HARRIET JACOBS, BORN A SLAVE IN 1813, ESCAPED IN 1835 AND HID IN HER GRANDMOTHER’S ATTIC FOR SEVEN YEARS BEFORE SNEAKING ON A BOAT TO FREEDOM IN PHILADELPHIA. “WHO CAN BLAME SLAVES FOR BEING CUNNING,” SHE WROTE. “IT IS THE ONLY WEAPON OF THE WEAK AND OPPRESSED AGAINST THE STRENGTH OF THEIR TYRANTS”
“$300 REWARD! Ran away from the subscriber, an intelligent, bright, mulatto girl named Linda, 21 years of age. Five feet four inches high. Dark eyes and black hair inclined to curl. But it can be made straight. Has a decayed spot on a front tooth. She can read and write and in all probability will try to get too the Free States. All persons are forbidden under penalty of the law, to harbor or employ said slave. DR. FLINT.
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A small shed had been added to my grandmother’s house years ago. Some boards were laid across the joists at the top and between these boards and the roof was a very small garret (small attic room), never occupied by anything but rats and mice.
The garret was only nine feet long and seven wide. The highest part was three feet high and sloped down abruptly to the loose board floor. There was no admission for either light or air.
My Uncle Phillip, who was a carpenter, had very skillfully made a concealed trap-door, which communicated with the storeroom.
To this hole I was conveyed as soon as I entered the house. The air was stifling. The darkness total. A bed had been spread on the floor. I could sleep quite comfortably on one side; but the slope was so sudden that I could not turn on the other without hitting the roof. The rats and mice ran over my bed; but I was weary and I slept such sleep as the wretched may.
I went to sleep that night with the feeling that I was for the present the most fortunate slave in town.
Morning came. I knew it only by the noises I heard for in my small den, day and night were all the same. I suffered for air even more than for light.
But I was not comfortless. I heard the voices of my children. There was joy and there was sadness in the sound. It made my tears flow. How I longed to speak to them. I was eager to look on their faces but there was no hole, no crack, through which I could peep. This continued darkness was oppressive. It seemed horrible to sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without one gleam of light. Yet I would have chosen this, rather than my lot as a slave.
My food was passed up to me through the trap-door my uncle had contrived and my grandmother, my uncle Phillip and aunt Nancy would seize such opportunities as they could to mount up there and chat with me at the opening. But of course, this was not safe in the daytime. It must all be done in darkness.
It was impossible for me to move in an erect position but I crawled about my den for exercise.
One day I hit my head against something and found it was a gimlet (s T-shaped tool with a sharp edge). My uncle had left it sticking there when he made the trap-door. It put a lucky thought into my head. I said to myself, ‘Now I will have some light. Now I will see my children.”
I did not dare to begin my work during the daytime, for fear of attracting attention. But I groped around and having found the side next to the street, where I could frequently see my children, I stuck the gimlet in and waited for evening.
I bored three rows of holes, one above another. Then I bored out the interstices between. I thus succeeded in making one hole about an inch long and an inch broad. I sat by it till late into the night, to enjoy the little whiff of air that floated in.
In the morning, I watched for my children. The first person I saw in the street was Dr. Flint. I had a shuddering, superstitious feeling that it was a bad omen. Several familiar faces passed by. At last I heard the merry laugh of children and presently two sweet little faces were looking up at me, as though they knew I was there and were conscious of the joy they imparted. How I longed to tell them I was there!
I could lie perfectly concealed and command a view of the street through which Dr. Flint passed to his office. Anxious as I was, I felt a gleam of satisfaction when I saw him. Thus far, I had outwitted him and I triumphed over it.
Who can blame slaves for being cunning? They are constantly compelled to resort to it. It is the only weapon of the weak and oppressed against the strength of their tyrants.
Christmas is a day of feasting, both with white and colored people. Slaves, who are lucky enough to have a few shillings, are sure to spend them for good eating and many a turkey and pig is captured.
My grandmother raised poultry and pigs for sale and it was her established custom to have both a turkey and a pig roasted for Christmas dinner.
On this occasion, I was warned to keep extremely quiet because two guests had been invited. One was the town constable. My grandmother had a motive for inviting them. She managed to take them all over the house. All the rooms on the lower floor were thrown open for them top pass in and out. And after dinner, they were invited upstairs to look at a fine mocking bird my uncle had just brought home. There, too, the rooms were all thrown open that they might look in.
When I heard them talking on the piazza, my heart almost stood still.
When the guests were ready to depart, my grandmother gave each of them some of her nice pudding as a present for their wives. Through my peep-hole I saw them go out of the gate and I was glad when it closed after them. So passed the first Christmas in my den.
I suffered much more during the second winter than I did during the first. My limbs were benumbed by inaction and the cold filled them with cramp. I had a very painful sensation of coldness in my head. Even my face and tongue stiffened and I lost the power of speech.
Dark thoughts passed through my mind as I lay there day after day. I tried to be thankful for my little cell, dismal as it was, and even to love it, as part of the price I had paid for the redemption of my children.
Sometimes I thought God was a compassionate Father who would forgive my sins for the sake of my sufferings. At other times, it seemed to me there was no justice or mercy in the divine government. I asked why the curse of slavery was permitted to exist and why I had been so persecuted and wronged from youth upward.
Grandmother began to listen to my entreaty to be allowed to leave my cell sometimes and exercise my limbs to prevent my becoming a cripple. I was allowed to slip down into the small storeroom early in the morning, and remain there a little while.
The room was all filled up with barrels, except a small open space under my trap-door.
I came down as soon as it was light and remained till eight o’clock when people began to be about.
I had tried various applications to bring warmth and feeling into my limbs but without avail. They were so numb and stiff that it was a painful effort to move and had my enemies come upon me during the first morning I tried to exercise them a little in the small unoccupied space of the storeroom, it would have been impossible for me to have escaped.
My thoughts wandered through the dark past and over the uncertain future. Alone in my cell, where no eye but God’s could see me, I wept bitter tears. How earnestly I prayed to him to restore me to my children and enable me to be a useful woman and a good mother.
I hardly expect that the reader will credit me, when I affirm that I lived in that little dismal hole, almost deprived of light and air and with no space to move my limbs, for nearly seven years. (August 1835 to June 1842).
Countless were the nights that I sat late at the little loophole scarcely large enough to give me a glimpse of one twinkling star. There, I heard the patrols and slave-hunters conferring together about the capture of runaways, well knowing how rejoiced they would be to catch me.
Season after season, year after year, I peeped at my children’s faces and heard their sweet voices with a heart yearning all the while to say, “Your mother is here.” Sometimes it appeared to me as if ages had rolled away since I entered upon that gloomy, monotonous existence. At times, I was stupefied and listless; at other times I became very impatient to know when these dark years would end and I should again be allowed to feel the sunshine and breathe the pure air.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Friday, February 5th 2010 at 5:20AM
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