Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl--from Wikipedia
Jacobs began composing Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl while living and working at Idlewild, Willis's home on the Hudson River.[2] Jacobs's autobiographical accounts started being published in serial form in the New York Tribune, a newspaper owned and edited by Horace Greeley. Her reports of sexual abuse were considered too shocking to the average newspaper reader of the day, and publication ceased before the completion of the narrative.
Boston publishing house Phillips and Samson agreed to print the work in book-form — if Jacobs could convince Willis or Harriet Beecher Stowe to provide a preface. She refused to ask Willis for help and Stowe turned her down, though the Phillips and Samson company closed shop anyway.[3] She eventually managed to sign an agreement with the Thayer and Eldridge publishing house and they requested a preface by Lydia Maria Child.[3] Child also edited the book and the company introduced her to Jacobs. The two women would remain in contact for much of their remaining lives. Thayer and Eldridge, however, declared bankruptcy before the narrative could be published. The narrative in its final form was published by a Boston, Massachusetts publisher in 1861.
The narrative was designed to appeal to Middle class white Christian women in the North, focusing on the impact of slavery on women's chastity and sexual virtues. Under slavery, female slaves were virtually defenseless against harassment and rape -- a risk Christian women could perceive as a temptation to masculine lusts and vice as well as to womanly virtues.
She criticized the religion of the Southern United States as being un-Christian and as emphasizing the value of money ("If I am going to hell, bury my money with me," says a particularly brutal and uneducated slaveholder). She described another slaveholder in the sentence, "He boasted the name and standing of a Christian, though Satan never had a truer follower." Jacobs argued that these men were not exceptions to the general rule.
Much of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is devoted to the Jacobs' struggle to free her two children after she runs away herself. Harriet spends seven years hiding in a tiny space built into her grandmother's barn in order to occasionally see and hear the voices of her children. Jacobs changed the names of all characters in the novel, including her own, to conceal their true identities. Despite documents of authenticity, many have accused the narrative of being based on false accounts. The villainous slave owner "Dr. Flint" was clearly based on her former master, Dr. James Norcom.
Jacobs's correspondence with Child reveals her enthusiasm over the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862. She felt that her suffering people were finally free. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution of 1865 would indeed put an end to slavery.
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