Harriet Jacobs – Author of “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”
By
John C Abercrombie
Harriet Jacobs was an author who gave us an inside look into the life of a slave girl in her book, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Gir written by herself” with the name of Linda Brent as the author. This amazing story has been questioned since it was illegal to teach Blacks to read or write. However, after intense investigation by several inquirers including the State of North Carolina and verification of the facts, it has been concluded that she did indeed write the book.
After being encouraged to write the book in 1854, she completed it for publication in 1859, however it was self-published but only after Lydia Maria Child, an abolitionist, women’s rights activist, Native American rights activist encouraged her to do so.
Lydia Child often shocked readers writing about male dominance and White supremacy. Best known for her poem “Over the River and Through the Wood”, wrote the preface to Harriet’s book. The book has been reprinted and Harriet Jacobs recognized as the author.
Jacobs is an example of why there were laws that prevented Blacks from being taught to read, write and learn mathematics.
- If Blacks could read, they would learn of their rich heritage in Africa. Despite the predominate beliefs, the history of the continent is rich with accomplishments. The early Greeks acknowledged that they received their education in Africa. Pythagoras studied in Africa and the theorem named for him was in use when he went there. There are still 1,000’s of manuscripts awaiting translation to this day. There is evidence of advanced medical procedures being performed. The post on Onesimus show that they were vaccinating people before it was done here in America. To see, click here. History presents Egypt as if it is not on the continent of Africa and the list of accomplishments goes on and on.
- As we can see by reading the book “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs, the ability to read and write can allow people to express the horrors of slavery in detail and in a manner that is recognized around the world. As we have seen books being written by and about Blacks, this is devastating to those intent on making money on the backs of Blacks. During the days of slavery, over 50% of all wealth in America was generated by those in bondage. Even those without slaves made money often by providing services such as ship building, making clothes and other products. Many leading insurance companies made a fortune selling insurance on slaves. Some of the companies that succeeded from the profits of slavery include
- Nautilus Insurance predecessor of New York Life sold slaveholder policies
- Tiffany and Company financed with profits from a Connecticut cotton mill that operated on cotton picked by slaves.
- Aetna insured slaves and reimbursed owners when their slaves died.
- Brooks Brothers started their company selling slave clothes.
- Mobile and Girard and the Central of Georgia became Norfolk Southern
And the list goes on …
- Without knowledge that was available in the field of mathematics, it was easy for greedy landowners to take advantage of illiterate slaves. This is the way to keep sharecroppers in eternal debt. As you can see from the Harriet Jacobs book and others that one of the tenants of slavery was that these people were incapable of learning and therefore inferior. Thus, it was necessary to maintain ignorance and illiteracy to benefit from this false notion of racial inferiority. Then when schools were provided, they were underfunded and of poor quality.
Harriet Ann Jacobs was born in Edenton, NC in 1813. Both of her parents were slaves; however, they were owned by different families. Her father Elijah was a skilled carpenter and allowed to keep some of his wages. Her mother was Delilah Horniblow, enslaved by the Horniblow family. Harriet and her brother John lived with their parents in a comfortable home because of his skills as a carpenter.
Harriet’s status was governed by a legal doctrine “Partus sequitur ventrem”, which literally means follows the womb and dictates that the status of a child follows that of the mother and is independent of the status of the father. Under this doctrine, slaveowners could father children and they would be slaves like the mother, not free like the father.
A curious turn of events, Harriet should have been free because her grandmother Milly Horniblow, Delilah’s mother had been freed by her White father, but Delilah had been kidnapped and there had been no chance of being covered because of her dark skin. So even the law was on her side, her complexion trumped the law.
Harriet’s father Elijah Know was also a slave but had privileges due to his skills as a carpenter. He died in 1826. This is when as Harriet says, she found out that she was like a piece of property, chattel. She and her brother were lucky as they went to live with their grandmother.
When she was 6, her mother died and she was sent to her mother’s owner and mistress, Margaret Horniblow who welcomed her and even taught her to read and write although it was against the law. When Margaret Horniblow died in 1825. Harriet had hoped she would be emancipated but has been bequeathed to Margaret Horniblow’s niece, Mary Matilda, the daughter of Dr James Norcom. This is when her problems started.
Dr Norcom made sexual advances on Harriet causing his wife to become vindictive and jealous of Harriet, although she wanted nothing to do with Dr Norcom.
To quote Harriet Jacobs, “The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition,”. “My master was, to my knowledge, the father of 11 slaves. But did the mothers dare to tell who was the father of their children? Did the other slaves dare to allude to it, except in whispers among themselves? No indeed? They knew too well the terrible consequences.”
Desperate to get away from Norcom, she was forbidden to marry a free Black carpenter who had been courting her. To get away from Norcom’s advances, she came up with a plan and became pregnant with Samuel Tredwell Sawyer, an unmarried White lawyer who would go on to become a United States Congressman. She had 2 children with Sawyer, a son Joseph and a daughter Louisa Matilda.
As she was still owned by Norcom she plotted her escape believing that because then her children would remain with her grandmother and avoid the brutalities of slavery. She ran away staying with friends until she moved with her grandmother, but due to laws if she were discovered she would be returned. Her grandfather was a skilled carpenter and had constructed a hiding place in the attic. It was 9’ by 7’ and 3’ at the highest point. It was hot in the summer and cold in winter. Her joy came from a small hole in the wall from which he could see her children as they played in the yard.
With the help of a trusted friend, Harriet boarded a vessel in Edenton bound for Philadelphia in 1842. She reunited with her daughter and brother. Her son joined the family a year later. Because of the slave laws that allowed escaped people and people suspected of being runaways there was always fear of being rei even in New York and Boston.
Harriet received her freedom in 1852 when Mrs. Cornelia Willis arranged for her purchase with the intent of freeing her.
Harriet was able to express her feelings “My heart was exceedingly full. I remembered how my poor father had tried to buy me, when I was a small child and how he had ben disappointed. I hope his spirit was rejoicing over me now. I remembered how my good old grandmother had laid up her earnings to purchase me in later years and how often her plans had been frustrated.”
Jacobs had been able to communicate with power her innermost feelings and put them on paper so they could be shared with others. As you read this post, it is hoped that you will be moved to read her words in her book, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”. There is a link in the books and videos which follow.
With the ability to show her inner abilities, intellect and ability to write clearly and powerfully is the reason laws had to be written to save the vulnerable which in this case was the White race.
Imagine how difficult it would have been to maintain the institution of slavery if they could only share their inner most thoughts and feelings with those who found it so comfortable to take advantage of them believing that they were indeed inferior. It is greed that allowed men to take advantage of their fellow man, split families that were deeply loyal, willing to do anything to help others feel the joy of being FREE!
On the subject of pain from the entirety of her experience, Harriet said “it is painful for me, in many ways to recall the dreary years I passed in bondage. I would gladly forget them if I could.”
Harriet and her brother worked in Rochester, New York in the Anti-Slavery Office and Reading Room. They had the opportunity of working with greats in the field including Frederick Douglass, Amy Post among others.
It was Amy who encouraged Harriet to write her memoirs in 1853. She continued her efforts to encourage her when she failed to find a publisher for the book. When it was published, there was a British edition “The Deeper Wrong” published the following year.
Harriet Jacobs was so dedicated to her cause that in the 1860’s she did relief work such as nursing Black troops, teaching. She was assisted by her daughter Louisa Matilda aiding freedmen in Washington, DC and Savannah, Georgia and even in Edenton, NC.
Jacobs and her daughter also worked organizing meetings for the National Association of Colored Women.
After years of tireless work, Harriet Jacobs passed March 7, 1897, in Washington, DC and was buried next to her brother in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.
The purpose of the post above is to spur your interest in the subject, and we hope you will join us below as we explore in more detail this wonderful woman and hope you will go even deeper.
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Harriet Jacobs Slavery and the Making of America
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
One of the most memorable slave narratives, Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl illustrates the overarching evil and pervasive depravity of the institution of slavery. In great and painful detail, Jacobs describes her life as a Southern slave, the exploitation that haunted her daily life, her abuse by her master, the involvement she sought with another white man in order to escape her master, and her determination to win freedom for herself and her children. From her seven years of hiding in a garret that was three feet high, to her harrowing escape north to a reunion with her children and freedom, Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl remains an outstanding example of one woman’s extraordinary courage in the face of almost unbeatable odds, as well as one of the most significant testimonials in American history.
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Harriet Jacobs and Dr. Jean Fagan Yellin
Dr. Yellin, author of a biography of Harriet Jacobs, discusses in this exclusive interview how she found the real historic person behind the author of the only slave narrative told from a feminine point of view.
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Before Freedom When I Just Can Remember:
Personal Accounts of Slavery in South Carolina During the 1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project undertook the task of locating former slaves and recording their oral histories. The more than ten thousand pages of interviews with over two thousand former slaves were filed in the Library of Congress, where they were known to scholars and historians but few others. From this storehouse of information, Belinda Hurmence has chosen twenty-seven narratives from the twelve hundred typewritten pages of interviews with 284 former South Carolina slaves. The result is a moving, eloquent, and often surprising firsthand account of the last years of slavery and first years of freedom. The former slaves describe the clothes they wore, the food they ate, the houses they lived in, the work they did, and the treatment they received. They give their impressions of Yankee soldiers, the Klan, their masters, and their newfound freedom. Belinda Hurmence was born in Oklahoma, raised in Texas, and educated at the University of Texas and Columbia University. She has written several novels for young people, including Tough Tiffany (an ALA Notable Book), A Girl Called Boy (winner of the Parents’ Choice Award), and The Nightwalker. She has also edited My Folks Don’t Want Me to Talk About Slavery and We Lived in a Little Cabin in the Yard, companion volumes to this book. She now lives in Raleigh, NC.
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Harriet Jacobs
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The Slaves’ War:
The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves In The Slaves’ War, the acclaimed historian Andrew Ward delivers an unprecedented vision of the nation’s bloodiest conflict. Woven together from hundreds of interviews, diaries, letters, and memoirs, here is a groundbreaking and poignant narrative of the Civil War as seen from not only battlefields, capitals, and camps, but from slave quarters, kitchens, roadsides, and fields as well. Speaking in a quintessentially American language, body servants, army cooks, runaways, and gravediggers bring the war to life. From slaves’ theories about the causes of the Civil War to their frank assessments of such major figures as Lincoln, Davis, Lee, and Grant; from their searing memories of the carnage of battle to their often startling attitudes toward masters and liberators alike; and from their initial jubilation at the Yankee invasion of the South to the crushing disappointment of freedom’s promise unfulfilled, The Slaves’ War is a transformative and engrossing chronicle of America’s Second Revolution.
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Harriet Ann Jacobs
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Voices from Slavery:
100 Authentic Slave Narratives (African American) In the late 1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration embarked upon a project to interview 100 former American slaves. The result of that unique undertaking is this collection of authentic firsthand accounts documenting the lives of men and women once held in bondage in the antebellum South.
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Harriet Ann Jacobs:
The Story of a Slave Girl
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Who knew that Oregon was admitted to the United States as a White state with Black exclusion laws that were not repealed until 1924? ** Harriet Jacobs is an example of why laws were passed making it illegal to teach a Black person, slave or free from learning to read and write. She was able to articulate a side of slavery that previously had not been exposed. She was able to demonstrate that the pen was indeed more powerful than the sword. Harriet Jacobs should be a role model to ALL people that given the opportunity that they can excel. Don’t let someone else’s stereotypical garbage affect what you are capable of doing!