Harriet Ann Jacobs’s Followers (679)

Harriet Ann Jacobs

Born

in Edenton, NC, The United States

January 01, 1813

Died

March 07, 1897

Genre

Biographies & Memoirs, History

edit data

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 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 ...more

Combine Editions
Harriet Ann Jacobs’s books

Average rating: 4.18 · 67,150 ratings · 4,146 reviews · 107 distinct works • Similar authors

	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 4.17 avg rating — 57,940 ratings — published 1861 — 505 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl & Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Two Memoirs of Notable African-Americans During the Nineteenth Century by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Frederick Douglass 4.44 avg rating — 45 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Marrow of Tradition and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: - The Best Black Authors Of All Time by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Charles W. Chesnutt 4.67 avg rating — 12 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Silent No More by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Viveca Batiste (Cover) 4.50 avg rating — 10 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harriet Jacobs: Critical Perspectives Past and Present by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Kwame Anthony Appiah (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor) 4.20 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 1994 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL. Written by Herself (Annotated): This is a Narrative of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs. A Book About Slavery, Her Life as a Slave Girl, From Slavery to Freedom. 4.44 avg rating — 9 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	White Fragility: Race, Racism and the Future of Black Lives Matter in America by Harriet Ann Jacobs, W.E.B. Du Bois, Solomon Northup 4.63 avg rating — 8 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Early African American Classics (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass 4.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2008	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: An Autobiographical Account of an Escaped Slave and Abolitionist 4.67 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl VOL 2: Super Large Print Edition Specially Designed for Low Vision Readers with a Giant Easy to Read Font really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Harriet Ann Jacobs…

Quotes by Harriet Ann Jacobs (?)

“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.”
― Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

61 likes

“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”
― Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

tags: freedom, kindness, love, slavery

39 likes

“God judges men by their hearts, not by the color of their skins.”
― Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself

32 likes

See all Harriet Ann Jacobs's quotes »

Polls

May 2017 Old School Classic Poll

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, 1826, 410 pages

61 votes, 18.5%

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, 1842, 512 pages

59 votes, 17.9%

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, 1320, 798 pages

49 votes, 14.8%

Silas Marner by George Eliot, 1861, 248 pages

37 votes, 11.2%

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas, 1850, 246 pages

31 votes, 9.4%

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, 1862, 490 pages

26 votes, 7.9%

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, 1861, 176 pages

21 votes, 6.4%

King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard, 1885, 264 pages

16 votes, 4.8%

Germinal by Émile Zola, 1885, 592 pages

16 votes, 4.8%

Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac, 1834, 370 pages

12 votes, 3.6%

The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner, 1883, 304 pages

2 votes, 0.6%

330 total votes

19 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Literary Fiction ...: The Root Rewrites the Western Canon	13	490	Nov 22, 2009 01:19PM
Reading with Style: SP11 Reading w/Style Completed Tasks	931	317	May 31, 2011 09:15PM
The Seasonal Read...: Winter Challenge 2011: Completed Tasks -DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC	2866	790	Feb 29, 2012 09:03PM
Study Buddies: * Master List for Nominations	5	139	May 29, 2012 03:26AM
Book Nook Cafe: What I read July 2012	39	88	Aug 15, 2012 02:06PM
Readers and Reading: * July 2012 reads	6	22	Aug 16, 2012 08:21AM
Book Nook Cafe: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl ~ July 2012	64	120	Aug 16, 2012 09:30AM
Around the World ...: North Carolina	8	165	Nov 29, 2012 11:33AM
The Seasonal Read...: Fall Challenge 2012: Completed Tasks - DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC	2291	757	Dec 28, 2012 03:29PM
Classics Without ...: * Pre 1910 suggestions	117	502	Jan 31, 2013 02:21PM

More…