Novels

Novels

Novels

Harriet Ann Jacobs was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina in 1813. After her mother, Delilah, and his father, Elijah, died at a young age Jacobs, she and her younger brother, John, were raised by their maternal grandmother, Molly Horniblow. Jacobs learned to read, write, sew and under its first owner, Margaret Horniblow, and hopes to be freed from it.

However, when Jacobs was eleven years old, her owner died and wished her Dr. James Norcom, binding decision, which initiated the life of suffering and hardship for Jacobs. Dr. Norcom, introduced later, as Dr. Flint in the narrative of Jacobs's, sexual harassment and physical violence Jacobs teens until she was a servant in his house. Jacobs repelled his advances, coming into contact with prominent white lawyer named Samuel Tredwell Sawyer, and taking his two children: Joseph (b. 1829) and Louisa Matilda (ca. 1833-1913), which is legally owned by Norcom. Fearing Norcom persistent sexual threats and hoping that he might abandon his holding to her children, Jacobs hid in a closet crawlspace in her grandmother's house from 1835 until 1842 (Jacobs, p199).

During these seven years, Jacobs can do little more than sit in cramped conditions. She was reading, sewing, and watching her children from the slit in the roof, waiting for an opportunity to escape to the north. Jacobs was finally able to make his way in New York by boat in 1842 and was eventually reunited with their children there. Even in New York, however, Jacobs was in favor Fugitive Slave Act, which meant that wherever Jacobs lived in the United States, it may be disposed of Norcoms and returned to slavery at any time. Around 1852, her employer, Cornelia Grinnell Willis, had bought her freedom from Norcoms. (Jacobs, p199)

Jacobs's decision to write his autobiography stalk from correspondence with his friend, Amy Post, a Quaker abolitionist and feminist activist. Jacobs was a friend posted in Rochester, New York in late 1840 after she moved there to join the movement for the abolition of the death penalty with her brother John. Jacobs confided her last post, which suggested that she write it myself after Harriet Beecher Stowe Jacobs rejected the request for a personal secretary. In 1861, with the help of a white child editor abolitionists Lydia Maria, Jacobs has published a story entitled Incidents in the life of Slave Girl under the pseudonym, as "Linda Brent (Jacobs, p199)." Jacobs surviving correspondence with the child checks Incidents as a fully working Jacobs, with minor editing from the child. Despite her use of pseudonyms, Jacobs did get recognition for the time of its release. She came into public service with her daughter during the 1860's, providing assistance to refugees during the civil war and the opening of Jacobs Free School in Alexandria, Virginia. After several trips south and one abroad in England, Jacobs restore itself as an aid worker in Washington, DC, in 1880, and died March 7, 1897 (Jacobs, p199).

Harriet Jacobs's autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a ...