleanor Roosevelt on June 3, 1944.

Both of these remarkable women deserve recognition as nurses.

Edie Brous, JD, MPH, MS, RN, is a lawyer and nurse in New York City and Pennsylvania.