Harriet Ann Jacobs, Author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
By Larrisa Pope | On February 15, 2019 | Updated March 23, 2026 | Comments (0)
Harriet Ann Jacobs (February 11, 1813 – March 7, 1897) chronicled her life under enslavement in North Carolina and the constant sexual harassment by a prominent doctor.
She is alternately referred to as Harriet A. Jacobs (or simply Harriet Jacobs) and is today best known as the author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, an autobiographical narrative published privately in 1861.
Raised in Edenton, North Carolina, Harriet and her brother John were born into enslavement under the principle of partus sequitur ventrem (that which is brought forth follows the womb). This meant they were born enslaved because their mother was. However, it wasn’t until Jacobs turned six that she even learned she was an enslaved person.
“Though we were all slaves, I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed I was a piece of merchandise, trusted to them for safe keeping…”
It was when Jacobs was six that her mother died. According to the New Bedford Historical Society:
“Her maternal grandmother, Molly Horniblow, was emancipated by her mistress during the American Revolution, sold back into slavery as a prize of war, and was re-emancipated in 1828. When Harriet’s mother died in 1819, the six-year-old girl was taken into the home of her mistress, Margaret Horniblow, who taught her how to read and write.
Harriet was very fond of Miss Horniblow and expected to be emancipated. Instead, when Miss Horniblow died in 1825, she willed Harriet to her three-year old niece, Mary Matilda Norcom. After this, she and her brother were sent to live with her mother’s enslaver and mistress, Margaret Horniblow. Here she learned to read, write, and sew, and had a relatively happy life until Horniblow’s death in 1825.”
In other words, Jacobs’ official enslaver was a child, but since Mary Matilda was so young, Harriet was under the rule of the little girl’s father, Dr. James Norcom.
Harriet Jacobs’ escape to freedom
Upon turning fourteen or so, Jacobs had to fend off unwanted sexual advances from Dr. Norcom, who seemed to become rather obsessed with her. His wife was incredibly jealous, the typical attitude of wives toward their husbands’ enslaved mistresses.
Demonstrating her streak of rebellion and personal agency, Jacobs found love with a white lawyer in town, with whom she had two children. In an act of retaliation, Dr. Norcom sent Jacobs to one of his plantations, which was overseen by one of his adult sons.
Fearing that Norcom would send her children to the plantation as well, Harriet escaped and went into hiding before he had the chance to do so. She hid in a cramped space in her grandmother’s front porch roof for seven years — between 1835 and 1842. She continually strove to get Norcom to sell her children to their father, something that never happened.
She remained hidden in order to escape capture by Dr. Norcom who continuously tried to re-enslave her until her freedom was bought in 1852.
Jacobs worked as a nursemaid for the family of abolitionist Nathaniel Parker Willis and his wife, Cornelia Grinnell Willis. After theyy bought Harriet’s freedom, the journey to reunite with her children began. Traveling between New York and Boston over the next few years finally gave her that reunion she had dreamed of for years.
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This is the only known photograph of Jacaobs,
taken in her later years
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
In her years of traveling between Boston and New York, Jacobs became active in a group of anti-slavery feminists. Here is where she met Amy Kirby Post, who encourage her to write her life story.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was the first book to centered their struggles with sexual abuse and harassment experienced by enslaved females. Jacobs emphasized the personhood of enslaved females — they too were women and mothers, and valued the same things that white woman did — love, freedom from fear, and security.
After repeated rejections, Jacobs published the book privately, an impressive feat for any woman of that era, let alone one that had spent years in hiding and seeking freedom.
Though Incidents is an autobiography, it reads like a novel. Jacobs changed all the real names, including her own — as the first-person narrator, she was “Linda Brent.” But Jacobs wanted to make sure that readers understood that the book was wholly based on her own experiences. In the Preface to the book she wrote:
“Reader, be assured this narrative is no fiction. I am aware that some of my adventures may seem incredible; but they are, nevertheless, strictly true. I have not exaggerated the wrongs inflicted by Slavery; on the contrary, my descriptions fall far short of the facts. I have concealed the names of places, and given persons fictitious names. I had no motive for secrecy on my own account, but I deemed it kind and considerate towards others to pursue this course …”
Lydia Maria Child, then a prominent author and social reformer, donated her services as an editor and vouched for the narrative’s veracity. The book was finally published in 1861. Jacobs wrote in the preface:
“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. May the blessing of God rest on this imperfect effort in behalf of my persecuted people!”
Although Incidents initially received favorable reviews, it was quickly forgotten, having rolled off the press just as the Civil War began. In addition, readers were confused as to the identity of author was due to the pseudonym. This resulted in many people — the public and scholars alike — assuming it was fictitious. It came to be assumed that it was a novel written by an anonymous white author.
The identity of the true author wasn’t revealed until nearly a century later, when Jean Fagan Yellin oversaw the republication of a new edition of the book in 1987. By then, a trove of evidence, mainly in the form of correspondence, confirmed that Jacobs was the author of Incidents — as she expressed it, “by herself.”
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet A. Jacobs
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The later years of Harriet A. Jacobs
Throughout the years of the Civil War, Jacobs lived in Washington D.C., where she assisted contrabands (freedom seekers), nursed Black troops back to health, and taught freedmen how to read and write with her daughter Louisa. She helped organize, feed, and shelter refugees from enslavement while trying to recruit more relief workers.
She went on to set up schools run by the community, which eventually led to one being named in her honor as “The Jacobs Free School.” She also contributed to organizing Black communities, building churches, hospitals, and homes for newly freed people.
In her later years Jacobs wound down her remarkable activities but continued to support her daughter in the fight for Black education, even traveling to London together to raise funds for the cause.
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Contributed by Larrisa Pope, a 2019 SUNY New Paltz graduate with a degree in International Business and Public Relations. She is passionate about keeping the legacies of iconic female authors alive.
More about Harriet Ann Jacobs
On this site
Biographies
- Harriet Jacobs: A Life by Jean Fagan Yellin (2004)
More Information
Read and Listen
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl on Project Gutenberg
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl on LibriVox
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