Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

“ . . . liberty is more valuable than life.”

An unfortunate part of American history is that of slavery.  I’ve always been inspired by Founders who set up a system with an eye toward slavery’s elimination and then a president in Abraham Lincoln who was willing to stake both himself and the country on slavery’s elimination.  Every since I saw the movie Glory in junior high (they released an edited version especially for showing in schools), I’ve appreciated the blacks who risked it all and more to fight against slavery, both as soldiers and as abolitionists or runaways or simply doing what they could to sabotage the system, much as those in occupied territory might do in a war when there weren’t other options available to them.  There are many inspiring stories.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, whose pen name was Linda Brent (available for free from Google Books) is an autobiographical account of Jacobs’ life from her time as a little girl to later in life when she is an adult with adult children of her own.  She describes her life and the life of those around her, like her parents, grandmother, and siblings.  The reader also learns about the immediate household of her owner.  As she works in the house, the reader does not learn much about the lives of slaves who worked in the fields on plantations.  While Jacobs herself undergoes very little physical abuse, she describes plenty that happened to family members and acquaintances.  She did, unfortunately, receive a lot of unwanted sexual advances from her master, which she notes was a very real experience for many, if not most, female slaves.  While it seems she avoided being raped, many others were not as fortunate.  Eventually, Jacobs has children by her own choice by another white man.  That causes some awkwardness, but what it really does is cement her desire to not be a slave anymore.  She realizes that, as slaves, her children have very little to look forward to.  With this in mind, she forms and executes a plan to run away.  She does this with a little help along the way by various friends and family and by avoiding capture by hiding in swamps, on boats, and, eventually, in the attic of her grandmother’s house.  She stays there, rarely coming out, for the next seven years.  This allowed her to see her children, who lived with her grandmother.  It also made for some close calls since her master was always hoping to re-capture her.  Eventually, she secured a way to the North and lived the rest of her life there, eventually being reunited with her two children.  Nothing was simple, though, and even getting her kids with her was difficult.  Life was made more difficult by the fugitive slave law, but Jacobs had a few extremely kind and understanding people in her life that helped her along at many dangerous turns.

The book was really interesting.  I thought it presented a lot of information about the life of slaves that maybe not everyone thinks about.  Jacobs talked a lot about how slave families were ripped apart.  She talked about the sexual abuse and harassment that was widespread in the South, yet often swept under the rug by what was considered to be polite society.  She talked about the role of religion in slaves’ lives; most were religious in spite of the gross hypocrisy displayed by the whites around them.  Like so many similar stories, Jacobs displayed an incredible resiliency and deep will to fight for what was right.  She and others risked their lives for freedom.  Her story is one that is well worth remembering because it so well demonstrates the value of freedom and how we need to protect it.

This work, including all text, photographs, and other original work, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 License and is copyrighted © MMXIV John Pruess.