In chapter 37 of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs describes a visit to England. She says that when she arrived in London, she felt as though a a great millstone had been lifted from her breast as, for the first time, she experienced "the delightful consciousness of pure, unadulterated freedom."

Jacobs had sailed from New York, where she was already a free woman, though she was haunted by the fear that Dr. and Mrs. Flint would try to enslave her again. However, it was not even this concern that made her feel she had greater freedom in England. She felt herself to be free because, for the first time, she was in a country where slavery did not exist.

When, in chapter 41, Jacobs's freedom is purchased for her, she has mixed feelings about the transaction. She is relieved to be free and grateful for the help she has received from her friends in the North but is also disgusted at the idea of having freedom conferred on her by a piece of paper rather than as the natural right of a human being. The longer her own experience of freedom, the more Jacobs comes to believe that it means living in a free society in which everyone is free. The institution of slavery, the idea that people can be bought and sold, constrains the freedom of everyone.