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Harriet Ann Jacobs

Born

in Edenton, NC, The United States

January 01, 1813

Died

March 07, 1897

Genre

Biographies & Memoirs, History

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Harriet Ann Jacobs, usually wrote under the name Harriet Jacobs but also used the pseudonym Linda Brent.

Harriet was born in Edenton, North Carolina to Daniel Jacobs and Delilah. Her father was a mulatto carpenter and slave owned by Dr. Andrew Knox. Her mother was a mulatto slave owned by John Horniblow, a tavern owner. Harriet inherited the status of both her parents as a slave by birth. She was raised by Delilah until the latter died around 1819. She then was raised by her mother's mistress, Margaret Horniblow, who taught her how to sew, read, and write.

In 1823, Margaret Horniblow died, and Harriet was willed to Horniblow's niece, Mary Matilda Norcom, whose father, Dr. James Norcom, became her new master. She and her brother John went to Harriet Ann Jacobs, usually wrote under the name Harriet Jacobs but also used the pseudonym Linda Brent.

Harriet was born in Edenton, North Carolina to Daniel Jacobs and Delilah. Her father was a mulatto carpenter and slave owned by Dr. Andrew Knox. Her mother was a mulatto slave owned by John Horniblow, a tavern owner. Harriet inherited the status of both her parents as a slave by birth. She was raised by Delilah until the latter died around 1819. She then was raised by her mother's mistress, Margaret Horniblow, who taught her how to sew, read, and write.

In 1823, Margaret Horniblow died, and Harriet was willed to Horniblow's niece, Mary Matilda Norcom, whose father, Dr. James Norcom, became her new master. She and her brother John went to live with the Norcoms in Edenton. Norcom subjected her to sexual harassment for nearly a decade. He refused to allow her to marry any other man, regardless of status, and pressured her to become his concubine and to live in a small house built for her just outside the town. Attempting to deflect Norcom’s advances, she became involved with a consensual lover, Samuel Sawyer, a free white man and a lawyer who eventually became a Senator. She and Sawyer were parents to two children, Joseph and Louisa Matilda (named Benny and Ellen in the book), also owned by Norcom. Harriet reported that Norcom threatened to sell her children if she refused his sexual advances. She then moved to her grandmother’s house, and was allowed to stay there because Norcom’s jealous wife would no longer allow her to live in the Norcom house.

By 1835, her domestic situation had become unbearable; her lack of cooperation prompted Norcom to send her to work on a plantation in Auburn. Upon finding out that Norcom planned to send her children into labor as well, she decided to escape. She reasoned that with her gone, Norcom would deem her children a nuisance and would sell them. First she found shelter at neighbors’ homes before returning to her grandmother’s house. For nearly seven years, she lived in a small crawlspace in her grandmother's attic, through periods of extreme heat and cold, and she spent the time practicing her reading and writing.

After Norcom sold Harriet's brother John and her two children to a slave trader, Sawyer purchased them and brought them to live with Harriet's grandmother. Sawyer was elected to Congress in 1837, and took John with him during travels in the North. John eventually escaped in 1838. Harriet’s daughter Louisa was summoned to take John’s place, before she was sent to live with Sawyer’s cousins in New York City.

Aided by the Vigilant Committee, Harriet escaped by boat to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She started living as a free woman and later moved to New York City in 1842. She found employment there as a nursemaid. Her most notable employer was the abolitionist Nathaniel Parker Willis. She reunited briefly with her daughter in Brooklyn. When she learned that Norcom planned to come to New York searching for her, she retreated to Boston, where her brother was staying. She made arrangements for her son in Edenton to be sent to Boston, and she soon returned to New York.

Reward noticed issued for the return of Harriet JacobsIn October 1844, she revealed to Mary Willis, wife of Nathaniel, that she was an escaped slave. To avoid further endangerment, she and her daughter were granted escape to Boston again, where Harriet briefly worked as a seamstress. The following spring, Mary Willis died, and Harriet returned to Nathaniel Willis to care for his daughter.

By 1849, Harriet had taken residence in Rochester, New York, where much abolitionist work took place. She befriended Amy Post, who suggested she write about her life as a slave. The next year she fled to Massachusetts yet again, after Norcom’s daughter, Mary, and Mary’s husband, Daniel Messmore, attempted to reclaim Harriet and her children, on the basis that Mary had inherited Harriet, and ...more

Combine Editions
Harriet Ann Jacobs’s books

Average rating: 4.19 · 68,942 ratings · 4,343 reviews · 105 distinct works • Similar authors

	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 4.18 avg rating — 59,762 ratings — published 1861 — 1256 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
	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl & Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Two Memoirs of Notable African-Americans During the Nineteenth Century by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Frederick Douglass 4.48 avg rating — 48 ratings — 4 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 Marrow of Tradition and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: - The Best Black Authors Of All Time by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Charles W. Chesnutt 4.67 avg rating — 12 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
	Silent No More by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Viveca Batiste (Cover) 4.50 avg rating — 10 ratings — 2 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
	Harriet Jacobs: Critical Perspectives Past and Present by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Kwame Anthony Appiah (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor) 4.20 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 1994 — 2 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
	White Fragility: Race, Racism and the Future of Black Lives Matter in America by Harriet Ann Jacobs, W.E.B. Du Bois, Solomon Northup 4.67 avg rating — 9 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
	Early African American Classics (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2008	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
	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl VOL 2: Super Large Print Edition Specially Designed for Low Vision Readers with a Giant Easy to Read Font really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 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
	Right Circles 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
	Black Holocaust (Translated & Annotated) English-Korean by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Alexander Falconbridge, Olaudah Equiano 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 Ann Jacobs…

Quotes by Harriet Ann Jacobs (?)

“Reader, did you ever hate? I hope not. I never did but once; and I trust I never shall again. Somebody has called it "the atmosphere of hell"; and I believe it is so.”
― Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

62 likes

“There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment”
― Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

tags: freedom, kindness, love, slavery

41 likes

“There are wrongs which even the grave does not bury.”
― Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself

32 likes

See all Harriet Ann Jacobs's quotes »

Polls

February 2018 Old School Poll

Macbeth by William Shakespeare 1606, 249 pages

68 votes, 19.6%

Silas Marner by George Eliot 1861, 262 pages

47 votes, 13.5%

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle 1883, 400 pages

36 votes, 10.4%

Shirley by Charlotte Brontë 1849, 624 pages

35 votes, 10.1%

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs 1861, 176 pages

25 votes, 7.2%

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy 1886, 445 pages

24 votes, 6.9%

Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain 1893, 160 pages

22 votes, 6.3%

Evelina by Fanny Burney 1778, 455 pages

20 votes, 5.8%

The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson 1888, 242 pages

19 votes, 5.5%

Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert 1869, 460 pages

15 votes, 4.3%

The Masterpiece by Émile Zola 1886, 464 pages

12 votes, 3.5%

Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy 1899, 562 pages

11 votes, 3.2%

Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell 1863, 484 pages

8 votes, 2.3%

The Morgesons by Elizabeth Stoddard 1862, 304 pages

5 votes, 1.4%

347 total votes

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