Harriet Jacobs s Life Of A Slave - 1896 Words

Harriet Jacobs was born a slave herself in Edenton, North Carolina and was one of the first women to write a slave narrative in the United States of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). It was to address the white women of the North and thousands of â€Å"Slave mothers that are still in bondage in the South† (Jacobs 126). Jacobs tells her life of twenty-seven years in slavery in-depth life as a slave, and the choices she made to gain freedom for herself and her children. She writes a story about her families and masks them as well as her name as â€Å"Linda Brent† in her novel to protect herself in a sense as well as some of the important places in town. Harriet shows in her story the fights and sexual abuse that she faced as a slave on†¦show more content†¦Although as the females’ age, their household tasks and other responsibilities would increase greatly. As Jacobs grew older in Dr. Flint’s family she was accustomed to share things with the children of the mistress. Women of slavery during this time would be frequently called to even nurse their mistresses children so that even the mother was not disturbed in her sleep by her own child. Jacobs herself speaks of her Aunt Nancy in the novel who did this exact thing for many years, and it was obvious of aspects of life and what the slave had to do with taking the needs of the white child versus her own child. Jacobs was in a sense employed as a night-nurse to Mrs. Flint s children rather than her own children at night. This broke Jacobs mentally, physically, and emotionally to where finally Dr. Flint made it clear that it was nearly impossible she could be a mother of any living child of her own. This comes straight from her book and shows an almost perfect example of the respect that would be given to such women, which in reality is absolutely none. The Flint s trusted Jacobs to ultimately raise their children and once she reached about fifteen is when things start to change with her master telling her such explicit