Harriet E. Wilson’s Followers (28)

Harriet E. Wilson

Born

in Milford, New Hampshire, The United States

March 15, 1825

Died

June 28, 1900

Genre

Biographies & Memoirs, Literature & Fiction

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Traditionally considered the first female African-American novelist as well as the first African American of any gender to publish a novel on the North American continent. Her novel Our Nig was published in 1859 and rediscovered in 1982.

The daughter of Joshua Green, an African-American "hooper of barrels", and Margaret Ann (or Adams) Smith, a washerwoman of Irish ancestry. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother abandoned her at the farm of Nehemiah Hayward Jr., a well-to-do Milford farmer. As an orphan, Adams was made an indentured servant to the Hayward family, a customary way for society to arrange support at the time. In exchange for her labor, the child would receive room, board and training in life skills, or that was Traditionally considered the first female African-American novelist as well as the first African American of any gender to publish a novel on the North American continent. Her novel Our Nig was published in 1859 and rediscovered in 1982.

The daughter of Joshua Green, an African-American "hooper of barrels", and Margaret Ann (or Adams) Smith, a washerwoman of Irish ancestry. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother abandoned her at the farm of Nehemiah Hayward Jr., a well-to-do Milford farmer. As an orphan, Adams was made an indentured servant to the Hayward family, a customary way for society to arrange support at the time. In exchange for her labor, the child would receive room, board and training in life skills, or that was the ideal.

Documentary research undertaken by P. Gabrielle Foreman and Reginald H. Pitts convinced them that the Hayward family were the basis of the "Bellmont" family depicted in "Our Nig". (This was the family who held the young "Frado" in indentured servitude, abusing her physically and mentally from the age of six to eighteen. Their material was incorporated in supporting sections of the 2004 edition of Our Nig.)

After the end of her indenture, Hattie Adams (as she was then known), worked as a house servant and a seamstress in households in southern New Hampshire and in central and western Massachusetts. She married Thomas Wilson in Milford on October 6, 1851. Thomas Wilson had been traveling around New England giving lectures based on his life as an escaped slave, when he met Hattie Adams. Although he continued to periodically lecture in churches and town squares, he soon confided to her that he was never in bondage ("he had never seen the South") and that his "illiterate harangues were humbugs for hungry abolitionists" (these quotes are from page 68 of "Our Nig".)

Wilson abandoned Harriet soon after they married. Pregnant and ill, Harriet Wilson was sent to the Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Poor Farm in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where her only son, George Mason Wilson, was born. His probable birth date was June 15, 1852. Soon after George's birth, Thomas Wilson reappeared in her life and took her and her son away from the Poor Farm. Thomas Wilson returned to sea and died soon after. Harriet Wilson returned her son to the care of the Poor Farm.

She then moved to Boston, Massachusetts to seek a living for herself and her son. While in Boston, Harriet Wilson wrote Our Nig. On August 18, 1859, she copyrighted it, and a copy of the novel was deposited in the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts. On September 5, 1859, the novel was published by George C. Rand and Avery, a publishing firm in Boston.

On February 16, 1860, her son George died in Milford at the Poor Farm, at the age of seven. In 1863, Harriet Wilson appeared on the "Report of the Overseers of the Poor" for the town of Milford.

After 1863, Harriet Wilson's whereabouts were unknown until 1867, when she was listed in the Boston Spiritualist newspaper Banner of Light as living in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. She subsequently moved across the Charles River to the city of Boston where she became known in Spiritualist circles as "the colored medium."

On September 29, 1870, Harriet Wilson married John Gallatin Robinson in Boston, Massachusetts. Robinson, an apothecary, was a native of Canada, having been born in Sherbrooke, Quebec. Robinson was of English and German ancestry; he was also almost eighteen years Harriet Wilson's junior. They resided at 46 Carver Street between 1870 and 1877 when they appear to have separated. City directories after that date show both Wilson and Robinson in separate lodgings in Boston's South End. No record has been found of a divorce, but divorces were infrequent.

From 1867 to 1897, Mrs. Hattie E. Wilson was listed in the Banner of Light as a trance reader and lecturer. She was active in the local Spiritualist community, and she would give "lec ...more

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Harriet E. Wilson’s books

Average rating: 3.75 · 3,319 ratings · 247 reviews · 19 distinct works • Similar authors

	Our Nig or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black by Harriet E. Wilson, P. Gabrielle Foreman (Editor), Reginald Pitts (Editor) 3.75 avg rating — 3,246 ratings — published 1859 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Three Classic African-American Novels: The Heroic Slave; Clotel; Our Nig by Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Harriet E. Wilson 3.76 avg rating — 71 ratings — published 1990 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Anthology of African American Literature by William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois 4.42 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2010 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Soul of a Woman really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1997	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, In A Two-Story White House, by Harriet E. Wilson, Unknown Author liked it 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Our Nig: Or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-Story White House, North. Showing That Slavery’s Shadows Fall Even There 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Our Nig: Or Sketches From the Life of a Free Black in a Two-Story White House, North 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Our Nig 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black by Harriet E. Wilson, Unknown Author 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Harriet E. Wilson…

Quotes by Harriet E. Wilson (?)

“There she lived for years, hugging her wrongs, but making no effort to escape.”
― Harriet E Wilson

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April 2021 Old School Poll

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, 244 pages, 1862

78 votes, 33.5%

Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy, 562 pages, 1899

35 votes, 15.0%

Nana by Émile Zola, 473 pages, 1880

33 votes, 14.2%

The Bhagavad Gita by Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, 160 pages, -400

26 votes, 11.2%

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, 589 pages, 1894

25 votes, 10.7%

The Major Works: Including Songs and Sonnets and Sermons by John Donne 528 pages, between 1572-1631

20 votes, 8.6%

Our Nig by Harriet E. Wilson, 176 pages, 1859

16 votes, 6.9%

233 total votes

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Harriet E. Wilson’s Followers (28)

Harriet E. Wilson

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