The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography

by John Swanson Jacobs, Jonathan D. S. Schroeder (editor)

Lost on the other side of the world since 1855, the story of John Swanson Jacobs finally returns to America.

 

For one hundred and sixty-eight years, a first-person slave narrative written by John Swanson Jacobs—brother of Harriet Jacobs—was buried in a pile of newspapers in Australia. Jacobs’s long-lost narrative, The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots, is a startling and revolutionary discovery. A document like this—written by an ex-slave and ex-American, in language charged with all that can be said about America outside America, untampered with and unedited by white abolitionists—has never been seen before. A radical abolitionist, sailor, and miner, John Jacobs has a life story that is as global as it is American. Born into slavery, by 1855, he had fled both the South and the United States altogether, becoming a stateless citizen of the world and its waters. That year, he published his life story in an Australian newspaper, far from American power and its threats. Unsentimental and unapologetic, Jacobs radically denounced slavery and the state, calling out politicians and slaveowners by their names, critiquing America’s founding documents, and indicting all citizens who maintained the racist and intolerable status quo.

 

Reproduced in full, this narrative—which entwines with that of his sister and with the life of their friend Frederick Douglass—here opens new horizons for how we understand slavery, race, and migration, and all that they entailed in nineteenth-century America and the world at large. The second half of the book contains a full-length, nine-generation biography of Jacobs and his family by literary historian Jonathan Schroeder. This new guide to the world of John Jacobs will transform our sense of it—and of the forces and prejudices built into the American project. To truly reckon with the lives of John Jacobs is to see with new clarity that in 1776, America embarked on two experiments at one in democracy, the other in tyranny.

 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Race, Memoir, Biography Memoir, Social Justice

327 pages, Paperback

First published May 21, 2024

Reviews

[William Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

This long-lost biography of a slave--first published in Australia in 1855--is direct evidence of the horrors of slavery. There can be no arguments about whether the author correctly interprets source material (as is common in this space). The whole book IS source material.

So the value to the field is huge. Here are some quotes:

On slavery:

"My father taught me to hate slavery; but forgot to teach me how to conceal my hatred."

On slaveholders:

"I am willing to acknowledge kindness even in a slaveholder wherever I have seen it."

On slave laws:

"There are the laws of the United States, forbidding the nation to do a single act of humanity toward the most helpless and most needy known to man,"

On politicians:

"Henry Clay… At least, he has said as much against slavery and done as little for liberty as any man."

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is when Jacobs takes aim at America's constitution, which contained several vile provisions after it was initially drafted.

The first and most notorious was the Three-Fifths Clause. This provision awarded states an additional three-fifths of a person for every slave when counting the population to determine Congressional representation: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons [i.e., slaves].”

Slave-holding states thus received a great reward for their terrible sin: an outsized influence in Congress. And because the Constitution’s Electoral College appoints states’ electors based on Congressional representation, slave-holding states also got a leg up with presidential elections. The Three-Fifths Clause may even have handed Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson (a major slaveholder himself) the presidency in 1800.

Indeed, the Three-Fifths Clause didn’t just protect slavery; it dramatically incentivized the practice: the more slaves southern states acquired, the more government power they amassed.

The Three-Fifths clause wasn’t the only provision emblazing slavery into America’s founding document. The founders also included the Slave-Trade Clause.

This Constitutional requirement was chilling: no prohibition could be placed on the fundamental right of Americans to import slaves into the country for twenty years: “The Migration or Importation of such Persons [i.e., slaves] as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”

Unlike many other topics important to the nascent country, the slave trade was so critical to the founders that they enshrined it in the Constitution. In the eighty years that followed, the importation of slaves cast a dark and bloody shadow over the emerging nation.

That this book has come out now--two centuries after the peak horror of American slavery--is both an enriching gift to interested readers and a searing reminder of the past to us all.

[Joshua Glasgow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned of THE UNITED STATES GOVERNED BY SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND DESPOTS through a friend on Goodreads who read and rated the book. At the time of this writing, it only has 78 ratings on Goodreads and 12 reviews. The title is very provocative and the Goodreads summary claims that it is the lost memoir of a former American slave who, writing for an Australian newspaper in 1855, was able to get outside the heavy-handed editing of a white American publisher and thereby speak forthrightly about his experiences. The summary asserts that John Swanson Jacobs, a contemporary of Fredrick Douglass, is “[u]nsentimental and unapologetic” and uses “language charged with all that can be said about America”. In an extended biography included in this book after Jacobs’ writing concludes, editor Jonathan D.S. Schroeder further refers to Jacobs’ writing as a “fire-breathing oratory”.

My impression, heading into the book, was that this would be a no-holds-barred, rage-filled takedown of 19th century America, its practices and laws. Yet my initial feeling on reading ‘DESPOTS’ was that it was more restrained than I’d anticipated. Schroeder actually addresses this in his supplemental writing, arguing that Jacobs did not wish to make a spectacle out of Black suffering, to draw pity from the reader or to titillate them with torture porn; that is, he posits this relative restraint as a strength. Another Goodreads friend, hearing my mixed response to the book, suggested that DESPOTS was maybe more “fire-breathing” in the context of the time of its publication and its audience. Nevertheless, I felt justified in being a little less enthused by DESPOTS because last year I read NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDRICK DOUGLASS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE, and thought it was extraordinary. Douglass, as I mentioned, was a contemporary—in fact not just a contemporary, but a colleague—of Jacobs. I therefore don’t think the “it was a different time” argument fully answers my concerns.

With this all said, when I finished reading the whole of the book, meaning after both Jacobs’ writing and the lengthy biographical information written by Schroeder which is 3 or 4 times longer than the meat of the book, I went back and re-read the portion written by Jacobs to see if there was something I missed which I would get more out of on a second read. And actually, a second, more deliberate read did help his writing open up for me. I did see more of the righteous anger coming through and found more passages worth saving or quoting. And in fact, on re-read, I realized how many passages I had already saved for use in this review despite my earlier feeling of it failing to live up to the expectations I’d built for it in my head. I still can see why I had reservations on the first read, but I do have more appreciation for it and I’m glad to have re-read it to gain that appreciation.

The title page, after that provocative title, states three theses Jacobs intends to support:
1. That Brutality is inseparable from Slavery.
2. That the Constitution of the United States of America is the Bulwark of American Slavery.
3. That the only hope of abolition of Slavery is in separation from the Union.

It is easy as a modern reader—and especially as a white reader—to forget the humanity of those who were held under American slavery. What I mean is that when one hears stories of American slavery, it can seem like a history lesson rather than a story about actual people. I think this is partly why Jacobs’ writing didn’t move me as much at first; while he describes some incidents of especial depravity, most of his writing relates to the more routine aspects of American slavery, and we are inured to that to some degree. We acknowledge it as bad but also don’t really make the effort of putting ourselves in the shoes of the man or woman held in slavery, not really. On my second reading, one thing that comes through clearly for me is Jacobs’ repeated reference to the way American slavery severs family ties as one of its most inhumane acts. He writes that, for a slave in America, “His wife is not his— his children are not his; they can be taken from him, and sold at any minute, as far as the fleshmonger may see fit to carry them . . . A slave’s wife or daughter may be insulted before his eyes with impunity; he himself may be called on to torture them, and dare not refuse. To raise his hand in their defence, is death by the law. He must bear all things and resist nothing.”

Later in the book, Jacobs speaks about his aunt and uncle-in-law Stephen who were not allowed to see each other because they were “owned” by different white men. “They had lived together for twenty years, and I had never heard them quarrel; and now they are to be separated, not for anything they had done, but for the acts of another. But such are the laws and customs of the country; and as hard as it is, yes we must bear it; there is no help for us.” Jacobs’ uncle-in-law had never before attempted to escape slavery because “what was next to his liberty to him was that in slavery his wife was with him.” However, when they were separated, Stephen lost the will to live because “[h]is wife to him was dead —ay, worse than dead; he could see her living spirit, but dare not approach it.” He also describes a man named George who ran away from slavery to return to his wife. White slave-hunters killed him and cut off his head, making a spectacle of the corpse afterward. “Now, the question is, what had this man done that he should be so inhumanly butchered and beheaded? The crime that he had committed, and the only crime, was to leave the unnatural trader in slaves and the souls of men, to return to his natural and affectionate wife. Nothing is done to the murderers.”

It's easy to recognize American slavery as a usurpation of one’s life without quite understanding how all-encompassing that abridgment is, but this does a good job of recentering the victims as human beings. The murder of George is an affront, of course, but it’s the fact that he was murdered solely for trying to be with his wife that makes it truly sadistic. Jacobs’ writing on this point does in fact seem rather fiery. He writes: “You can extort submission to the gratification of your lust from our wives —you can take our daughters, and sell them for the basest use that can be made of woman. Yet you declare it to be a self-evident truth that all men are created by their Creator free and equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights —life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Where are the coloured man’s rights today in America? They once had rights allowed them. Yes, in the days that tried men’s souls, they had a right to bleed and die for the country; but their deeds are forgotten, their swords and bayonets have been beaten into chains and fetters to bind the limbs of their children.”

Incidentally, on the subject of children, Schroeder quotes poet Caroline Randall Williams, saying that skin color speaks volumes and stands as a “monument” to the rules and practices of the south, which condoned white masters’ rape of Black women, who were in turn “condemned to watch the same thing happen to their children”. The rape culture of the 19th century—America’s rape economy, really—naturally sometimes resulted in childbirth. Jacobs discusses a South Carolina Congressman who spoke vehemently against the emancipation of slaves in part on the basis that it could either lead to “an exterminating war” (for the "blood that had just been spilt by their fathers about some tea, a little paper, and such-like things, which the more they were contrasted with the wrongs of the slave, the more insignificant they grew") or the mixing of the races, which he found equally repellent. Jacobs scoffs at the Congressman’s alarm about race-mixing given that already “the blood of American statesmen, from the President downwards, has been sold in the slave markets of the south.” That fact, perhaps more than their involvement in slavery as a general matter, makes American slaveholders utterly contemptible, for “[a] man that will sell his own offspring, which thousands of them have done, has shown himself unnatural enough to do anything.”

The other portion of the book which does effectively strike a chord of rage is when Jacobs turns to the Constitution and federal government as a whole. This begins with a narrative of his arrival in Washington, D.C., where “[a]t the head of Pennsylvania Avenue, a little on the hill, is seen the capital of the United States — the place where they make laws for a nation of freemen. Down the Avenue a little, and on the left-hand side, is the slave-pen where they fat Americans for the market.” Many present-day Americans are aware of the “3/5 Clause” in Article 1 which said that slaves—er, I’m sorry, “other persons”—were to be counted, for purposes of Congressional representation, as 3/5 of a person each, thereby giving their captors an outsized voice in federal government and also creating an inducement to increase the number of “other persons” so held. Jacobs doesn’t really address this, though, focusing instead on the Slave Trade clause of Article I, Section 9: “The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year One thousand eight hundred and eight.” This gave Southern states 20 years to enslave as many people as it could, and from the Constitution’s ratification to the date of Jacobs’ writing the number of Americans held as “property” increased nearly six-fold.

It’s traditionally argued that northern States, which by are large were opposed to slavery, compromised with Southern states to ensure their entry into the Union by overlooking their traffic in abominable horrors. Jacobs argues that “slavery struggled for its existence” at the framing of the Constitution, “and had not the friends of liberty compromised principle for power it would before this have been numbered among the things that were”. But instead, six hundred thousand legalized robbers rule the country and the “the laws of the south are paramount over those of the Untied States”.

This leads into a second law Jacobs rightly abhors: the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which conscripted even citizens of “free” States in the north into the service of slavery, requiring them to capture and return those who escaped from their captors. That northern “free” states permitted this law’s passage and acted in service of it shows to Jacobs how fully rotten American government was. “With a Constitution and Union like this, what hope of freedom is there left for the slave? When shown your oppressive laws, you point us to the Congress of the United States, as if something could be done there. What has Congress ever done for freedom?” I expected to find in this book parallels to present-day politics, and this is a great example of the philosophy of mainstream Democratic politicians over at least the past 50 years: pursuing “bipartisanship” blindly at the expense of American welfare, assuring the victims that slow-walking progress is the only viable possibility all while “legalized robbers” ransack the country. Jacobs’ disdain for the northern whites who act pursuant to the Fugitive Slave Act is plain, describing them as voluntarily offering themselves to the south: “Oh you willing and obedient slaves, how long will you be traitors to liberty and rebels against God? For shame, arise, and shake off your chains. It is you that stand between the southern slave and his liberty. It is you that have held him there for 68 years.”

I’ve also hinted at another aspect of these federal laws and Constitutional provisions which Jacobs calls attention to explicitly: “It is very evident that those men who framed the Constitution of the United States felt that they were doing deeds disgraceful and unjust. They hid it as much as possible from the eyes of the world by giving the word ‘slave’ a pleasanter name. It is ��person’ or ‘persons’ throughout the Constitution.” Though the Constitution took pains to preserve slavery unchecked, the word “slave” is nowhere to be found in the text—a testament to the Framers’ spectacular gutlessness. For a modern-day parallel, this calls to mind Republican apologists’ bad-faith arguments that certain words—for instance, abortion, the right to privacy, separation of church and state—are not in the Constitution and therefore not given legal protection. Much as the omission of the word slave from the Constitution at its inception was a smokescreen to hide the Framers’ evil doings, Republican arguments that foundational Constitutional principles have been “invented” because they are not explicitly written into the text of the document is a smokescreen to obscure modern-day Republicans’ evil intent, as they remain to this day the enemies of liberty.

Writing this review now, quoting so heavily from the book, it’s a wonder I ever found Jacobs’ writing restrained. There are times, though, when he chooses not to go into details and only offers summary. I still do believe this wasn’t as viscerally affecting as was Douglass’ book, but I suppose I can appreciate his instinct not to offer himself up as a sideshow. As I referenced above, the book version of DESPOTS also includes a lot of biographical writing by its editor. That section was generally less interesting to me than Jacobs’ actual writing, but I do respect the fact that Schroeder was able to create a biography for a man who, as a former slave, was not necessarily primed to be “preserved” for history. Although, that said, I think another reason I failed to fully connect with DESPOTS on first read is the over-abundance of footnotes. I read them all for fear of missing something relevant, but I think they had the effect of interrupting/breaking up the main text with limited result. The one I saved as example comes when Jacobs writes that he went to a shop within sight of the Astor House hotel to get his traveling trunk repaired. A footnote reads: “Built by John Jacob Astor, the 309-room Astor House opened in 1836 at the corner of Broadway and Vesey (later the site of the World Trade Center). Jacobs most likely visited George Johnson’s shop at 211 Pearl Street, which, among other things, sold ‘seal and horse hide trunks’ and ‘Leather Traveling Trunks’.” It’s great that Schroeder has done enough research to be able to add this context, but also this information doesn’t really improve the read in any way. I think instead it caused me to lose the thread of the main text. When I re-read Jacobs’ portion of the book, I read without looking at any of those footnotes a second time and this was when I connected with it more.

Overall, I do agree DESPOTS is a remarkable work. I’m grateful that it exists and has been reproduced in this manner. It is an important documentation of an unthinkable period in American history, a view of the Union jackboot from the perspective of the stamped on human face. It is well worth taking the time to read closely, the better to absorb the author’s well-founded condemnations.

[Robin J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is less a narrative of slavery and more a cogent and convincing argument against slavery by a former slave. Jacobs is the younger brother of Harriet Jacobs, whose more traditional narrative of slavery remained in print while John Jacobs' work disappeared from history only to be rediscovered recently. The discoverer of Jacobs writing has included a biography of both Harriet and John as well as their family-- a fascinating history of two African Americans who escaped slavery and reunited in the north after years apart. Both Harriet and John devoted themselves to helping others who were enslaved -- John toured the free parts of the nation with Frederick Douglass before leaving the country and making a living on large sailing ships.

[kavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars because my class made it exhausting to over analyze.

[Dawn Fortenberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

having read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Jacob's sister Harriet, i was intrigued when i heard that her brother had also written a book. it was so interesting to see how different their narratives were - hers was heavily edited due to having to have a white collaborator involved in order to have her book published in the US while his is much less so since he was abroad at the time. i learned so much! i had no idea that slavery was actually protected in our US Constitution!

[Feochadan]

Really great biography along with a stunning historical text. Surprising no one, my favorite parts of the biography were the bits that provided cultural context to Jacobs' career as a sailor, and how his experiences with racism and capitalism in other parts of the world could have affected his politics.

[Mike Walter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a Powerful and Important Book

The New York Times ran a review of this book recently and I was extremely interested so I downloaded it right away. The book is basically two parts. The first is the reprinting of an article that appeared in an Australian newspaper in 1855 titled “The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery.” The second part is a biography of that article’s author, escaped US slave John Jacobs.

The article itself is gut wrenching. Jacobs wrote explicitly about the atrocities of slavery and how, even the good masters were abhorrent because they were still robbing their slaves of freedom. As he writes: “My father taught me to hate slavery; but forgot to teach me how to conceal my hatred.” He eventually escapes from an owner who treated him as well as any of the six owners he had in his life of slavery. And in signing his goodbye letter “no longer yours” gets his last laugh.

Jacobs’ article also goes on to expound about how complicit even the northern states were in the US’ involvement in slavery, pointing out the painful hypocrisy in a country founded on the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that allowed for, neigh, protected, the institution of slavery. As he points out: “In the original Constitution the word “slave” cannot be found; but it was well known by the nation that it was there, and that it was not in the power of Congress to wipe it out.” He also spends some time on how a supposed Christian nation could allow such a thing, quoting from the Bible directly.

The biography of Jacobs, written by Jonathan D. S. Schroeder, the man who happened to stumble on Jacobs’ long forgotten article and who clearly did extensive research to bring Jacobs’ story to life was equally fascinating. After his escape, Jacobs spoke for years in the northern states about abolition. He then moved to California to try to strike gold along with so many others at the time. He finally became a mariner, living most of the rest of his life at sea aboard merchant ships, which is how he happened to be in Australia getting his article published.

In his article, Jacobs wrote: “Such is the condition of every slave throughout the United States; he owns nothing—he can claim nothing. His wife is not his—his children are not his; they can be taken from him, and sold at any minute.” It seems he spent the second half of his life, the free half, trying to own something, whether it was his personal story, the plight of millions of other slaves, or even just his liberty. One can’t think of a further place from bondage on a plantation than the open seas, which is perhaps why Jacobs spent so many years aboard merchant ships.

This book was painful to read yet I’m glad I spent some time with it. Jacobs story is one I’ll not soon forget.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story behind this publication is in some ways cooler than the book itself.
Schroeder, who wrote the biography of the author that is included in this publication, is a literary historian, and he knew the story of Harriet Jacobs, the abolitionist who famously wrote about her life and abuse while enslaved, her secret relationship with a white politician and her escape to freedom in the 1800s. Schroeder searched a database of historical documents for details on Harriet's son. He wasn't getting far, so he tried another search term focused on Harriet's brother, Johnathan S. Jacobs.
That is how he stumbled upon an autobiography by John Swanson Jacobs, first published in Australia in 1855 and largely lost to time - until now. Six hundred thousand despots is a reference to the number of slave owners in the U.S. at the time.
John Swanson Jacobs was born in 1815 in Edenton, N.C., and he was born a sixth-generation slave. Today, he's a footnote in the life of his older sister, Harriet Jacobs, who is the best-known Black female author of the 19th century. He was an abolitionist in the U.S. and U.K. He was a gold miner in California and Australia. He was a sailor on four oceans and four continents. And he was an expat for nearly all of his free life.
He had become a gold miner after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. He left the U.S. for California, and then for Australia, which was going through its own gold rush at the same time as America's gold rush. And he eventually struck it rich or at least did well in the Australian gold rush. And that gave him a rare moment of time off from the kind of labor that dominated most of his life to go to Sydney and to finish the life story that he had begun practicing in the 1840s as an abolitionist in William Lloyd Garrison's Boston and Frederick Douglass' Rochester.
This is a recreation of his autobiography, and then a biography of what we know about him now with the help of time.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A major discovery of a lost narrative by a fugitive slave. Jacobs's narrative, originally published in an Austrailian newspaper, escaped the sometimes heavy-handed editing by well-meaning white abolitionists. Jacobs was previously known as a brother of Harriet Jacobs who wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl who himself published a heavily truncated version of this narrative in a London magazine. The original narrative pulls no punches in its attacks on the politicians of the day and even on the slavery origins of the U.S. Constitution.

The work is coupled with a biography from the discoverer of the narrative, Jonathan D.S. Schroder, and other documentary evidence of Jacobs's life such as letters, newspaper articles, and diary entries.

[Michael Conway · Rating 5 out of 5]

A long lost autobiography/slave narrative from 1855 by a fugitive slave. The editor found it while researching the author's sister's autobiography. Remarkable journey from North Carolina plantation to escape to north, abolitionist speaker with Frederick Douglass,and many around the world voyages plus working California and Australia gold rushes. The author deftly connects the US Constitution to structurally prolonging slavery with many personal experiences. This is not so-called "woke" literature. It is totally true and unadulterated. Also includes the editor's well researched biography of the author and original source material letters.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful biographical & invaluable historic piece.
In a future edition, might the author consider a timeline as well as a Jacobs family tree? I struggled a bit to keep all the names of family (and slaveowners) straight, and resorted to taking notes to sketch it out. Further, as I wasn't a classics or liberal arts major, some of Dr. Schroeder's writing was a bit academic for me.
Come to think of it, a version would make for an amazing & important young adult book.
God bless researchers & historians! Thank you, Dr. Schroeder

[Colleen Coonelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first 70 or so pages are the first-person slave narrative, written in 1855, by John Swanson Jacobs. It is fantastic. Jacob was born into slavery and fled both the South and the United States. He published his life story in an Australian newspaper. He analyzes America’s founding documents and analyzes all who enabled and sustained the slave power. The second 2/3 of this printing is comprised of a mediocre biography of Jacobs and his family.
Read Jacob’s startling, intelligent, furious indictment of the hypocrisy and greed that were the foundation of slavery system in the United States.

[Loraine Binion-Hardy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very hard read as it is difficult for me to read about the mistreatment and brutalization of slaves. This slave narrative and the notations were very well written and the story fascinating. Just very sad for me. A great text narrative on what was going on politically during the time if one is interested in this. I actually did not finish the entire book as it was too much but read enough to understand the story.

[Pauleta Hendrickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very important read. The book was written honestly by a formerly enslaved man. He wrote it in Australia without the forced strictures of American publishing and the need to “white-wash” the narrative of slavery. I found it to be hard reading - emotionally, spiritually, and physically, but it’s a book I will read again. Truth is often difficult to face.

[Naveen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schroeder has outdone himself with Despots, a well-researched treatise on the autobiography of a previously obscure abolitionist. There is a lot of primary source material and commentary included. John S. Jacobs take on the Unionist mentality and the Constitution of United States is important for every well rounded American to read.

[Michel D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A startling memoir by a runaway slave, focusing more on the masters rather than the slaves.

[Bobak Talé · Rating 2 out of 5]

This read like a boring textbook

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars, rounding up to 5.

Powerful narrative & insightful biography!

[Neverdust · Rating 5 out of 5]

very interesting

[Michael Daines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only read the intro then original writings of Jacobs, but still worth it. Setting the rest down, which is the biography and research done by the editor, Schroeder. I may pick it up later, though I read several summaries already, which is what convinced me to read the book.

If coming to this fresh, I’d skip the introduction and read Jacobs’ text first, then come back for context.

“The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots” is the slave narrative of John Jacobs, the brother of the author of “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”. It was published in 1855 in an Australian paper, so was not censored the way American-published narratives were. The text was essentially lost for a century and a half, until the editor found it while trying to research Harriet Jacobs’ son, who joined his uncle in Australia.