Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Written by Herself

Harriet Jacobs 1861

This life story follows an enslaved woman's struggle to escape abuse and secure freedom for herself and her children. She spends nearly seven years hidden in a cramped attic near her children.

306 pages 5h 56m reading time

One of the most important slave narratives ever written, and one of the first by a woman in the United States.
Argues that slavery was especially cruel to women, who faced sexual abuse from enslavers and had no way to protect themselves or their children.
Asks white Northern women to see enslaved mothers as women like themselves, and to judge them by different rules than those who were free to choose.
Became a core text of Black women's writing and of the study of slavery in American schools and universities.
Shaped how historians understand slavery by bringing the lives of enslaved women, often left out of other accounts, into the center of the story.

Doubted for over a century

Many scholars thought a white writer made it up, until Jean Fagan Yellin proved Jacobs wrote it in 1981.
Written at night in secret

Jacobs wrote it in stolen hours while working as a nanny, after long days of housework.
Published under a false name

She called herself Linda Brent and changed every name to protect people still living.
Printed when publishers failed

After a publisher went bankrupt, Jacobs bought the printing plates and had the book printed herself.