Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

by Harriet Jacobs

  What is to be hoped of a people like this? They are full of lies and hypocrisy. Give me liberty amidst savages, rather than slavery with such professed Christians. No man should hold unlimited power over his fellow-man. From the repeated abuses of this power, he becomes the most brutal of the human species; and the more he himself has been abused, the more eager he is to abuse others. But slavery is unnatural, and it requires unnatural means to support it. Everything droops that feels its sting. Hope grows dimmer and dimmer, until life becomes bitter and burdensome. At last death frees the slave from his chains, but his wrongs are forgotten. He was oppressed, robbed, and murdered. Better would it be for the slaves, if they must submit to slavery, if the immortal part of them were blotted out. But, since God has breathed undying life into the soul of man, rather let us blot that out of existence which stands between man and his rights, God and his laws, the world and its progress. The Christian religion, that binds heart to heart and hand to hand, and makes each and every man a brother, is at war with it; and shall we, whose very souls it has wrung out, be longer at peace. If possible, let us make those whom we have left behind feel that the ground they till is cursed with slavery, the air they breathe poisoned with its venom breath, and that which made life dear to them lost and gone.

  In conclusion, let me say that the experience of the past, the present feeling, and above all this, the promise of God, assure me that the oppressor’s rod shall be broken. But how it is to be done has been the question among our friends for years. After the prayers of twenty-five years, the slaves’ chains are tighter than they were before, their escape more dangerous, and their cup of misery filled nearer its brim. Since I cannot forget that I was a slave, I will not forget those that are slaves. What I would have done for my liberty I am willing to do for theirs, whenever I can see them ready to fill a freeman’s grave, rather than wear a tyrant’s chain. The day must come; it will come. Human nature will be human nature; crush it as you may, it changes not; but woe to that country where the sun of liberty has to rise up out of a sea of blood. When I have thought of all that would pain the eye, sicken the heart, and make us turn our backs to the scene and weep, I then think of the oppressed struggling with their oppressors, and have a scene more horrible still. But I must drop this subject; I do not like to think of the past, nor look to the future, of wrongs like these.

  EXPLANATORY NOTES

  HARRIET JACOBS, INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL

  Facsimile Title Page, Preface, and Introduction

  1. Originally published in 1865 as LINDA: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, seven years concealed in Slavery, Written by Herself, this text is known now by the title as it appeared on the title page: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself.

  2. According to Frances Smith Foster, this quote from “A Woman of North Carolina” comes from Angelina E. Grimké (of South Carolina), Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (1836). See Frances Smith Foster, “Resisting Incidents,” in Harriet Jacobs and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, ed. Deborah M. Garfield and Rafia Zafar (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 71.

  3. Isaiah 32:9. This line is followed two verses later by a warning that women at ease risk being stripped and dressed in sack-cloth should they not heed the cries of the prophet. Because these verses of Isaiah deal with Egypt, hence with slavery, Jacobs is also warning that leisured women’s heedlessness puts them at risk for being enslaved. See Frances Smith Foster, “Resisting Incidents,” 72, and Deborah M. Garfield, “Earwitness: Female Abolitionism, Sexuality, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” in Harriet Jacobs, ed. Deborah M. Garfield and Rafia Zafar, 110.

  4. Northern, free-born Daniel Payne (1811-1893) became a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1852, having served in the Philadelphia conference in the 1840s.

  5. The “distinguished family” was that of the New York author and editor of the weekly Home Journal Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867).

  6. The kind mistress was Margaret Horniblow (d. 1825).

  CHAPTER I: Childhood

  1 Harriet Jacobs’s father, Elijah Knox, died in 1826.

  2 Harriet Jacobs’s brother was John S. Jacobs (1815-1875). (As she states in her preface, Jacobs has “given persons fictitious names.”)

  3 Harriet Jacobs’s maternal grandmother was Mary (Molly) Horniblow (d. 1853).

  4 Harriet Jacobs’s maternal uncle was Molly Horniblow’s son Joseph (1808-?).

  5 Harriet Jacobs’s mother Delilah (c. 1797-c. 1819) had three siblings: Betty (c. 1794-1841), Mark Ramsey (c. 1800-1858), and Joseph (1808-?). See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 261.

  6 The child to whom Margaret Horniblow bequeathed Harriet was her niece, Mary Matilda Norcom, who was three years old, not five, in 1825. See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents, 261. This Mary Matilda Norcom bore nearly the same name as her mother, Mary Matilda Horniblow Norcom, wife of James Norcom.

  CHAPTER II: The New Master and Mistress

  1 Dr. James Norcom (1778-1850), the father of Mary Matilda Norcom, had received a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1799 and was very well connected within both the medical profession nationally and the elite of eastern North Carolina. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 152, 154.

  2 Elijah died in about 1826.

  3 Linsey-woolsey is a coarse fabric made of wool and linen or cotton.

  4 Harriet Jacobs’s maternal aunt was Molly Horniblow’s daughter Betty (c. 1794-1841).

  CHAPTER IV: The Slave Who Dared to Feel Like a Man

  1 Molly Horniblow’s home on West King Street in Edenton had belonged to a white silversmith and had seven rooms and a piazza. In 1830 she bought it for $1 from Alfred Moore Gatlin, to whom she may have had blood ties. See John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,” 244; and Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 93, 96, 183.

  2 Young Master Nicholas was probably James Norcom, Jr. (1811-?). See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs,” 154.

  3 According to Jean Fagan Yellin, cousin Fanny is Hannah Pritchard. The sister of Elizabeth Horniblow, she had bought Molly Horniblow at auction in 1828. See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), xxxvi; and Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs,” 97.

  4 “Uncle Phillip” is Harriet Jacobs’s maternal uncle Mark Ramsey, whose mother, Molly Horniblow, bought him in 1830. Like many African-American men during the first half of the nineteenth century, Ramsey made his living as a seaman. According to his nephew John S. Jacobs, he worked as a steward on a passenger boat. See John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,” Leisure Hour, 7 February 1861, 86.

  5 According to John S. Jacobs, Horniblow used her savings of thirty years, which she had entrusted to a white friend, to buy herself and her son Mark. See John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,” 234.

  CHAPTER VI: The Jealous Mistress

  1 Mrs. Flint is Mary Matilda Horniblow Norcom (1797-1869), James Norcom’s second wife, whom he had married when she was sixteen. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 158, 160. Jacobs portrays Mary Matilda Horniblow Norcom as coarse, ill-bred, and insecure.

  2 The child was Elizabeth Hannah Norcom (1826-1849).

  3 Harriet Jacobs’s aunt—not her great aunt—was her mother’s sister Betty, who was the Norcom’s head housekeeper.

  CHAPTER VII: The Lover

  1 Lord Byron, “The Lament of Tasso,” iv. 7-10, according to Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incid
ents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 266.

  2 James Norcom’s oldest son, the product of his first marriage, was John Norcom, M.D. (1802-1856). See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents, 229.

  CHAPTER VIII: What Slaves Are Taught to Think of the North

  1 The Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850, strengthened existing statutes governing the return of runaway slaves by punishing any citizen who refused to aid in recapture, paying officials more for remanding people to slavery than for freeing them, and denying people accused of being slaves the right to appeal.

  CHAPTER IX: Sketches of Neighboring Slaveholders

  1 “Mr. Litch” is identified as Josiah Coffield (?-1837) in Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 267.

  CHAPTER X: A Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl’s Life

  1 The “unmarried gentleman,” whom Jacobs calls “Mr. Sands,” is Samuel Tredwell Sawyer (1800-1863). Jean Fagan Yellin says he died in 1865, but Robanna Sumrell Knott (in “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 114) says he died on Long Island in 1863.

  CHAPTER XI: The New Tie to Life

  1 Norcom is telling Harriet he could have given her an abortion.

  2 Harriet Jacobs’s first child was Joseph Jacobs (1829-1863?).

  CHAPTER XII: Fear of Insurrection

  1 In August 1831 in Southampton, Virginia, some forty miles from Edenton, Nat Turner (1800-1831), an enslaved Methodist exhorter (unlicensed preacher), led an uprising that took the lives of fifty-seven whites. Turner and twenty-eight of his followers were executed, and the affair set off pogroms such as Jacobs describes across the South.

  CHAPTER XIV: Another Link to Life

  1 Harriet Jacobs’s daughter was Louisa Matilda Jacobs (1833-1917). See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 273.

  CHAPTER XV: Continued Persecutions

  1 In May 1835, James Norcom, Jr. (1812-1843), married Penelope Hoskins. See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 264.

  2 “Selling well” refers to sale in the market for slave women concubines.

  CHAPTER XVIII: Months of Peril

  1 Jean Fagan Yellin (ed., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987], 275) identifies the kindly lady as Martha Hoskins Rombaugh Blount (1777-1858).

  2 Aunt Betty’s last pregnancy coincided with Harriet’s own, in 1829 or 1830. See Jean Fagan Yellin, “Incidents in the Life of Harriet Jacobs,” in The Seductions of Biography, ed. Mary Rhiel and David Suchoff (New York: Routledge, 1996), 142.

  CHAPTER XX: New Perils

  1 Snaky Swamp is a familiar name for Cabarrus Pocosin. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 247.

  CHAPTER XXI: The Loophole of Retreat

  1 Mark Ramsey, Molly Horniblow’s son, made a corner cupboard whose top abutted the ceiling. The top of the cupboard opened through the ceiling, affording Harriet Jacobs access to the crawl space above. Jacob’s loophole was nine feet long by seven feet wide and three feet high, covered with a thin roof. See John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,” 244; and Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 267-268.

  2 A gimlet is a small tool with a screw point and handle, used to bore holes.

  CHAPTER XXII: Christmas Festivities

  1 Johnkannaus, also known as John Canoe, was an end-of-the-year festival celebrated in the Carolinas and on Long Island. Its roots lie most likely in the traditional carnival called Homowowo in the West African area of Ghana.

  CHAPTER XXIII: Still in Prison

  1 In 1854, Senator Albert Gallatin Brown (1813-1880) of Mississippi proclaimed slavery to be “of divine origin, and ... a great moral, social, and political blessing—a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master.” See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 278.

  2 In “A True Tale of Slavery,” John S. Jacobs says he used his medical knowledge to tend Harriet while she was hidden. See John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,” 244.

  3 A Thompsonian doctor (after Samuel Thomson [1763-1843]) would have adhered to one of the many kinds of holistic medical practices popular in the nineteenth century, which today would be called natural healing.

  CHAPTER XXIV: The Candidate for Congress

  1 According to Robanna Sumrell Knott (in “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 153, 227, 281-283), James Norcom had established a pattern of making annual trips north before his pursuit of Harriet. Rather than searching for her, Knott says, he was taking his children to and from their schools in the North.

  CHAPTER XXVI: Important Era in My Brother’s Life

  1 Samuel Tredwell Sawyer married Lavinia Peyton, the niece of the owner of his boarding house in Washington, D.C., in Chicago in August 1838. Her family was from Loudon County, Virginia, but she married at the home of her sister. Sawyer lost the subsequent election and returned to North Carolina. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 296, 300.

  2 John S. Jacobs presents his own side of his running away from Sawyer in “A True Tale of Slavery,” 248.

  CHAPTER XXVII: New Destination for the Children

  1 Lavinia Peyton and Samuel Tredwell Sawyer had a daughter, Laura, in Washington, D.C., in January 1840. See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 281.

  2 Jean Fagan Yellin (ed., Incidents, 281) points out that Mary Matilda Norcom turned eighteen in April 1840.

  3 Samuel Tredwell Sawyer had sent Louisa to the family of James Iredell Tredwell (1799-1846) and his wife Mary Bonner Blount Tredwell. During the 1840s he held a series of different jobs, including employment as an optician and as a clerk in the Brooklyn customs house. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 112, 303.

  CHAPTER XXIX: Preparations for Escape

  1 According to the account of William Still of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, based on the testimony of fugitives, concealment was a fairly common stratagem in preparation for escape. Still noted two other women from Edenton, North Carolina, who had hidden themselves in attempts to evade their masters’ sexual demands. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 252-254, 261-265.

  CHAPTER XXX: Northward Bound

  1 The fare from Edenton to Philadelphia would have been about $100, plus whatever the captain would have charged for taking on fugitives. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 315.

  2 According to Jean Fagan Yellin (ed., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987], 282),
Jacobs and her friend arrived in Philadelphia in the third week of June 1842.

  CHAPTER XXXI: Incidents in Philadelphia

  1 According to Jean Fagan Yellin (ed., Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987], 282), a levy is a unit of money of account used in Philadelphia and Alexandria, equal to about eleven cents.

  2 The Reverend Jeremiah Durham also worked as a carter (or teamster). See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents, 282. Bethel church refers to the Mother Church of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

  3 The “cars” are the interurban streetcars that linked cities during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

  4 Racial segregation was a common practice in Northern railroads, where African Americans, including Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Ida B. Wells, routinely encountered humiliating, sometimes violent mistreatment.