Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Hey all, 

How you all been? It's been a busy week for me as I've been working on a new project,  one close to my heart, which I can tell you all about next week. 

My schedule has distracted me from the fact that it's also over a week since my Twitter sabbatical began, and boy, am I'm feeling a lot better for it! However, despite the reprieve its also made me realise how many interesting people I connect with on there  (including many of you), so I will undoubtedly be back. 

In other news, I've been finding it hard to finish books during lockdown, but one text I completed devoured  was Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. I believe its one of very few slave narratives written by a woman, and the only one that focuses specifically on the sexual exploitation of women. I discovered it quite by chance when a little while ago I was reading escaped slave notices. (Harriet's is posted above)

  “$100 REWARD

Will be given for the apprehension and delivery of my Servant Girl HARRIET. She is a light mulatto, 21 years of age, about 5 feet 4 inches high, of a thick and corpulent habit, having on her head a thick covering of black hair that curls naturally, but which can be easily combed straight. She speaks easily and fluently, and has an agreeable carriage and address”.

I did some digging and discovered that this same woman had eventually gained freedom and written Incidents, an abolitionist text documenting her extraordinary life ( and when I say extraordinary - it literally beggars belief!)

Anyway, I'm a little bit obsessed with both Harriet and her book now, and think that it would make a brilliant read for our September disobedient bodies reading group. I'll be sharing more material about her, what she represents, and would love to discuss black women's literary  influence on our concepts of womanhood. Another key figure  here is Harriet B. Wilson, who wrote Our Nig  Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (and who incidentally had an Irish mother -  can this classic African American text then be included in the canon of Irish literature?) Literary scholar Venetria K. Patton explains that Jacobs and Wilson "reconfigured the genres of slave narrative and sentimental novel, claiming the titles of "woman and mother" for black females,  suggesting that society's definition of womanhood was too narrow"

Lots more thoughts on all this, but until then I'll leave you with these words of Harriet's, as relevant today as when she wrote them in 1853 :  

"My master had money and power on his side 

I had a determined will. There is might in each..."