Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a book that was published in 1861 by Harriet Jacobs, using the nom de plume "Linda Brent." It is considered a work of feminist literature. While on one level it chronicles the experiences of Harriet Jacobs as a slave, and the various humiliations she had to endure in that unhappy state, it also deals with the particular tortures visited on women at her station. Often in the book, she will point to a particular punishment that a male slave will endure at the hands of slave holders, and comment that, although she finds the punishment brutal in the extreme, it cannot compare to the abuse that a young woman must face while still on the cusp of girlhood.

Jacobs shows men in similar straits as Linda acting on their convictions and gaining their freedom. Both of Linda's brothers become free in the Northern states by escaping their Southern masters. Linda does not have that option open to her as she has ties to her children and is unwilling to leave them to suffer while she gains freedom for herself. Jacobs suggests, and clearly shows, that men, even enslaved men, have more personal freedom than women.

She certainly considers the suffering of women to be greater than that of men. This is shown on page 122[1] when, unhappy as she is with her condition in the garret, she is thankful for her "wretched hiding-place" after she sees the condition of her fellow slaves. Jacobs cites two cases -- the first of a slave muttering nervously to herself after being sold to a Georgia slave trader, and the other of a woman who, rather than suffer the degradation and torture of a whipping house, decides to jump into the river and end her life.