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Harriet Jacobs

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Also known as Harriet Ann Jacobs, Harriet A. Jacobs, Linda Brent

American slave, writer, and abolitionist (1815-1897)

Person · Open Library

Works
15

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
Belgium
Active from
1946-10-30
belgian conductorbelgian countertenorclassicalconductorcountertenor

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
50
Total plays
818

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Harriet+Jacobs">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Harriet Jacobs

Quotes

  • We are passing through times that will secure for us a higher and nobler celebration. American gold will never secure freedom equal rights and justice to our race. No! before these can come American slavery must be crushed, and its foul stain wiped from the Nation[‘]s escutcheon.
  • Notwithstanding my grandmother's long and faithful service to her owners, not one of her children escaped the auction block. These God-breathing machines are no more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant, or the horses they tend.
  • The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition. My master was, to my knowledge, the father of eleven slaves. But did the mothers dare to tell who was the father of their children? Did the other slaves dare to allude to it, except in whispers among themselves? No, indeed! They knew too well the terrible consequences.
  • O virtuous reader! You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of a chattel, entirely subject to the will of another. You never exhausted your ingenuity in avoiding the snares, and eluding the power of a hated tyrant; you never shuddered at the sound of his footsteps, and trembled within hearing of his voice.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
1813 or 1815, Edenton, North Carolina , U.S.
Died
( 1897-03-07 ) March 7, 1897 (aged 84), Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting place
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Occupation
Writer nanny relief worker
Genre
Autobiography
Notable works
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
Children
Joseph and Louisa
Relatives
John S. Jacobs (brother)

via Wikipedia infobox

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Harriet Jacobs (1813 or 1815 – March 7, 1897) was an African-American abolitionist and writer whose autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent , is now considered an "American classic".

Born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, she was sexually harassed by her enslaver. When he threatened to sell her children if she did not submit to his desire, she hid in a tiny crawl space under the roof of her grandmother's house, so low she could not stand up in it. After staying there for seven years, she finally managed to escape to the free North, where she was reunited with her children Joseph and Louisa Matilda and her brother John S. Jacobs. She found work as a nanny and got into contact with abolitionist and feminist reformers. Even in New York City, her freedom was in danger until her employer was able to pay off her legal owner.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Harriet Jacobs” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.