Who Is Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

Harriet Jacobs wanted to tell her story, but knew she lacked the skills to write the story herself. She had learned to read while young and enslaved, but, at the time of her escape to the North in 1842, she was not a proficient writer. She worked at it, though, in part by writing letters that were published by the New York Tribune, and with the help of her friend, Amy Post. Her writing skills improved, and by 1858, she had finished the manuscript of her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. L. Maria Child, a prominent white abolitionist, agreed to edit Jacob's book, although she apparently did little to alter the text except to rearrange some sections, suggest the removal of one chapter, and add material to another. In a letter
In recounting her life experiences before she was freed, Jacobs offered her contemporary readers a startlingly realistic portrayal of her sexual history while a slave. Although several male authors of slave narratives had referred to the victimization of enslaved African American women by white men, none had addressed the subject as directly as Jacobs finally chose to. She not only documented the sexual abuse she suffered, but also explained how she had devised a way to use her sexuality as a means of avoiding exploitation by her master. Risking her reputation in the disclosure of such intimate details, Jacobs appealed to a northern female readership that might sympathize with the plight of a southern mother in bondage. Indeed, throughout her narrative, Jacobs focuses on the importance of family and motherhood. She details the strain of being separated from her grandmother and two children during her seven years in hiding, and afterwards in New York and Boston, when she lacked the means to free her daughter. As her biographer Jean Fagan Yellin has noted, Jacobs's slave narrative is similar to other narratives in its story of struggle, survival, and ultimately freedom. Yet she also reworks the male-centered slave narrative genre to accommodate issues of motherhood and sexuality. By confronting directly the cruel realities that plagued
Until she was twelve she had a kind mistress, but upon her death she was bequeathed to the young Norcom daughter. At the Norcom home, Jacobs was subjected to sexual advances from Dr. Norcom (named Dr. Flint in her autobiography) who wanted to make her his concubine. In an attempt to thwart his plans, Jacobs became pregnant by a white unmarried lawyer.
It was after she had two children by the lawyer, that Jacobs began to see the necessity of sparing her children from a life of slavery. Out of desperation, she escaped and lived in the small storage space. Remarkably, after Dr. Norcom's unsuccessful capture of Jacobs, he unknowingly sold her children to their father. Unfortunately, their father did not fulfill his promise to give the children their freedom and it would be several years until Jacobs and her children would be free. It would not come until after she escaped to the north where the woman who employed her bought her freedom.
After Jacobs obtained her freedom in 1863, she moved to Alexandria, Virginia where she organized a medical care facility for the victims of the Civil War and established the Jacobs Free School. The school provided black teachers to refugees. In 1865, the school moved to Savannah, Georgia. In 1877, it permanently settled in Washington,