“READER, BE ASSURED THIS NARRATIVE IS NO FICTION,” HARRIET JACOBS WROTE IN THE INTRODUCTION TO HER 1861 MEMOIR ‘INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL.’ “I AM AWARE THAT SOME OF MY ADVENTURES MAY SEEM INCREDIBLE. BUT THEY ARE, NEVERTHELESS, STRICTLY TRUE.”
She explained why she wrote her book. “I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the free states what slavery really is. Only by experience can any one realize how deep and dark and foul is that pit of abominations.”
Harriet Jacobs was the first woman to write her own fugitive slave narrative. She provided an account, in her own words, of the s*xual abuse female slaves were forced to endure.
Harriet Jacobs was born in North Carolina in 1813. “I was born and reared in slavery,” she said, “and I remained in a slave state twenty-seven years.”
“When I was six years old,” Harriet wrote in her autobiography, “my mother died. For the first time, I learned by the talk around me, that I was a slave.”
The teenage daughter of her mistress taught this bright little girl to read and to sew.
Harriet was twelve when her mistress died. All her property, including young Harriet, was bequeathed to a three year old niece. Now Harriet came under the control of the child’s father, the town doctor, a lecherous man who was always scheming to force Harriet to perform s*xual acts. He made her life miserable.
“But I now entered on my fifteenth year—a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl,” she wrote. “My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import. I tried to treat them with indifference or contempt.
“He tried his utmost to corrupt the pure principles my grandmother had instilled. He peopled my young mind with unclean images, such as only a vile monster could think of. I turned from him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master. I was compelled to live under the same roof with him—where I saw a man forty years my senior daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature.
“He told me I was his property. That I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted against the mean tyranny.”
Harriet wrote, “My master left me with stinging, scorching words that scathed ear and brain like fire. O how I despised him! I thought how glad I should be, if some day, when he walked the earth, it would open and swallow him up and disencumber the world of a plague.”
The plague at the root of Harriet’s misery was slavery itself.
“He told me that I was made for his use,” she railed, “made to obey his command in everything, that I was nothing but a slave whose will must surrender to his. My master met me at every turn, reminding me that I belonged to him and swearing by heaven and earth that he would compel me to submit to him.”
Harriet swore she would resist him with all her might.
“I had not lived fourteen years in slavery for nothing. I had felt, seen and heard enough to read the characters and question the motives of those
around me. And though one of God’s most powerless creatures, I resolved never to be conquered again. I would do anything, everything, for the sake of defeating him.”
Harriet was determined to fight for her dignity. “The war of my life had begun.”
Harriet had to come up with a strategy for survival.
“What could I do?” she wrote. “I thought and thought, till I became desperate and made a plunge into the abyss. I knew what I did and I did it with deliberate calculation.”
She found a protector. Harriet was sixteen when she began an intimate relationship with a young, single white attorney from a prominent family in town whose social standing was higher than her master’s. Later, he was elected to the House of Representatives.
“It chanced that a white unmarried gentleman had obtained some knowledge of the circumstances in which I was placed,” Harriet explained. “He knew my grandmother and often spoke to me in the street. He became interested in me and asked questions about my master. He expressed a great deal of sympathy and a wish to aid me. He constantly sought opportunities to see me and wrote to me frequently.
“So much attention from a superior person was, of course, flattering. For human nature is the same in all. I also felt grateful for his sympathy and encouraged by his kind words. It seemed to me a great thing to have such a friend. By degrees, a more tender feeling crept into my heart.”
Over the next four years, she bore two children with him. Harriet made their father promise to free them.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Monday, January 25th 2010 at 10:26PM
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