Harriet Jacobs
Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813 - March 7, 1897) was an American abolitionist and writer. In 1861, she published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl under the pseudonym Linda Brent.
Life
A Southern slave
Jacobs was born in Edenton, North Carolina to Daniel Jacobs and Delilah. Her father was a mulatto carpenter and slave owned by Dr. Andrew Knox. Her mother was a mulatto slave owned by John Horniblow, a tavern owner. Harriet inherited the status of both her parents as a slave by birth. She was raised by Delilah until the latter died around 1819. She then was raised by her mother's mistress, Margaret Horniblow, who taught Jacobs how to sew, read, and write.
In 1823, Margaret Horniblow died, and Harriet was willed to Horniblow's niece, Mary Matilda Norcom, whose father, Dr. James Norcom, became her new master. Harriet and her brother John went to live with the Norcoms in Edenton. Norcom subjected her to sexual harassment for nearly a decade. He refused to allow her to marry any other man, regardless of status, and pressured her to become his concubine and to live in a small house built for her just outside the town. Attempting to deflect Norcom’s advances, Harriet became involved with a consensual lover, Samuel Sawyer, a free white man and a lawyer who eventually became a Senator. She and Sawyer were parents to two children, Joseph and Louisa Matilda (named Benny and Ellen in the book), also owned by Norcom. Harriet reported that Norcom threatened to sell her children if she refused his sexual advances. Harriet then moved to her grandmother’s house, and was allowed to stay there because Norcom’s jealous wife would no longer allow her to live in the Norcom house.
By 1835, her domestic situation had become unbearable; Harriet’s lack of cooperation prompted Norcom to send her to work on a plantation in Auburn. Upon finding out that Norcom planned to send her children into labor as well, Harriet decided to escape. She reasoned that with her gone, Norcom would deem her children a nuisance and would see them. First she found shelter at neighbors’ homes before returning to her grandmother’s house. For nearly seven years, Harriet lived in a small crawlspace in her grandmother's attic, through periods of extreme heat and cold, and she spent the time practicing her reading and writing.
After Norcom sold Harriet’s brother John and her two children to a slave trader, Sawyer purchased them and brought them to live with Harriet’s grandmother. Sawyer was elected to Congress in 1837, and took John Jacobs with him during travels in the North. John eventually escaped in 1838. Harriet’s daughter Louisa was summoned to take John’s place, before she was sent to live with Sawyer’s cousins in New York City.
Her autobiographical accounts started being published in serial form in the New York Tribune, owned and edited by Horace Greeley. However 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. Harriet later found difficulty in selling her completed manuscript.
She eventually managed to sign an agreement with the Thayer and Eldridge publishing house. The publishers hired Lydia Child to edit the story and brought her in contact with Harriet. The two women would remain in contact for much of their remaining lives. However Thayer and Eldridge declared bankruptcy before the narrative could be published. The narrative in its final form was published by a Boston, Massachusetts publisher in 1861.
The author appealed mainly to Middle class white Christian women in the North, through her descriptions of slavery destroying the virtue of women through harassment and rape.
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, Linda 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 to be based on false accounts. The villainous slave owner "Dr. Flint" was clearly based on her former master, Dr. James Norcom.
Jacobs found employment as a nurse during the American Civil War. Her 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. Jacobs lived the latter years of her life in Washington, D.C..
Notes
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
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
External links
- Harriet Ann Jacobs: Writer and Activist. Retrieved October 14, 2007.
- Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897). Retrieved October 14, 2007.
- Works by Harriet Jacobs. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 14, 2007.
- Essays by Harriet Jacobs at Quotidiana.org. Retrieved October 14, 2007.
Warning: Default sort key "Jacobs, Harriet Ann" overrides earlier default sort key "Jacobs, Harriet".
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