DOCUMENTARY: Harriet Jacobs– The Slave Turn Abolitionist and Author

 By Victor Olubiye

Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813. For the first few years of her life, she didn’t even know she was enslaved. Her enslaver allowed her to live somewhat freely. But after he died, she was given to a new master — a cruel man who sexually harassed her from the time she was a teenager.

To escape his abuse, Harriet entered into a relationship with another white man, hoping for protection. She had two children by him. But even that did not stop her enslaver’s threats. So, Harriet made a heartbreaking decision: she ran away, leaving her children behind — not forever, but to find a way to secure their freedom.

But Harriet didn’t run far. She went into hiding in the attic of her grandmother’s home, where she lived for seven years. The crawl space was only 9 feet long and 3 feet high. She could not stand up or move much. She lived in near silence, watching her children grow through tiny cracks in the wall.

Eventually, with the help of abolitionists, she escaped to the North. Her children later joined her. Harriet became an abolitionist and author, and in 1861, she published her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, under the name “Linda Brent.”

Her story shocked readers. She exposed the sexual violence, psychological abuse, and maternal agony that enslaved women often suffered — stories rarely told in her time.

Harriet Jacobs died in 1897, a free woman — but only after decades of sacrifice, silence, and pain.