Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was not what I expected. Having read several slave accounts over the years, chock-full of the horrendous, despicable acts against slaves, Harriet’s focus on the psychological torture was different and very interesting. Of course, we have all glimpsed the slaves’ mental anguish through various stories, poems, and the like. Yet, I found Harriet’s description of her emotional torment of a particularly disturbing, bewitching nature.

Harriet Jacobs, writing as Linda Brent, spent 40 years as a slave (in captivity and as a runaway) including 7 years of hiding in an area not much larger than a slightly oversized coffin. Imagine that torture – not being able to properly mourn the loss of loved ones; suffering through heat, frigid temperatures, and disease; listening to your own children playing just beneath you, believing that you are gone. Still, according to Linda, this was a much better alternative to succumbing to the desires of her owner, Dr. Flint, who began pursuing Linda when she was barely 15-years-old. She summoned the courage to give herself to another white man, just to sidestep the first. Either way, she was trapped in a world that was not of her doing.

Linda’s main strength came from her grandmother who through faith in God and extraordinary dignity acquired a level of respectability that even the white slave owners could not ignore. It was through her grandmother’s vigor that Linda and the rest of the family were able to endure and face the dangers of escape, of trying to buy their freedom, of hiding right under the master’s nose, risking it all.