Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs is her own autobiography, as Mrs. Jacobs recalls her life events as brave unbreakable woman in slavery in early 1800’s. She will pour her life into many words. How the love of a mother almost crippled her inside and out. And her forever courage led her to be a “free woman”. I will briefly relate her biography the writing skills and the effect the book had on myself as a reader.
“I was born a slave” (Jacobs, p.11) Soon after her mother passed away at the age of six, Jacobs became chattels to the same woman that owned her mother. Her mother was a slave and according to the law, the children of slave woman would be considered slaves and property of the mother’s Mister and Mistress. Her mistress treated her so well, not as a slave but maybe as a child of her own. Linda and her relatives believe that maybe she would have set her free. This was not the case and she was sent off to her mistress’s sister’s daughter. She didn’t realize her life was about to take a three hundred degree twist for the worst.
At the age of …show more content…
Flint had an obsession with Linda, perhaps a sexual need or just a way to show his power upon a slave. He made several trips to New York to find her, to all this he was unsuccessful, unaware that she was still in the same vicinity. Her children were used as bait to force Linda to return to the master. Both her children and her brother were put in jail. Here they stay for months until it had become too much of an expense to keep them here. Mr. Sands then purchased all for nineteen hundred dollars. Without knowing Mr. Flint had sold them to their father, with this Linda felt some liberation to know that Mr. Sand who always wanted to recognize his children would soon make them free. Still, she remained in the hole hidden. Ellen was sent off to New York with Mr. Sands cousin were she was told her daughter was going to be treated well and made a respectful young