Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Using the pseudonym Linda Brent, Harriet Jacobs wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, to alert Northern white women to the dangers faced by enslaved African American women in the South. The narrative details her experience of slavery, emphasizing the sexual harassment she experienced working in the home of Dr. Flint (Dr. James Norcom). Because Linda Brent's Aunt Martha (Molly Horniblow, Jacobs' grandmother) was well known and respected in the communityÐ'--and lived nearbyÐ'--Flint was afraid to force himself on Linda where it might be discovered and relayed to the rest of the community. When he tried to secretly sell Aunt Martha to eliminate her interference, she forced him to do it at public auction; he was humiliated and her freedom was purchased by one of her many admirers. Flint then began building a cottage outside of town where he planned to establish Linda as his concubine. Linda realized that her Aunt Martha's position in the community would not protect her if she was in isolation. She knew that as an enslaved woman it was inevitable that she would bear children; she did not wish Flint to have them as a hold over her, or her over them. She had already seen Flint sell other children that he had fathered. Linda made a decision to defy convention and began a sexual relationship with a neighboring lawyer, Mr. Sands (Samuel Tredwell Sawyer), who she knew to be attracted to her. She had two children by him, a daughter, Ellen (Louisa Matilda Jacobs) and a son, Benny (Joseph Jacobs). Linda managed to outwit Flint for years until she was finally forced to flee. She did not want to leave her children; she was hidden in the homes of sympathetic white women until a small addition was added to her grandmother's house. This addition included a small attic space 7 ft. X 9 ft. X 3 ft. high. Linda lived there for seven years. From this "garret" she was able to convince Flint that she had fled North and managed to secretly negotiate the sale of her children to their father. In one of her infrequent excursions outside confinement she was nearly discovered by an unreliable neighboring servant and was finally forced to go North. Linda spent the next several years working with the abolitionist movement, and working to be reunited with her children, which she eventually accomplished. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made her susceptible to capture and re-enslavement. Both her former master and, after his death, his daughter,