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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 · rating details · 11,820 ratings · 870 reviews

Published in 1861, Harriet Jacobs's "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" was one of the first of the personal slave narratives. At the time this book was first published Harriet Jacobs was living as an escaped slave in the North, a precarious position given the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Originally published under the pseudonym Linda Brent, "Incidents in the Life of a...more

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Published January 1st 2011 by Neeland Media LLC (first published November 30th 1860)

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Feb 24, 2011 Flannery marked it as to-read-and-have · review of another edition

Shelves: scb-tbr-challenge

Okay, the cutest old man was one of our bazillion proctors at the bar exam and I joked with him in the elevator about how if I were him, I'd be freaking psyched for the day because it would mean 8 hours of reading. He told me all about how he was reading this interesting book. He came over later and asked me for my address so he could mail it to me when he finished it:-) But when I turned in my last set of questions for the day, he said he finished it for me and forked it over. What a sweetheart...more

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May 09, 2012 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Letters of a Slave Girl by Mary Lyons was recommended to me, and maybe that one is easier to read than this book. That is a novel based on the life of Harriet Jacobs, and this book was actually written by her. She was a slave in the town I grew up in. It's been hard for me to finish it because it is really hard to let my mind be taken into a society like that. Her owner was a prominent member of the community, the doctor. I keep thinking, "I'm so glad I have never heard that the town doctor was...more

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Apr 21, 2012 Amanda Bratschie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this book in the free classics section of Amazon the other night when I couldn't sleep. I couldn't put it down - finished the whole thing within 30 hours. Slavery is such a heartbreaking thing - this book really helped me understand how devastating it was and why it had such a lasting impact on our society. Highly recommend.

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Jan 14, 2008 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Mothers

Recommended to Sarah by: Valerie Van Horn

Well, it's a detailed book of the de-womanizing cruelties of slavery, which is always an interesting and educational read, but never easy or uplifting read. One thing I liked about this book compared to other slavery experience books I've read is the heart-wrenching description of the "slave mother's" soul, heartache, trials, worries, etc. The huge reason, though, I only gave this book 2 stars was because of my innate skepticism and the debated controversary always surrounding this book--many sa...more

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Jan 01, 2012 Barbara Mitchell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a free book available for Kindle and as there are so few memoirs of slaves written by themselves, I couldn't resist. You most likely know it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write and those who did learn usually kept that fact secret. This slave, however, as a house slave had access to reading materials and read especially newspapers and the Bible all her life to give pertinent news to other slaves.

Her name was Linda. She was owned by the very young daughter of a doctor, but...more

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Feb 03, 2010 Adrianna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Teenagers and Adults

Recommended to Adrianna by: Mrs. Joan Barrows

Shelves: autobiography, slavery, classic, in-eureka, america

I had read this narrative before, at least three different times, but the repeat reading only brings more of the details to the reader's attention. Since the previous readings were so long ago, I didn't remember too many of the details of the narrative. It was like I was reading Jacobs' story for the first time. Harriet Ann Jacobs is very deliberate in her language and the way she acts as supplicator and judge. The complexity of the language is often overshadowed by the "flowery" writing of the...more

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Dec 14, 2007 Athena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone who wants to learn about slavery from the "house negro" POV

Shelves: african-diaspora, memoir

Next time you hear somebody going on about how the "mulatto" or "house negro" class in slave days were "privileged" and "got over" on the "field negroes," tell them to read this book. Sure, the "mulatto" or "light-skinned" slaves got to work in the house or were sometimes allowed to work away from the plantation in a trade and sometimes got to keep their own money. If they were really lucky, they might be taught to read on the sly.
However, these "privileges" were likely to be taken away at any m...more

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May 08, 2013 Gerald rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was absolutely AMAZING! I have been recommending this book to all of my friends and family. 'Incidents in the life of a slave girl' makes my heart ache for the suffering my ancestors had to endure for generations. This book should have been an epic movie by now. There are those who are skeptics because of the book's fluidity. But, if those who have read the book, had taken the time to read the Editor's notes, they would've read that Mother Jacobs had help with the finished product. Als...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Amber Bird rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I feel like kind of a bad person for only giving this two stars - I mean, books about slavery and the holocaust should automatically rate three or higher, right? But honestly "it was okay" - which is the definition of the two star rating - was pretty much exactly how I felt about this. Let me just get this out of the way - the description of her enslavement and the trials she faced are obviously heartbreaking and she deserves some serious credit for writing her story out like this in 1861; but i...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Nerine Dorman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a freebie I downloaded off Amazon out of idle curiosity and also as part of my research for my own writing. While I certainly don’t condone the institution of slavery, I nonetheless find the social dynamics attached to it fascinating. In this title, Harriet Jacobs tells her own tale of hardship and escape, and her remarkable resilience – though to be quite honest I do wonder why she hid in the garret for so many years and why she didn’t make a break for the north sooner.

All things consi...more

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Feb 01, 2013 Janet Gardner rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction

I’ve been meaning to read this one for decades, and I’m glad I did. Jacobs was never subjected to beatings or heavy field work, but as a pretty, light-skinned mulatto slave, she faced a different sort of abuse. To protect her, as she hoped, from the lechery of her owner, she took another white lover and bore him two children. For a time, she was certain her lover would buy and free her (or, at least do so for the children), but it never happened, and eventually she determined the only way to be...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Tom Marcinko rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can’t believe this story is not more widely known. Hiding out in a garrett for seven years, practically under her master’s nose (he think she’s gone to NYC or Boston)…it’s practically an American Anne Frank story.

Some quotes:

Dr. Flint called to tell my grandmother that he was unwilling to wound her feelings by putting her up at auction, and that he would prefer to dispose of her at a private sale.

…a maiden lady, seventy years old, the sister of my grandmother’s deceased mistress…gave the old...more

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Oct 17, 2012 Sarai rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction-historical, general-nonfiction, historical

I listened to this book on CD. The reader was pretty good at distinguishing between the different people presented, and overall it was a fascinating look back at slavery, freedom, the north versus south, daily life, morality, and so many other things. Very good read.

Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Published in 1861, this was one of the first personal narratives by a slave and one of the few written by a woman. Jacobs (1813-97) was a slave in North Carolina and suffered terribly, along with...more I listened to this book on CD. The reader was pretty good at distinguishing between the different people presented, and overall it was a fascinating look back at slavery, freedom, the north versus south, daily life, morality, and so many other things. Very good read.

Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Published in 1861, this was one of the first personal narratives by a slave and one of the few written by a woman. Jacobs (1813-97) was a slave in North Carolina and suffered terribly, along with her family, at the hands of a ruthless owner. She made several failed attempts to escape before successfully making her way North, though it took years of hiding and slow progress. Eventually, she was reunited with her children. For all biography and history collections.

About the Author
Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897) was an American writer, who escaped from slavery and became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Jacobs' single work, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861 under the pseudonym "Linda Brent", was one of the first autobiographical narratives about the struggle for freedom by female slaves and an account of the sexual harassment and abuse they endured. 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. Christian women could perceive how slavery was a temptation to masculine lusts and vice as well as to womanly virtues. Jacobs 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 with, "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 was devoted to the Jacobs's struggle to free her two children after she escaped. Before that, Harriet spent seven years hiding in a tiny space built into her grandmother's barn to 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. The villainous slave owner "Dr. Flint" was based on Jacobs's former master, Dr. James Norcom. Despite the publisher's documents of authenticity, some critics attacked the narrative as based on false accounts. There was a reaction against the more horrific details of slave narratives, and some readers believed they could not be true. (less)

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Oct 17, 2012 Larita rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book in college and was enthralled in this girl's life. I remember the professor in my school demanding me to give this book back. I got my own from a bookstore on Chicago's south side, let a friend read it and it took her years to get it back to me. I won't let it leave my shelf now. The slave girl "Linda"wrote about her life's journey detailing when she was a young girl up to an adult. Her writing showed how quickly her childhood ended and she was plunged into the realities of bein...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Jay rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, history

I actually stumbled onto this book earlier this year and instantly, after completion, placed its literary importance equivalent to the writings of Frederick Douglas. While there is slave literature that references the sexual misconduct of slave owners toward their young, female slaves, no other slave narrative explores the depths of this depravity from the mind of the victim. The sexual advances of the slave master, Dr. Flint, are worth mentioning here. Brenda Jacobs, in the related account, man...more I actually stumbled onto this book earlier this year and instantly, after completion, placed its literary importance equivalent to the writings of Frederick Douglas. While there is slave literature that references the sexual misconduct of slave owners toward their young, female slaves, no other slave narrative explores the depths of this depravity from the mind of the victim. The sexual advances of the slave master, Dr. Flint, are worth mentioning here. Brenda Jacobs, in the related account, manages, through much emotional and physical anguish, to avoid the lustful intensions of Dr. Flint, but is punished in multiple ways for the rejection.

While many slave masters recorded in literature during this heinous period of American history would physically force themselves of their female property, Dr. Flint was forced to maneuver in more discreet ways due to his wife, Mrs. Flint, who knew her husband and other slave owner’s sexual tendencies. This is obvious in ‘The Jealous Mistress’ when Mrs. Flint, who “possessed the key to her husband’s character before I was born”, interrogates Brenda: “If you have deceived me, beware! Now take this stool, sit down, look me directly in the face, and tell me all that has passed between your master and you.”.

“Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves.”

Some other noteworthy points in the writing of Harriet Jacobs are:

1) Brenda Jacobs sorrowful guilt of watching her young children playing without knowledge that they were enslaved. Throughout the account, Brenda Jacobs struggles with the guilt of the horrors of slavery that would eventually be imposed on her children, who had no understanding (yet) of the world in which they were born.

2) While in hiding in a small compartment above the small slave hut of her ‘grandmother’, Brenda Jacobs was very weary of being discovered by certain slave servants on the plantation. This is remarkable when considering the human element because evidently some slaves would report other slaves to the master with expectations of special recognition or meager reward. Under a collective bondage, one would certainly expect strong unity and strong loyalty among the enslaved. In the slave narratives I have read, strong unity and loyalty among slaves are often identified in the writings, but there is almost always a description of an untrustworthy slave whose loyalty is first and foremost to the ‘master’.

3) Upon Brenda Jacobs finally escaping to the Northern ‘free’ states and procuring employment near her children’s location, the Fugitive Slave Acts became law which allowed Southern slave owners to hire slave hunters, usually the lowest educated and from the lowest economic caste of Southern whites, to hunt for runaway slaves in the North.

I would strongly suggest that if you are interested in history, especially this portion
of American history, that you order the full book and read it.
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Jun 11, 2012 Gayle Gordon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, non-fiction

I read this book years ago for a class and just decided to reread it on the Kindle. I found it to be interesting, but a bit confusing in parts. Some of what she says seems to contradict other things. I might need to reread it once more while noting the parts that confused me.
Anyway, what I did like about the book was the relationship she had with her family, especially her children, in spite of slavery constantly keeping them on the run. Parts of it brought me to tears, such as when she decided...more

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May 19, 2012 Amruth Kumar Juturu rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First autobiography which I was not bored. As soon as I saw this in the free kindle ebooks listing in Amazon.... I decided that i would read it... and I am glad I did.

From my own life experiences, I feel that cruelty of an act is not in the action committed but in the indifference and intention of the mind that committed it. If any society can ever achieve the claims of justice it makes through its judiciary system, it can only achieve it by punishing people for their indifference and intention...more First autobiography which I was not bored. As soon as I saw this in the free kindle ebooks listing in Amazon.... I decided that i would read it... and I am glad I did.

From my own life experiences, I feel that cruelty of an act is not in the action committed but in the indifference and intention of the mind that committed it. If any society can ever achieve the claims of justice it makes through its judiciary system, it can only achieve it by punishing people for their indifference and intention than evaluating the crime basing on the action. Of course achieving this kind of justice in a society is as practical as achieving Nirvana as described in Hindu philosophy...

Here is a novel, in its attempt to depict the atrocities of slave culture, also exposes the general truth about any society no matter how advanced or barbarian they were.... that all the crimes of a generation were committed with in the restrictions of the law.... while we enumerate and discuss about individual actions of cruelty, all of this was made possible by the indifferent and intentional selfish actions of the people who made the laws... I mean how much of common sense does it take to understand that it is wrong to discriminate based on color... but an entire generation committed these crimes in the confidence of their assured impunity.... not because they didn't think it was wrong... but their selfish intentions avoided them from respecting humanity... not because they lacked the knowledge but they were blinded with apathy....

And the worse part is that the next generation always wonders how all these atrocities were committed while it is just common sense for them to evaluate that particular kind of discrimination was wrong.... all the while each generation continues to disregard humanity in one form or the other...... just not in the same way the previous generation did.... consequently (as can be inferred from this novel) every society declares itself a free and civilized community..... where as it takes years of suffering and protests from the victims to point out the inequality exercised in a community....

In the past there were discriminations based on color/caste etc and the relatively new generations witnessed discrimination based on sex/region etc and the tradition of discrimination will continue.... not because humanity lacked the knowledge to understand their discrimination at any point of time.... but because humanity continues to harbor the feelings of apathy and selfishness...

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May 11, 2012 Doris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Because there is controversy over the authorship of this book, I have to give it less than 5 stars for its possible historical errors. It reads well - perhaps a little too well for a woman raised as a slave and kept as a prisoner for many years.

I picked the book up at a National Park, and read it expecting more brutality than was evidenced, although some of the details were shocking, especially the way the poor woman had to hide from her own children. Linda Brent, the slave, was a beautiful wom...more Because there is controversy over the authorship of this book, I have to give it less than 5 stars for its possible historical errors. It reads well - perhaps a little too well for a woman raised as a slave and kept as a prisoner for many years.

I picked the book up at a National Park, and read it expecting more brutality than was evidenced, although some of the details were shocking, especially the way the poor woman had to hide from her own children. Linda Brent, the slave, was a beautiful woman-child who had been promised freedom, a promise often broken by slaveowners, and broken again in her case due to the lust of the male who held her captive. Unfortunately as I was reading it I was watching television, and comparing the promises made in the all-too-real story to the promises by in the fictional police show, and seeing how in both instances the promises made by authority were broken.

Unlike some other slaves of that era, such as those in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Brent was not badly beaten, but she was degraded, and gives historical factoids such as reference to the Underground Railroad. The story of the constant rape was fact, but I was surprised by one thing - the willingness of the slaveholders to admit the slave children were fathered by them, even as they sold them off as slaves.

I felt much sympathy for this woman, and others like her, and was both fascinated and horrified by the damage done to her body by her forced self-exile in a tiny attic. Her mental torment was real, and the damage to her physce by the cruelty of her owner was also terrible. I can only say thank God that we in the US no longer have slaves, and please let us not ever hurt each other again like that.

I appreciate the fact that Ms Brent emphasized that slaves who told visitors they were happy and did not want to be free did so under pain of death or torture of themselves or a loved one, and would have been far happier living with the animals if they could have somehow gotten away. A very powerful story.
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May 10, 2012 Steven rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: home-inventory

The story of Linda Brent's trials and terrors in the South surpasses any other I've read, even Douglass' narratives. And to some degree, this may have to do with it being the story of woman's captivity. She may not have suffered the whip like Douglass, but as a woman on whom the family depended and as a mother on whom her children depended, Brent never suffered alone. Every thought and action she had and took affected others. The mental torment she endured was met in kind by the rapes she kept q...more

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Mar 16, 2012 Jennifer M. Hartsock rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. When Jacobs' lover is forbidden from buying her, she realizes that she's stuck in a world of bondage. She does “not dare to tell her [grandmother] the worst” for it “would prove the overflow all of [her] hopes … [and she] could not bare to run to risk of having it suddenly dissipated.”

Though disheartened and easing her sorrow with ignorance, Jacobs can't help but dedicate herself to love, and to a life where she's rightfully a citizen. She decides against having children with her love, because t...more

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Mar 16, 2012 Thom Swennes rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Remarkably abhorrent! I have recently read quite a few accounts of American slave life and the Civil War era and I must say this is one of the best. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs is a remarkable work about a positive detestable system. The daily horror of life with no rights, prospects or safety positively drips from every page. The horror of seeing your family torn away and being unable to prevent it seems to be the most dreaded fate. Oddly enough most of the true stor...more

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Mar 07, 2012 Michelle added it · review of another edition

Michelle Kwait
Multicultural

Summary:

An auto-biographical account under the pseudonym "Linda", Jacobs writes of her life as a slave in 19th century America. Escaping the hands of her abusive master, Dr. Flint, Linda hides in plain sight for seven years, in an attempt to help free her children (sold to their father, who frees them). The Flints search for Linda and her children, seeking to recapture them under the premise that the contract is invalid, on the grounds that Linda belongs to their daugh...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Brian rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is presented as a true account of the life of a slave in 19th century America.Written by the young slave girl herself who learned to write later in life, it cannot be expected she develop style. It is hard to believe not in its awfulness but in the coincidental meetings, lucky escapes and more particularly an account of prolonged hideout in a small town. Its very monotony and sameness is the unintended painful thread running through her life. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was a best s...more

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Sep 22, 2011 Nicole rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those interested in a woman's accounts of slavery, and what she suffered.

Recommended to Nicole by: American Literature of the 19th Century (Class)

Shelves: education

For the most part, stories like this are not ones that I read willingly. I am not someone who follows after those persecuted and who have gone through many hardships that are based on reality because, like everyone else, I have enough hardships and things in my own life that I have to deal with. I read usually to get away from reality, and to expand the creativity and horizons of my imaginative mind. Nevertheless, I will give credit where credit is due, and although I did not love this story--fo...more For the most part, stories like this are not ones that I read willingly. I am not someone who follows after those persecuted and who have gone through many hardships that are based on reality because, like everyone else, I have enough hardships and things in my own life that I have to deal with. I read usually to get away from reality, and to expand the creativity and horizons of my imaginative mind. Nevertheless, I will give credit where credit is due, and although I did not love this story--for how could anyone love a tale of such great wrongs and horrors?--I respect it and truly was able to find my way through it without having the usual obscenities and injustices of slavery shoved down my throat.

I speak harshly, and many people would resent me for that. I don't deny that many people still are vulgar enough not to take matters like this seriously, and there is no way that I wouldn't take the cruelties of this to heart and advocate every right of every person ever enslaved in this country to shout their experiences and rights, and rub them in the faces of those who would ignore them. My own personal feelings are biased because of my education, where too often I had tales like this shoved daily down my throat in every literature class when all I wanted to do was to read something that would cater to my child-like imagination. I almost never received it.

Harriet Jacobs account of her own life experiences are a blessing to people like us, who never had to experience what she went through, and yet could face every single ounce of the horrors and injuries that she bore as she strove for her freedom, for her children's freedom, and for the safety of those around her who helped where help was least expected. It is an account that gives insight, that rumbles onwards with defiant and knowledgeable experience, and shows us all the things that a woman must go through when she is faced with the circumstance of slavery. And while fiendish, while cruel, while vile and disgusting--everything that Jacobs gave us was an account that awoke in us the ability to acknowledge what she went through, without being turned away by the grotesque descriptions of things already too well known. At least, in my part, too often thrown in my face.

I appreciated Jacobs for that, for writing something that for once did not try to force its way into my head and fill my mind with things that contaminated it more than educated it. Should the truth be concealed from us? Absolutely not! Can the truth be harsh? Of course it can. But thank the blessed Lord that someone had the decency to tell us her story without blatantly describing the--*Shudders*--the WORDS that planted slimy, obscene thoughts in a young girl's skull, or the way she was TOUCHED... *Turns away her face in disgust and horror* PLEASE. Do I understand that that's what some women went through in slavery and that it was horrible? YES. I DO. But God help me! All the absolutely base things that were written and described that I NEVER wanted to have to entertain! A child is smart enough to know when and what horrors lurk in words even when those acts of vileness are not described and only hinted at. Jacobs either could not bear to recount those things to us out of her own unwillingness to relive them in such graphic detail, or she was kind enough to spare us the horror of what she went through in order to give us the greater message: that she STROVE for her freedom, because she knew it was a God-given right to her and her children, and by keeping faith, by doing her very best and being an honorable, determined, persevering woman, she achieved something that should have been hers from the very beginning. It is a success story unlike so many others, and one well worth listening to.

For that discretion alone, and her magnificent character, I would give the book the highest rating, but I cannot lie and say it was amazing when I felt nothing of that feeling evoked in me throughout its pages. Yet, in comparison to the other books I have read on the subject, this one far outdoes the others. Some would say blasphemy! That I'm a coward and a poltroon, who cannot handle the truth. I tell them if they want to eat up all those disgusting details of others' sufferings, then go right ahead! I honor and respect the woman with enough discretion to CARE about what she reveals, and who still finds a way to leave us with the unblemished truths to think about while saving us from the tortures of her own experiences. It doesn't undermine them. Not one bit. It only heightens my respect and admiration for her, and though this has been written so long, long ago, I wish I could go up to her and shake her hand, with tears in my eyes. Because for this woman, no words are enough to express the joy I feel for her, and what she finally was able to receive in this life.

It's a good book. Is it fantastic? Like I said, something like this cannot be fantastic, as far as I'm concerned. It was, however, something I felt was worth the reading. On that note, if you would enjoy something written upon the subject matters it touches--slavery, oppressed women, and the like--then it's recommended. Pick it up. It's good for a read.(less)

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Dec 19, 2010 Svitlana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This by far is my favorite slave narrative! Some of the major themes portrayed include self-assertion, family bond, unity, dependence, resistance, equality, and identity. What I have learned from this book is to never give up, because regardless of the circumstances if you continue to fight there will always be hope, since you, yourself are the last hope and it is up to you to make it last. Linda is a symbol of a strong female who never gives up; always keeps moving forward to accomplish her dre...more

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Sep 23, 2010 Sophia Lee rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was a truly eye opening book. Harriet Jacobs, former slave, voices the story of her life through fictional character and narrator Linda Brent because Jacobs knew she would not be allowed to share her story with others. In the book, she discusses the story of her enslavement beginning as a child, and the corruption and sexual exploitation she experienced during her life, and her struggle to save her children and become a free woman.

In the book, Jacobs tells...more Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was a truly eye opening book. Harriet Jacobs, former slave, voices the story of her life through fictional character and narrator Linda Brent because Jacobs knew she would not be allowed to share her story with others. In the book, she discusses the story of her enslavement beginning as a child, and the corruption and sexual exploitation she experienced during her life, and her struggle to save her children and become a free woman.

In the book, Jacobs tells the story of her life that begins with her being aware she was a slave until the age of 6. For me, I could not imagine living my whole life up until I was six years old thinking I was a free child, only to have my world come crashing around me being told that I was simply the property of someone else. When her first mistress passed away she was given to her mistresses’ daughter who again took very good care of her, until her teenage years she lived a very good life for a slave. Again, her mistress died and she was taken to work for a new man. Her new owner sent her to work on a plantation away from her children and all her family. The true pain Jacobs experienced in her life is evident when she describes being taken away from her children, one of the only things she truly cares about. Eventually she escaped from the plantation and hid in her grandmother’s attic for seven years with her children until she was eventually able to be free. At this point, she began to write her book about her experiences as a slave in order to share them out with the world.

In Jacobs’s lifetime she experienced many things that as a reader I could never imagine being put through. Realizing and accepting the truth in the story let me as the reader view the book from a whole new perspective. From the deaths of her mother and father, to the auctioning of her children it is clear from the reading what a truly strong woman Harriet Jacobs was. The fact that she wrote and published a book full of things that were not considered socially acceptable at this time shows what a courageous woman she was. I enjoyed reading this book and felt that it was a wonderful book to read to not only grasp the understanding of what an autobiography is and how strong someone’s story can be but as being able to learn about a whole different era of the world I come from.
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Sep 06, 2010 Rosanne Lortz rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As my book club presses on with autobiographies in a chronological fashion, we’ve made our way to the American Civil War. The first of two slave narratives that we are reading is Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs. Next month we’ll be reading The Life of Frederick Douglass. I won’t recount all the details of Harriet Jacob’s story, but instead, simply tell the two things that impressed me the most about it.

First, I never cease to be astounded by the religious hypocrisy displ...more As my book club presses on with autobiographies in a chronological fashion, we’ve made our way to the American Civil War. The first of two slave narratives that we are reading is Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs. Next month we’ll be reading The Life of Frederick Douglass. I won’t recount all the details of Harriet Jacob’s story, but instead, simply tell the two things that impressed me the most about it.

First, I never cease to be astounded by the religious hypocrisy displayed by Christians in the South prior to the Civil War. Slave owners, nearly all of them pious church goers, treated their slaves with abominable cruelty. They beat them, starved them, forced sexual advances upon them, and twisted the Bible to teach them their duty to their masters. Even the best slave owners, the kind ones commended by Harriet Jacobs in her story, refused to manumit their slaves until their own deaths. Some would argue many the events in the Southern slave narratives are gross exaggerations, but even if we discount the majority of these tales, the remainder are sufficient to damn the Southern slave owners twenty times over. In the Civil War, the Southerners may have had the moral high ground where states’ rights are concerned, but the leprous infection of slavery was certainly reason enough for their house to be judged and torn down.

Second, the fortitude which Harriet Jacobs displayed throughout the story was amazing. It seemed beyond the limits of human endurance. After escaping from her master, Harriet hid in a tiny attic above her grandmother’s house for seven years! The space was barely large enough for her to roll over and her limbs began to atrophy painfully. Exposed to the heat of the summer sun and the cold of the winter wind, she was also forced to listen silently while her children walked beneath her, giving no indication of her presence or her love for them. Even after she escaped to the North, Harriet was forced into hiding several times and became a continued victim of fear and discrimination.

Harriet Jacobs’ story is an important part of American history and a primary source well worth reading.(less)

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May 13, 2010 Nick D rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My eighth grade history teacher, who fancied himself an iconoclast conservative in a sea of conformist liberals, once said in class that slaveowners treated slaves well because they needed to protect their property, like a Cadillac. He did not ask what the single African-American in that advance class thought. I recently heard someone take the same faux inconoclastic position. If there is justice, I hope both men are sentenced to read this book for eternity. What Jacobs proves is that slaveowner...more

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Jun 20, 2009 Anna Parkinson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Having read Frederick Douglass's autobiography, I am convinced that the way a story is told depends truly on the story teller. As Douglass tells of his experience of slavery from the male's perspective, Jacobs presents to her readers an opportunity to see what slavery was like for women and children. As a woman, Jacobs's cry is not only for freedom from the bondage of slavery, but for freedom to obtain what is known as "The Cult of True Womanhood," an ideology that elevated middle-class, white w...more

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Jun 15, 2009 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: multicultural-literature

What I learned from this book was to never give up! Harriet Jacobs, a slave a plantation thinks it's time to run away when her "owner" starts to take a sexual interest in her. She hides in the attic of her gradma's cottage for about 7 years(a space about 6ft. x 3ft., also she had to lay down in order to fit!) before she finds an opportunity to escape. She literally watched her kids grow up through the cracks of the attic. I just don't know if I have it in me.

I said that I would like to give the...more

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About Harriet Jacobs

Harriet Ann Jacobs, usually wrote under the name Harriet Jacobs but also used the pseudonym Linda Brent.

Harriet 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...more Harriet Ann Jacobs, usually wrote under the name Harriet Jacobs but also used the pseudonym Linda Brent.

Harriet 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 her 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. She 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, she 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. She 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; her 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, she decided to escape. She reasoned that with her gone, Norcom would deem her children a nuisance and would sell them. First she found shelter at neighbors’ homes before returning to her grandmother’s house. For nearly seven years, she 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 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.

Aided by the Vigilant Committee, Harriet escaped by boat to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She started living as a free woman and later moved to New York City in 1842. She found employment there as a nursemaid. Her most notable employer was the abolitionist Nathaniel Parker Willis. She reunited briefly with her daughter in Brooklyn. When she learned that Norcom planned to come to New York searching for her, she retreated to Boston, where her brother was staying. She made arrangements for her son in Edenton to be sent to Boston, and she soon returned to New York.

Reward noticed issued for the return of Harriet JacobsIn October 1844, she revealed to Mary Willis, wife of Nathaniel, that she was an escaped slave. To avoid further endangerment, she and her daughter were granted escape to Boston again, where Harriet briefly worked as a seamstress. The following spring, Mary Willis died, and Harriet returned to Nathaniel Willis to care for his daughter.

By 1849, Harriet had taken residence in Rochester, New York, where much abolitionist work took place. She befriended Amy Post, who suggested she write about her life as a slave. The next year she fled to Massachusetts yet again, after Norcom’s daughter, Mary, and Mary’s husband, Daniel Messmore, attempted to reclaim Harriet and her children, on the basis that Mary had inherited Harriet, and (less)

More about Harriet Jacobs...

Books by Harriet Jacobs

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave & Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Harriet Jacobs: Critical Perspectives Past and Present

Written by Herself: Autobiographies of American Women: An Anthology

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“Reader, did you ever hate? I hope not. I never did but once; and I trust I never shall again. Somebody has called it "the atmosphere of hell"; and I believe it is so.” — 13 people liked it

“There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment” — 5 people liked it

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