Jacobs, Harriet A.
Jacobs, Harriet A.( 1813–97),memoirist. Born in slavery in North Carolina, Jacobs wrote a narrative of her life under the pseudonym Linda Brent. It was published in 1861 as Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself. But the excellent account remained obscure until a new edition in 1987 found a receptive African-American and feminist audience. The narrative details the sexual exploitation that was the nightmare of all slave women. To escape the lechery of a white master she became the lover of another white man and bore him two children. He promised her emancipation, but reneged and threatened her life. She hid for seven years in a small space in her grandmother's house, able to see but not speak to her children. She and the children escaped to the North in 1842, but for years after lived in fear of being returned.
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