Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Harriet Jacobs (1813–97) was a reformer, Civil War and Reconstruction relief worker, and antislavery activist. Born a slave to mulatto parents in North Carolina, she was only fifteen when her master, Dr. Flint, began his pursuit of her. This abuse and the resulting oppression from Flint’s wife forced Jacobs to take drastic measures to protect herself, so she encouraged a relationship with Mr. Sands, an unmarried white lawyer for whom she bore two children. When the situation with Flint became intolerable, she left her children and took refuge in a small garret of her grandmother’s house, where she lived for seven years. She finally escaped to the North, and her children eventually followed. She managed to support herself while evading numerous attempts by Flint to return her to slavery. At age forty, Jacobs was purchased and then emancipated by an abolitionist who was Jacobs’s employer and friend. During the Civil War, Jacobs began a career working among black refugees. In 1863, she and her daughter moved to Alexandria, where they supplied emergency relief, organized primary medical care, and established the Jacobs Free School—black led and black taught—for the refugees. After the war, they sailed to England and successfully raised money for a home for Savannah’s black orphans and aged. They then moved to Washington, D.C., where they continued to work among the destitute freed people, and her daughter worked in the newly established “colored schools” and, later, at Howard University. In 1896, Harriet Jacobs was present at the organizing meetings of the National Association of Colored Women.

Myrlie Evers-Williams is the author of For Us, the Living, depicting the life of Medgar Evers and the Civil Rights struggle in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s, and Watch Me Fly, her autobiography. Chairman emeritus of the NAACP, she is president and founder of the Medgar Evers Institute as well as CEO and president of MEW Associates, Inc.

Dawn Lundy Martin, PhD, is a poet, scholar, and assistant professor in the English department at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of the collection of poems, A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering (University of Georgia Press, 2007), coeditor of The Fire This Time: Young Activists and the New Feminism (Anchor Books, 2004), and a member of the avant-garde African-American poetics group the Black Took Collective.

INCIDENTS
IN THE
LIFE OF A
SLAVE GIRL

HARRIET JACOBS

Writing as Linda Brent

With an Introduction by
Myrlie Evers-Williams
and a New Afterword by
Dawn Lundy Martin, PhD

SIGNET CLASSICS

INTRODUCTION

IN ANY STUDY of the history of America, one is certain to be introduced to the subject of slavery—and varying accounts of the horrifying tales associated with it. The reader of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is taken on a personal odyssey through this most horrific and uncivilized period of American history from the viewpoint of a female slave. What makes Incidents exceptional to any other slave narrative is that, with the hesitant and apologetic voice of an enslaved black American woman, the story expressly deals with racism, as well as sexism. Both acts are manipulated through the mechanics of “legal slavery.” The resulting consequences from this demoralized institution have continued to divide the black and white races in America, even to this day.

All “incidents” related in the story of Harriet Jacobs’s life seem to touch on three recurring themes: the struggle for freedom, the preservation of family, and the plight of black American women. It is interesting to note that the author refers to herself as a “slave girl,” although the book was written when she was a forty-year-old woman. And, as if to distance herself from the emotional ties to the story she is about to tell, Harriet chooses to become a spectator in her own life, casting the persona “Linda Brent” in the starring role.

The issues of freedom versus slavery, white versus black, and men versus women are interwoven within the fabric of American society during the 1800s—the period in which Harriet lived. These issues become the target of her struggle for self-identity, self-preservation, and freedom. She sought release from a cruel, sadistic white plantation owner; she longed for the same dignities afforded other American citizens; and she dreamed of life as a woman who could love and be loved by the man of her choice, as well as being a mother who could raise her children in a secure and caring environment.

The uniqueness of this narrative is that Harriet Jacobs, by her own account, was never brutalized physically in the manner that is commonly portrayed in stories about life as a slave. This in itself could have hindered her from seeking freedom at such a high cost—loss of her life, or loss of her children’s lives. She did experience some “blows,” which were mild when considering the standards of the life-threatening beatings received by slaves under similar circumstances. However, the mental abuse and the hypocrisy of the slave-master relationship ultimately became the driving force behind Harriet’s desire to escape. (Before the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831, there was the mistaken image that slaves were a happy lot, and had no desire to leave their masters.)

The statement that introduces Chapter One of the book sets the tone for the remaining sections and is indicative of the naïveté of young Harriet Jacobs as regards to her station in life. She muses that she did not know she “was a slave until I was six years old.” The life of Harriet Jacobs as narrated in the person of “Linda Brent” at that point had been as idyllic as any other child’s, regardless of race or social standing.

It is vitally important for the reader to understand the bond between Harriet and her relatives, and to recognize that her family unit was intact up until the time of her mother’s death. Hers was no life burdened by the division of the father from mother, mother from child, as was so commonly practiced during that time. In addition to her mother, her father lived with his wife and children, and the grandmother resided nearby.

Harriet’s grandmother, who was a respected woman in the black and white communities, made a modest living by baking goods for the townspeople. Although she was eventually successful in using her income to secure the freedom of her son, Philip, she was unable to purchase her own freedom. Instead, at the age of fifty, she became a free woman due to the kindness of an elderly white woman, who could neither read nor write her own name to the bill of sale—the official mark of a “cross” freed Harriet’s grandmother.

Harriet’s father was a skilled carpenter who was treated as a free man and was given the “privilege” of paying his master for the “right” to earn his own income. This payment totaled approximately half of his yearly earnings. Her father made many attempts to pay for his family’s freedom, but as a slave, he was limited in his purchasing power. While her mother was alive, Harriet’s family maintained the appearance of a traditional patriarchal household, but after her death, the father virtually disappeared from his children’s lives as they were entrusted to the white mistress of the house.

Harriet’s father was actually more than capable of caring for his own children after the mother died; however, as a slave, he was rendered powerless in their upbringing. It was almost as if his children became “wards of the state.” Harriet and her brother were moved into the household of the master and mistress after the mother’s death, thus making it virtually impossible for the father to participate in the rearing of his own children.

He did attempt to exercise parental guardianship on whatever occasion and to the best extent possible. An incident arose that involved the matter of his son, William, and William’s attitude toward slavery. This was when William was called simultaneously by his father and his mistress to perform some task. He weighed the perplexing challenge “of who had the strongest claim on his obedience”—should he obey his black father, who caused his birth, or the white mistress of the plantation? He chose the mistress. The father, upon learning that William had responded to the mistress first, added further to this confusing state of affairs by reprimanding his son, “You are my child, and when I call you, you should come immediately, if you have to pass through fire and water.” This admonishment came from a man who was a slave—who could neither free himself, his son, nor protect his daughter from another man’s viciousness.

Although the death of Harriet’s mother brought about a change in the family’s living arrangements, Harriet lived a fairly decent life for the next few years, as her mistress treated her as her own, teaching her to read, spell, and sew. However, when she reached her twelfth birthday, the bondage of slavery became a reality, as her kindhearted benefactor succumbed to death.

Ironically, the blessing of being owned by a “kind” mistress or master became an unrelenting curse that formed Harriet’s view of herself and all human beings in the eyes of God. For, by having the knowledge of the letters, she was able to read the disciplines set out in the Bible, the same book that shaped the moral fiber of the Christian slave owners. How could slavery be justified, when God’s Word admonished, “Love thy neighbor as thyself”? Of course, slaves were not viewed as human beings; therefore the observance of Christian principles was not binding upon the “kind” white slave owners. This agonizing paradox wreaked havoc with Harriet’s soul as she tried unrelentingly to cling to the high moral standards of purity and chastity. This struggle imminently manifested itself under the brutal harassment received from her new master—Dr. Flint.

Promises had been made earlier to Harriet’s mother that the children would be taken care of—ultimately freed. However, it was not to be, as the “kind” slave owner viewed the children as no more than merchandise, which upon her death was to be divided as property amongst the heirs of her estate. Harriet was “willed” to her mistress’s five-year-old niece, the daughter of Dr. Flint. The Flints lived within the confines of the town of Edenton, close to Harriet’s grandmother. Since the five-year-old was not of legal age to manage this “gift” of property, Harriet was now destined to render service to the new master and mistress of the household, who had absolute authority over her fate.

It was when she was an adolescent at the age of fifteen that Dr. Flint began his obsessive pursuit of Harriet as his concubine, making certain to instill in her that she was “made for his use, made to obey his command in every thing.” To passively submit to the advances of the master would certainly be excused and understood under the circumstances—many female slaves chose that course in hopes of improving an otherwise dismal existence. To aggressively fight against the master could mean physical punishment and persecution to the slave and/or her family members. It becomes a matter of choice, as if slaves had any choice.

The truly spiritual nature and moral character of Harriet Jacobs constantly reveals itself throughout the pages of the book. The quest for freedom becomes her relentless passion as she devises creative measures to preserve her righteous principles and to prevent her master from raping her. It was these moral convictions that placed her on par with any white “Christian” woman.

Of course, the wife of the master was unable to restrain her husband’s licentious appetite and his obsessive desire to possess another woman—albeit a slave woman, but still a woman. Subsequently, this often resulted in additional abuse from the mistress of the household, who would now find herself humiliated in the eyes of those who were her peers and those to whom she felt superior. Whether mistress or slave, both women were wretchedly branded as inferior to the man.

Harriet knew, that no matter how virtuous the appearance Dr. Flint and his wife presented to the world outside the confines of his home, she would never be allowed to go free. Thus, she chose to take matters in her own hands, opting to become sexually involved with a nearby young, white, unmarried lawyer who had treated her kindly and who had become her friend.

In making the choice of whom she would give herself to, Harriet also became an outcast from her grandmother’s goodwill—the one woman who should have been able to sympathize with Harriet’s state of affairs. Once again, the matter of who had the strongest claim on one’s obedience became an issue—obedience to the master, thereby relinquishing all control of herself to him; obedience to the grandmother, who had no control of her own “self”; or obedience to her moral conscience, which she alone could influence.

The secretive trysts with the young lawyer resulted in Harriet’s bearing him first a son and then a daughter. Although Harriet’s children were fathered by a white man, the children of slaves inherited the fate of the mother. Therefore, this man—an equal to Dr. Flint—could not restore honor to his progeny; neither could he purchase another man’s “property” if it were not for sale. If the lot of a male slave was filled with physical hardships and mental anguish, that of a female’s condition was humanly deplorable and unbearable. A healthy male slave could possibly add income to the master’s purse. The lot of a female child born a slave—healthy or not—was valued no more than a breeder—if she were lucky.

Harriet was eventually transferred a few miles outside of town to the plantation household of Dr. Flint’s son. Shortly thereafter, it became increasingly evident that the only chance she would have for freedom would be to escape during this time, while her children were living in town, under the care of their great-grandmother—her grandmother.

It is at this point in the story where the reader will want to embrace Harriet’s determined spirit and rally her on to salvation. For what follows is the account of her life in “self-imposed” exile.

After several unsuccessful attempts to flee to the North, Harriet finds safe harbor by hiding in a homemade boxlike “garret” attached to her grandmother’s porch. This “box”—measuring nine feet long by seven feet wide and, at its highest point, just three feet high—somewhat resembled a large “coffin.” Food was passed to her through a small trapdoor. The only light was from a serrated hole drilled by Harriet in her desperate attempt to maintain some measure of sanity in her new dwelling.

How long can someone wait for the freedom train? In the year that Harriet Jacobs moved into this box, the Liberty Bell cracked while tolling the death of Chief Justice John Marshall. One day became 2,520 days; 2,520 days became 83 months. Nineteenth-century historical records show that Betsy Ross died in Harriet’s second year of self-imposed exile; Victoria became Queen of Great Britain in her third year; the Underground Railroad was organized while Harriet lived in her box for the fourth year; in her fifth year, the mutiny of slaves on board the Amistad