Harriet Jacobs was born in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813. She has been the daughter of an enslaved father and mother. Her father, Daniel Jacobs, a carpenter, has been the slave of Andrew Knox. Her mother, Delilah Horniblow, has been the slave of Margaret Horniblow. Jacobs has had a brother called John S. Jacobs. Until she was six years old, Jacobs did not feel that she was Horniblow’s slave and property. She has been very kind to her to the extent that she has taught her to read, write, and sew. Before her death, she has written her will in which she has given Jacobs to her niece, Mary Matilda Norcom, who has been three years old at that time. Since Mary has been only three years old her father, Dr. James Norcom, has become Jacobs’s actual …show more content…
Actually, in 1853, Jacobs has begun to write her life story in the form of letters until she has been able, with the help of her antislavery friends, to publish her Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in 1860. By this novel, Jacobs has become the first woman to write a slave narrative in which she addresses the white women of the North to sympathize with slave mothers of the South. Finally, Jacobs died in Washington on March 7, 1897. Harriet Jacobs opens her novel with an introduction in which she clarifies her aim why she has written this autobiography by stating “I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse”. Jacobs uses the pseudonym Linda Brent to narrate her story as well as giving all the characters names rather than their real names. Then she starts her novel by claiming that she has lived a quiet and peaceful life with her parents until she has turned six years old when her mother died. She has gone to live with her mother’s mistress who has been so kind to her and has taught her to read and sew. But unfortunately after a