Harriet Ann Jacobs
Harriet Ann Jacobs
Harriet Ann Jacobswas an African-American writer who escaped from slavery and was later freed. She became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Jacobs wrote an autobiographical novel, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, first serialized in a newspaper and published as a book in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent. It was a reworking of the genres of slave narrative and sentimental novel, and was one of the first books to address the struggle for freedom by female slaves,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
I WAS born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away
But I now entered on my fifteenth year - a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import
The slave girl is reared in an atmosphere of licentiousness and fear.
The slave child had no thought for the morrow; but there came that blight, which too surely waits on every human being born to be a chattel.
My master had power and law on his side; I had a determined will. There is might in each.
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.
When they told me my new-born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.
I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a jealous mistress.
My mistress was so kind to me that I was always glad to do her bidding, and proud to labor for her as much as my young years would permit.
Every where the years bring to all enough of sin and sorrow; but in slavery the very dawn of life is darkened by these shadows
DURING the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family, I was accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress
Dr. Flint had sworn that he would make me suffer, to my last day, for this new crime against him, as he called it; and as long as he had me in his power he kept his word
For years, my master had done his utmost to pollute my mind with foul images, and to destroy the pure principles inculcated by my grandmother, and the good mistress of my childhood
The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition.