Harriet Ann Jacobs

Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813 - March 7, 1897) was an American abolitionist and writer. She is best-known as the writer of the 1861 book "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", published under the pseudonym Linda Brent. She was one of many escaped slaves who wrote autobiographical narratives in an effort to shape opinion in the Northern United States on the "peculiar institution" of slavery.

Biography

Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina in 1813 [Yellin, 3] to Daniel Jacobs and Delilah. Her brother's name was John. Daniel Jacobs was a mulatto slave owned by Dr. Andrew Knox. Delilah (last name unknown) was a mulatto slave owned by John Horniblow, a tavern owner. Born to a slave, Harriet inherited the status of "slave" from her mother. Harriet lived with her mother until Delilah's death around 1819, when Harriet was a child of six. Then she lived with her mother's slave-owner and mistress, Margaret Horniblow. Margaret taught Harriet to read, write, and sew.

In 1825, Margaret Horniblow died and willed the twelve-year-old Harriet to Horniblow's five-year-old niece, whose father, Dr. James Norcom, thus became her de facto master. Norcom sexually harassed Harriet for nearly a decade. He refused to allow her to marry any other man, regardless of status. Harriet had a consensual lover, Samuel Sawyer, who was a free white man and a lawyer who eventually became a Senator. She and Sawyer were parents to two children, Joseph and Louisa, also owned by Norcom. Harriet reported that Norcom threatened to sell her children if she refused his sexual advances.

By 1835 her domestic situation had become unbearable, and Harriet managed to escape. She lived for seven years in a small crawlspace in her grandmother's attic before escaping by boat to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She started living as a free woman and later moved to New York City in 1842. Jacobs found employment as a nursemaid before and during the American Civil War. Her most notable employer was the writer and publisher Nathaniel Parker Willis.

"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl"

Jacobs began composing "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" while living and working at Idlewild, Willis's home on the Hudson River. [Yellin, 126] Jacobs's autobiographical accounts started being published in serial form in the "New York Tribune", owned and edited by Horace Greeley. Her reports of sexual abuse were considered too shocking to the average newspaper reader of the day, and publication ceased before the completion of the narrative.

Boston publishing house Phillips and Samson agreed to print the work in book-form — if Jacobs could convince Willis or Harriet Beecher Stowe to provide a preface. She refused to ask Willis for help and Stowe turned her down, though the Phillips and Samson company closed shop anyway.Yellin, 140] She eventually managed to sign an agreement with the Thayer and Eldridge publishing house and they requested a preface by Lydia Maria Child. Child also edited the book and the company introduced her to Jacobs. The two women would remain in contact for much of their remaining lives. Thayer and Eldridge, however, declared bankruptcy before the narrative could be published. The narrative in its final form was published by a Boston, Massachusetts publisher in 1861.

The narrative was designed to appeal to Middle class white Christian women in the North, focusing on the impact of slavery on women's chastity and sexual virtues. Under slavery, female slaves were virtually defenseless against harassment and rape -- a risk Christian women could perceive as a temptation to masculine lusts and vice as well as to womanly virtues.

She criticized the religion of the Southern United States as being un-Christian and as emphasizing the value of money ("If I am going to hell, bury my money with me", says a particularly brutal and uneducated slaveholder). She described another slaveholder in the sentence, "He boasted the name and standing of a Christian, though Satan never had a truer follower." Jacobs argued that these men were not exceptions to the general rule.

Much of "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" is devoted to the Jacobs' struggle to free her two children after she runs away herself. In one heart-rending scene, Harriet spends seven years hiding in a tiny space built into her grandmother's barn in order to occasionally see and hear the voices of her children. Jacobs changed the names of all characters in the novel, including her own, to conceal their true identities. Despite documents of authenticity, many have accused the narrative of being based on false accounts. The villainous slave owner "Dr. Flint" was clearly based on her former master, Dr. James Norcom.

Jacobs's correspondence with Child reveals her enthusiasm over the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862. She felt that her suffering people were finally free. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution of 1865 would indeed put an end to slavery.

Later life

Jacobs lived the later years of her life in Washington, D.C.. She died March 7, 1897. Six days later, she was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts; her headstone reads: "Patient in tribulation, fervent in spirit serving the Lord". [Yellin, 260–261]

Notes

References

*Shockley, Ann Allen. "Afro-American Women Writers 1746-1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide", New Haven, Connecticut: Meridian Books, 1989. ISBN 0-452-00981-2
*Yellin, Jean Fagan. "Harriet Jacobs: A Life". Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basic Civitas Books, 2004. ISBN 0465092888

External links

* [http://college.hmco.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/jacobs.html Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897)]
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* [http://essays.quotidiana.org/jacobs/ Essays by Harriet Jacobs at Quotidiana.org]