Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

By:Stephanie Hardyway

A woman by the name of Harriet Jacobs starts her book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by explaining why she decided to write her autobiography. She states her reasoning behind making her life public through her autobiography was because she felt it would help the antislavery movement. She gives vivid description throughout the book, and gives her readers insight on what she was thinking as well as the details of every story. However, to keep things somewhat private, Jacobs uses different names for all of her characters.

Jacobs, who is known as Linda in her book, starts the autobiography by saying that she lived in a happy home with both parents, and that she never knew she was a slave until she turned six (when her mother died). She is then sent to live with her mother’s mistress and learns to read and actually enjoys doing work for her new mistress, because she treats Jacobs very well. However, it didn’t last forever because when Jacobs was nearly twelve years old, her mistress died, and so she was sent to be the slave of her mistress’s niece (a five year old girl). For the first time Linda got to see what is was like to be treated bad and neglected by her masters. Dr. Flint, the father, even started to pursue Linda by having a sexual relationship with her. This definitely caused problems between Jacobs and her mistress, because it caused her mistress to be angry and jealous of the sexual relationship that was going on in her home.

As if it were going to help stop the situation, Mrs. Flint tells Jacobs that she was going to spend every moment with her to make sure nothing else would happen. Of course nothing changed and Dr. Flint was starting to threaten her so she agreed to have an affair with a white neighbor by the name of Mr. Sands. She thought by sleeping with Mr. Sands Dr. Flint would be disgusted with her and give her away or let her go, but instead he did the exact opposite. As soon as he finds out that she is pregnant with Mr. Sands baby, Dr. Flint makes her work on the plantation to change her attitude and make her regret what she did. Her plan had failed because he now kept a tighter hold on her. As if one child by Mr. Sands wasn’t enough, she ended up pregnant by him again. The names of her kids were Benny and Ellen.

Jacobs couldn’t bear being treated so poorly as a slave, so she made a plan to fool Dr. Flint by making him think that she had escaped to the north, but instead she was really going to be hiding in her grandmother’s attic. She hoped that if she did this he would send her kids up north, instead of risk them running away, so that they could be free. Dr. Flint ends up selling the kids to a slave trader who was secretly representing Mr. Sands. Mr. Sands promises to free them, but as time goes on he gets married and takes Ellen with him to Washington D.C. At this point Jacobs is still in hiding and since she feared that her kids would never be free and might be sold to another slave trader, she planned to get her kids and take them up north. It becomes too risky to come out of hiding since Dr. Flint is starting to look for her, so her plan has to be put on hold for a little bit.

After over seven years in the attic Jacobs finally decided to escape to the north. Her son Benny stays behind with Aunt Martha (the grandmother) and when Jacobs finally gets up north she finally reunites with Ellen. She finds out that Ellen is still living in a life of slavery to Mr. Sands’ cousin Mrs. Hobbs. Jacobs finds work as a nursemaid for a family that lived in New York, The Bruce’s and they treat her nicely. Dr. Flint has still not ceased his hunt for her, so she leaves to Boston so that he wouldn’t find her. She is reunited with her son there and spends a few years there until Mrs. Bruce dies. She then goes to England for a while to care for Mrs. Bruce’s daughter.

For the first time Jacobs got to experience what it was like to be free and not have to deal with racial prejudice. She liked the way people treated each other in England, but she did return back to Boston and finds out that Mr. Bruce has remarried and has a new baby. She is asked to be the nurse of the baby and at first she is hesitant because of the Jim Crow Laws, but then she decides to take the job. Around this time we find out that Dr. Flint died, but his daughter Emily, the girl who owned Jacobs when she was five, continued in her father’s footsteps searching for her.

Emily and her husband arrive in New York with the intent of capturing Jacobs, but she made sure to go into hiding again that way she wouldn’t have to be under their captivity. The new Mrs. Bruce offers to buy Jacobs’ freedom, but she was unwilling to do this, because she wasn’t alright with being bought and sold again, but Mrs. Bruce buys her anyway. At first she was furious with the decision and of course hated the slave system, but she never held any grudges over Mrs. Bruce, and even states that she is actually very grateful. The book ends with Jacobs finally being free and soon after her grandmother dies. Finally free, she decides to move back with the Bruce’s and keeps in mind all the memories of her grandmother who helped her survive through all of the struggling times of her life.

This autobiography gave me insight on what it was like to be a slave around the time of her life. I learned that it wasn’t uncommon for slaves to be raped, and that even though some slave owners were mean there were some that were nice. In this book I got to see that not only was freedom only obtained through letters for Jacobs, but also that the black community had such a tight bond because they had to look out for each other, and how black women could learn to trust white women. Jacobs’ life was full of hard times and gruesome stories, but I thought her book was impacting and very important to have out. I would definitely recommend this book to others who want to know a little more about the slavery system and what it was really like.