Joice Heth: The Unlikely Arbiter of National History

Abstract: Historically and currently, Black women have contended with the issue of predominantly white, male audiences not seeing value in their speech. This suppression of Black women’s voices was intensified to the point of erasure in P. T. Barnum’s display of Joice Heth, the elderly Black woman he passed off as George Washington’s nursemaid in his American Museum. Though there are no surviving firsthand accounts, the ways Heth asserts her humanity remain noteworthy. This article considers how, even in Barnum’s attempt to mythologize Joice Heth, her immense capacity to transform space allows her to acquire agency and ultimately empower herself.