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Harriet Ann Jacobs Biography

Harriet Ann Jacobs

Harriet Ann Jacobs (February 11, 1813 – March 7, 1897) was an African-American writer who escaped from slavery and was later freed. She became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Jacobs wrote an autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, first serialized in a newspaper and published as a book in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent. It was a reworking of the genres of slave narrative and sentimental novel, and was one of the first books to address the struggle for freedom by female slaves, explore their struggles with sexual harassment and abuse, and their effort to protect their roles as women and mothers.

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Harriet Ann Jacobs Quotes

Death is better than slavery.

Death, Slavery

There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment.

Akin, Attachment, Except, Kindness, Lover, Slave Girl

When they told me my new-born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.

Girl, Heart, Men, Terrible, Babe

For years, my master had done his utmost to pollute my mind with foul images, and to destroy the pure principles inculcated by my grandmother, and the good mistress of my childhood

Childhood, Destroy, Grandmother, Images, Years

Could you have seen that mother clinging to her child, when they fastened the irons upon his wrists; could you have heard her heart-rending groans, and seen her bloodshot eyes wander wildly from face to face, vainly pleading for mercy; could you have witnessed that scene as I saw it, you would exclaim, Slavery is damnable!

Children, Eye, Irons, Mother, Witnessed, Wrists

There is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south. If a man goes to the communion table, and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious.

Blood, Communion, Difference, Men, Religious, Treasury

No pen can give an adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery.

Adequate, Giving, Literature, Pen, Produced, Slavery

DURING the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family, I was accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress

Children, Years, Mistress, Share, Service

Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.

Community, Literature, Cruelty, Contagious, Communities, Uncivilized

But I now entered on my fifteenth year - a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import

Ear, Girl, Ignorant, Import, Years

Dr. Flint had sworn that he would make me suffer, to my last day, for this new crime against him, as he called it; and as long as he had me in his power he kept his word

Against, Flint, Long, New Day, Suffering, Sworn

Lives that flash in sunshine, and lives that are born in tears, receive their hue from circumstances.

Born, Hue, Receive, Sunshine, Tears

The slave child had no thought for the morrow; but there came that blight, which too surely waits on every human being born to be a chattel.

Born, Chattel, Children, Human, Slave Girl, Waiting

I was ordered to go for flowers, that my mistress's house might be decorated for an evening party. I spent the day gathering flowers and weaving them into festoons, while the dead body of my father was lying within a mile of me. What cared my owners for that? he was merely a piece of property. Moreover, they thought he had spoiled his children, by teaching them to feel that they were human beings. This was blasphemous doctrine for a slave to teach; presumptuous in him, and dangerous to the masters.

Children, Father, Lying, Mile, Owners, Spoiled

When my babe was born, they said it was premature. It weighed only four pounds; but God let it live.

Born, Four, God, Literature, Pounds

When I was nearly twelve years old, my kind mistress sickened and died.

Kind, Mistress, Nearly, Twelve, Years

The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition.

Concealed, Like, Literature, Secret, Secrets, Slavery

If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the year.

Jail, Master, Running, Slave, Years

I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.

Cruel, Daughter, Daughters, Father, Son, Whites

Notwithstanding my grandmother's long and faithful service to her owners, not one of her children escaped the auction block. These God-breathing machines are no more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant, or the horses they tend.

Block, Children, Cotton, Horse, Horses, Tend

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