She worked with organizations that were involved in the struggle for womens rights during the civil war, after the civil war. But she was also very critical of white sufficient rah gists and often made the point they did not recognize the way race had created a distinct set of obstacles for black women. And i think somebody in our debate made exactly that point in our discussion. Were going to talk about that in a couple of weeks. Now i want to talk about jacobs herself. The narrative that she composed. I think as you know she wrote that narrative under the name linda brent. She also changed the names of other people that were also in that account. She was born not as linda brent but as Harriet Jacobs in edenton, North Carolina in 1813. Her parents were slaves. But they were also, and i think you get a sense of this when she describes her childhood. Her parents were skilled workers, which meant that especially her father had the opportunity to hire out their time and also to live somewhat independently from the slaveholders. Her father was a carpenter. His independence meant he could have his children live at home with him, his children being harriet and her brother john, who was referred to as william in the narrative. He also residing close to them was harriets maternal grandmother. Her name was molly hornablow. I think shes aunt martha in the book. But her actual name was molly hornablow. She had a very kind of complicated history. She was freed during the revolution. Then she was reenslaved when she was captured during the revolutionary war. So she was one of those i think we talked about how during the American Revolution some opportunities opened up for slaves to escape, to get their freedom. She was captured. She was reenslaved. Eventually, and i think you get this bit of it in the book, she was freed again when somebody bought her in the town and then freed her. Most of harriets experience as a slave she is living in the town. Theres a brief period when shes working on a plantation but for the most part shes working on a household and not on a plantation. I dont know how to make this a sharper image. I guess i could try turning off the back lights. Does that help . This is Harriet Jacobs in 1894. I tried to find a picture of harriet obz when she was younger but there does not seem to be one. The other thing too is these a slave in North Carolina, which had a somewhat different system from what existed in other parts of the south at this point. It was never a state that was dominated by large slave plantations. And then once we have this what weve called the second Middle Passage, which was this point after the foreign slave trade has ended and when slaves are being shipped from the seaboard south into the there are toward the mississippi valley, mississippi, louisiana, once you have that second Middle Passage slaves are being taken precisely from places like North Carolina and moved to the west, and for the most part, i mean, not exclusively but i would say theres really a premium placed on moving young men for that second Middle Passage. And so it meant that in the seaboard south in places like North Carolina there was a kind of predominance of women, children, and the elderly in the slave community. The other thing i would say about slavery in North Carolina at this point is that even though there were not large plantations there were ways in which North Carolina slaveholders were trying to make the system of slavery pay good dividends for them even though in a sense the kind of whole system of slavery was moving westward. In North Carolina they were trying new tactics, letting slaves hire themselves out, sometimes letting slaves buy their own freedom. I think you get a sense of some of the kind of some flexibilities perhaps that existed for the slaves who lived around Harriet Jacobs at this time, at least compared to slaves who were living further to the west. So harriet also points out that she became aware that she was a slave when she was 6 years old. I think this was right after her mother died. When she was 11, after her first slave mistress died, she then became a slave in the household of dr. Flint. And dr. Flint was the pseudonym for this man, james norcom. This is james norcom when he was a younger man. This is james norcom when he was he looks sort of suitably devilish in this picture, as he should. This is james norcom when he was an older man. And this is the norcom house, where Harriet Jacobs would have spent most of her time working in edenton, North Carolina. So at 16 harriet then began, as you can tell from the account, she began this sexual relationship with the son of dr. Norcoms partner. I actually didnt know that nil read more about it. The son of dr. Norcoms partner who was a 30yearold man named samuel sauer. Mr. Sams in the book. I dont have a picture of him. I looked everywhere. She had by sawyer two children. These are believed to be pictures of harlt jacobs children. Her daughter luiouis louisa. And then her son joseph. In the book this is benjamin and ellen, those are the names theyre given in the narrative. When she was 22 in 1835 jacobs escaped from the norcom plantation. She had been kind of reassigned at that point to the plantation. And at that point she began her stay in the crawlspace in her grandmothers attic. The dimensions of this crawlspace, i dont remember if she gives it in the book but the dimensions of the crawlspace were nine feet long, seven feet wide, and about three feet high at one end. So i think she says, you know, when shes in the crawlspace for the most part she cant stand up straight. After she spends seven years in the crawlspace she managed then a successful escape to the north. So here then is a kind of overview of Harriet Jacobs grandmothers house, which you can see is actually a somewhat substantial house for this time. Thats a kind of cutaway of the crawlspace where Harriet Jacobs would have stayed. Then this is i think Harriet Jacobs mentions this. The runaway slave notice that norcom or flint placed after Harriet Jacobs had escaped from the plantation. Shes in the crawlspace at this point. He doesnt know where she is. This is the runaway notice he placed. You can see on the bottom its signed by james norcom, edenton, North Carolina. I think its 1835 on that. When she got to the north Harriet Jacobs became very active in abolitionism. She was befriended by several white women who were abolitionists. They gave her aid and support. They encouraged her to write her story in the form of a narrative. She finished writing it in 1858. Its not a novel. Sometimes people call all of these kinds of books novel. Its not a novel. Its nonfiction. She wasnt able to secure a publisher until one of her white abolitionist friends, and that was lidia maria child, wrote the preface for the book and sort of gave it her endorsement. Which was kind of typical among slaves. People say oh, you write so well, how could you have been a slave. You speak so well how could you have been a slave . Lydia maria child gave then dorisment to say this was a true story about Harriet Jacobs. It was published v published in 1861 on the eve of the civil war. And its one of the few, not the only and not even the first but one of the few slave narratives that was written by a woman. Most of the ones that were famt with, that we calm across were narratives written by male slaves. They wrote about their confrontations with slavemasters, their quest for freedom as a kind of individual activity. Have any of you read like Frederick Douglass or any other slave narratives . Im seeing one. So well talk a little bit about sort of what the difference is between Harriet Jacobs and the other kinds of slave narratives written by men. Anybody have any initial thoughts about this book, any comments they want to make, things that surprised you or sort of stood out for you as you were reading this account . Yes. I think i was surprised by all the time she sort of apologized by what she was doing. I think like she had her children and she kept trying to explain herself and make us understand why she would do it when like i didnt really feel like you didnt think it was necessary to go through all that explaining. Why do you think she is doing that . Any thoughts . I guess because her whole life she was made to apologize to people for what she was doing. Maybe thats who she is. Anybody else have any thoughts on that, why she keeps apologizing . Yes. One of the primary factors in her writing the book is to appeal to white northerners, that shell want to make sure there arent loopholes or places they can pick apart at her story and go, well, why did you do that . So just taking great pains to explain everything. Right. I think a big part of it has to do with the audience she writes for and what she thinks theyre going to think of her if she doesnt make those apologies. Anything else that stood yout fr you as you read it, anything unabout the way she described her situation . I like how dr. Flint or you can call him flint. Thats what we know him and hate him as. He was skird of the grandmother because the grandmother had such a good reputation in the town that other people would look down on him if he yelled at her or anything. Yes. It is kind of amazing. The way and youre right. Its interesting the way flint is afraid of her. Shes kind of an amazing woman, that grandmother. Youre right. She commands respect. People see her as an important person in the town, they like her baking but shes also developed a relationship with a lot of people. And youre really right about that. One of the most interesting stories i think so when he says hes going to sell her and she says, well, but everybodys ive always been promised id get my freedom. He says im goingyqg to sell dont care what anybody says. She goes to the slave auction and she gets right up there on the Auction Block and everybody says oh, thats horrible. Whos selling thats such a shame. Nobody should be selling you, aunt martha. And this woman comes along and buys her and frees her. Shee kind of using the fact that people respect her and know her to kind of to the extent that its a power play. Its a little bit of a power play that she does against dr. Flint. Yeah. That is an interesting part. Yeah. I think it was surprising how the mistresses were the slaves because you would think like since theyre free women they wouldnt care about the slaves but how harriet said that she would wake up in the middle of the night to her mistress tapping on her or whispering. I wouldnt want to say sexual things but whispering things that maybe the slavemaster would tell her to see if she would respond to, it to see if she was like having an affair with the master. Yes. Youre right. That relationship between mrs. Flint and harriet is really interesting. And you feel like this is a very sort of angry, frustrated woman who doesnt know what to do. She feels like shes been cheat, shes been betrayed. She doesnt have any power to do anything against her husband. So the only person she thinks that she has power over is Harriet Jacobs. But it is very interesting. We sort of touched on this already. One of the points i want to kind of pull out here a little bit more is what makes from the standpoint of being a woman in slavery, a female slave, what makes Harriet Jacobs experiences distinctive . How would you kind of what stands out as things that separate her from male slaves . Okay. People have to have things to say about this. Yeah. I think a large portion of her story is she was constantly torn between wanting her own freedom and wanting to be a good mother for her children. Okay. So motherhood and the ties that she has to her children are definitely an issue here. What else . What else stands out in her experience specifically as a female slave . Ellen. I think a lot of the slaves depended on religion like as a comfort. It was very, very important to them. And her religion was sort of threatened in that she was constantly facing the threat of being sexually abused by the master, when she was even
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