Responses to Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two Story White House, North

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs strongly speaks to its readers by describing the brutalities of slavery and the way slave owners can destroy peaceful lives. After reading and rereading the story have noticed certain things regarding how Jacobs tries to educate her readers and her intended audience which is the women of the North. As if we do not know enough about how terrible slavery is, this story gives detailed examples of the lives of slaves and provokes an incredible amount of emotions. She uses several tactics in her writing to reach her desired audience and does so very well.

Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, Contending Forces (1900), characters articulate views on race problem, full identity and citizenship. Baym (2008) describes Mark Twain’s The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) as: “a dark and troubling view of the nineteenth century American values in a Mississippi river town of the 1830’s and centered on the switching of two babies born on the same day-one the result of miscegenation, the other the legitimate son of a white slave owner. Twain’s purpose for writing this story is to reveal the absurdities of slavery and its victims and victimizers alike-the underserved self-hate of slaves and the unearned pride of whites. The way in which Twain portrays the twinning of law and customs in sustaining the institution of slavery indicates his despair over prospects for true racial equality, a despair supported by the realities of Jim Crow laws and the escalation of lynching in the post Reconstruction Period (p. 96).

How free were free blacks in the North? Blacks in the North were somewhat free in the years just before the civil war In Jamestown slavery was introduced in 1619 and continued ever since it’s been used for a very long time. But then it was abolished at one time, which brought them more freedom but not as much as whites. This technique was used and abolished during the 1800’s in the north. It ended around the 1860’s after the Civil war. Slavery was abolished much more in the North but they still had constrictions for the African-Americans. It was much freer but they still had their constraints. New England was much more free than others, but it still had its constraints and I’m going to tell you about why I’m right by talking about their economic,

Harriet Jacobs wrote, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” using the pseudonym Linda Brent, and is among the most well-read female slave narratives in American history. Jacobs faces challenges as both a slave and as a mother. She was exposed to discrimination in numerous fronts including race, gender, and intelligence. Jacobs also appeals to the audience about the sexual harassment and abuse she encountered as well as her escape. Her story also presents the effectiveness of her spirit through fighting racism and showing the importance of women in the community.

Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass both wrote narratives that detailed their lives as slaves in the antebellum era. Both of these former slaves managed to escape to the North and wanted to expose slavery for the evil thing it was. The accounts tell equally of depravity and ugliness though they are different views of the same rotten institution. Like most who managed to escape the shackles of slavery, these two authors share a common bond of tenacity and authenticity. Their voices are different—one is timid, quiet, and almost apologetic while the other one is loud, strong, and confident—but they are both authentic. They both also through out the course of their narratives explain their desires to be free from the horrible practice of slavery.

The narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglas were nothing short of powerful as their unique resilience reflected a gruesome upbringing that would then influence audiences everywhere. Immediately the reader is introduced to the gendered distinctions in narratives as Douglas has letters and statements of prominent men reinforce the validity of his work while Jacobs is forced to create a pleading tone for acknowledgement of her experience as a female slave. Although slavery was an excruciating experience that unjustly plagued millions of African Americans, gender roles and constructs allowed for distinct offenses that forced women to experience unique abuse relative to their male counterparts. The narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglas reinforced the trials of slavery with examples of educational hardship, physical trauma and differing aspirations of freedom. These factors and a few others such as motherhood and masculinity influenced their legacy in context of slavery as a gendered experience.

Harriet Ann Jacobs helped start a movement of anti-slavery writing that, through literature, would eventually help change society’s view of slavery. Jacobs’ “Incidents” was written for an audience of free white women and its purpose was to involve these women in political action against the institution of chattel slavery and the ideology of white racism” confirming herself as an anti-slavery writer using a fictional character and different voice to tell truth (Yellin

In Fredrick Douglass’s a narrative, Narrative of The Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave, he narrates an account of his experiences in the dehumanizing institution of slavery. This American institution was strategically formatted to quench any resemblance of human dignity. Throughout, the narration of his life Fredrick Douglas, meticulously illustrates the methodical process that contributed to the perpetual state of slavery. In his narration Douglass, denounces the idea that slaves are inferior to their masters but rather, it’s the dehumanizing process that constructs this erroneous theory. Ultimately, the desires of his consciousness for knowledge ferociously leads him to mental and physical pursuit of his emancipation.

Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black was originally published in Boston in 1859 by G. C. Rand & Avery. This autobiography was written by Harriet E. Wilson, who lived the life told in this novel apart from some minor fictionalized parts. Her story was not widely known to most due to it speaking bad about the North and how they were against slavery but kept indentured servants. This novel was discovered by an African American scholar, Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was researching African American authors and their novels. He had it re-published in 1983 by Random House, Inc. in New York, and deemed it as the first African-American novel published in the United States.

The “new” negro no longer embodied “old” characteristics that defined a black man. Society had always taught a black man how to act; however, now he was adapting to the world. Locke declared that ‘the Old Negro’ had long become more of a myth than a man” (Locke, 1). A furthered and detailed definition of an “Old Negro” was that he “was a creature of moral debating historical controversy” (Locke, 1). The four

Harriet Jacobs, a black woman who escapes slavery, illustrates in her biography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) that death is preferable to life as a slave due to the unbearable degradation of being regarded as property, the inevitable destruction of slave children’s innocence, and the emotional and physical pain inflicted by slave masters. Through numerous rhetorical strategies such as allusion, comparison, tone, irony, and paradoxical expression, she recounts her personal tragedies with brutal honesty. Jacobs’s purpose is to combat the deceptive positive portrayals of slavery spread by southern slave holders through revealing the true magnitude of its horrors. Her intended audience is uninvolved northerners, especially women, and she develops a personal and emotionally charged relationship with them.

Harriet Jacobs, in her narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, was born into slavery in the south. While her youth contained “six years of happy childhood,” a few tragedies and mistresses later, Jacobs spent many years in pain under the possession of her cruel five-year-old mistress, Emily Flint, and Emily’s father, Dr. Flint. Once able to obtain freedom, Jacobs spent most of her life working for the Anti-Slavery office in New York, in hope that one day she could make a difference in the world. “She sought to win the respect and admiration of her readers for the courage with which she forestalled abuse and for the independence with which she chose a lover rather than having one forced on her” (Jacobs 921). Linda Brett, the pseudonym that Jacobs uses to narrate her life story, endures the harsh behavior women slaves were treated with in the south during the nineteenth century. The dominant theme of the corruptive power and psychological abuse of slavery, along with symbolism of good and evil, is demonstrated throughout her narrative to create a story that exposes the terrible captivity woman slaves suffered. The reality of slavery in the past, versus slavery today is used to reveal how the world has changed and grown in the idea of racism and neglect.

When a reader encounters the story ‘Our Nig’ it’s bound to leave them looking at the experiences of women differently. It’s an emotional autobiography that develops into a miserable experience of oppression and victimization on gender identities. The transition of the narrator from a young, beautiful mullato girl into an emotionally and physically crippled woman highlights the horrors of the society towards women but increases the pain because they are inflicted by other women. Harriet E. Wilson tells her story of the oppressions she suffers when she lived at a family house in the North of the US, where she undergoes violence and denigration. I mention in the North here to remove the assumption of slavery. She was a free

Harriet Wilson’s novel Our Nig, follows the life of Frado, a young mulatto girl in the household of a white family in New England. She is abandoned to this family at the age of six because her mother could not afford to care for her and resented her and the hardships to which her birth had contributed. The mistress of the household to which Frado is left is a cruel and spiteful woman, especially towards blacks. When Frado is left in the care of the Bellmont residence as a young girl, she has no idea of the troubles she would have to face for most of her life. From the very beginning, neither Mrs. Bellmont, the main antagonist, nor her equally cruel daughter, Mary, show any hint of compassion or even mercy for the young girl. The story follows Frado and her life in the Bellmont household.

Slavery was a horrible institution that dehumanized a race of people. Female slave bondage was different from that of men. It wasn't less severe, but it was different. The sexual abuse, child bearing, and child care responsibilities affected the females's pattern of resistance and how they conducted their lives. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, demonstrates the different role that women slaves had and the struggles that were caused from having to cope with sexual abuse.