Harriet Jj

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The source, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, was written by Harriet Jacobs. Harriet Jacobs lived from 1813-1897 and was born a slave in North Carolina. Shortly after she endured the events described in the source, she escaped her owner in 1835 and managed to flee to the North in 1842. Soon after, Harriet Jacobs decided to share her experiences in the early to mid-1800’s with people around the country. As a result, Harriet Jacobs published “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” as her personal memoir in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent. Since Harriet Jacobs wrote and published her experiences in the period in which they occurred, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” is considered a primary source. In the source, Harriet Jacobs …show more content…
The reason Harriet Jacobs wrote “Incidents in the Life of a slave Girl” is to show the world how slaves were being treated, how families were being torn apart by white men and sold individually, how young women had to endure sexual violence from their masters, how slaves spent their holidays, and how masters and mistresses treated slaves poorly. “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” served as a call to action to anyone who read it, and to help open people’s eyes about the cruelty slaves were facing. In addition, Harriet Jacobs intended for her memoir to be a literary and political masterpiece about the most prominent political issue of the time in the viewpoint of an individual who lived through it and was affected by it. Harriet Jacobs does not include any mention of the historic events that are happening during the time she wrote the memoir. Since Harriet Jacobs did not mention any news about the political issues that were happening at the time, we can infer that Harriet Jacobs might have had an ulterior motive to writing this memoir in the period that she did. Throughout the source, Harriet Jacobs does not describe any abolitionist motives, but addresses the memoir to help inform people of the lives of slaves. Therefore, an individual can conclude that Harriet Jacobs was trying to express her life experiences as well as help move the abolitionist movement

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