US History

American Literature

Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)

Women

African Americans

This collection uses primary sources to explore Harriet Jacobs&#39; Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

Teaching Guide: Exploring *Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl*

Excerpts from *Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl* by Harriet Jacobs, under pseudonym Linda Brent, 1861. 

Title page from *The Deeper Wrong or Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl*, the edition of Jacobs’ work published in London in 1862.

A portrait of Lydia Maria Child, an abolitionist who helped Harriet Jacobs to prepare her narrative for publication.

A runaway slave advertisement placed by Dr. James Norcom, enslaver of Harriet Jacobs, 1830.

“A True Tale of Slavery,” by John S. Jacobs, from *The Leisure Hour: A Family Journal of Instruction and Recreation*, 1861.

A selection of runaway slave advertisements from *The American Anti-Slavery Almanac*, 1838. 

An illustration from *The American Anti-Slavery Almanac* depicting an enslaved woman separated from her children, 1838.

A photograph showing a formerly enslaved woman named Betty with her great granddaughters, 1867.

A photograph of an enslaved woman named Frances and her enslaver’s young daughter, Sallie Smith, ca. 1860.

A drawing depicting a slave market in Charleston, South Carolina, 1833.

A bill of sale for an enslaved woman named Margaret who was pregnant at the time of the sale, 1858.

A broadside advertising an auction of enslaved men and a woman, 1856.

A carte de visite of Isaac and Rosa, slave children from New Orleans, 1863.

A letter by abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman on stationery with a printed image of an enslaved mother separated from her children, 1839.

A letter from Francis Jackson to Lydia Maria Child about Thomas Sims, who was arrested and re-enslaved under the Fugitive Slave Law, 1860.

Resources

1. [*Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl*](http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/jacobs/menu.html) by Harriet Jacobs, full text and related documents, Documenting the American South, UNC Chapel Hill. 
2. [Runaway advertisement for Harriet Jacobs](http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=8&psid=2498&filepath=http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/primarysources_upload/images/notice_l.jpg) from *American Beacon*, July 4, 1835, Digital History. 
3. “[The Young White Faces of Slavery](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/the-young-white-faces-of-slavery/?_r=0),” *The New York Times* Disunion blog.  

Overview

In 1861, Harriet Jacobs published *Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl*, an account of her experience of enslavement in Edenton, North Carolina. Jacobs used the pseudonym Linda Brent and changed all of names in the book to protect the identity and safety of her family. *Incidents* soon became one of the most widely read slave narratives written by a woman. Jacobs used the book to highlight the unique cruelties of slavery experienced by women, including sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence.

As a teenager and young woman, Jacobs was subjected to violent sexual advances by her married enslaver Dr. James Norcom. To prevent her victimization by Norcom, Jacobs sought out a relationship with another white man, Samuel Tredwell Sawyer, with whom she had two children. In order to escape and save her children from a future of enslavement, Jacobs ran away by faking her escape to New York. Meanwhile, she hid in a crawlspace above her grandmother’s shed for seven years, where she could continue to watch from afar as her children grew up (they were eventually sold by Norcom and granted relative freedom by their father). In 1842, Jacobs escaped to the North, where she reunited with her children, became acquainted with abolitionist circles, and eventually wrote her autobiography in her free time outside of her work as a caretaker. 

For northern readers and especially women, Jacobs’ book was groundbreaking in its explicit and honest account of the prevalence of sexual relationships forced upon enslaved women by white men, the constant threat of separation among enslaved families, and the pain and fear inherent in raising children who legally belonged to someone else.

English

*Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl* by Harriet Jacobs

incidents-life-slave-girl-harriet-jacobs_08_545f55ee79b01e1301982ee2ee24c80f.jpg

Courtesy of Hermitage via Tennessee Digital Library.

“Betty Jackson in front of a slave cabin with two little girls,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/545f55ee79b01e1301982ee2ee24c80f.

A photograph showing a formerly enslaved woman named Betty with her great granddaughters, 1867.

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Item 8 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs