The Trans-Atlantic slave trade and its cultural/historical legacy of racism - the domination of American White World over African black world - flourished between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The black people of Africa had a common cultural history of slavery, based on racial segregation and exploitation; at the same time, their search for a collective identity was connected with their struggle for freedom. In the system of slavery, the black women had to resist both racial and gender women, sheltered by the White Abolitionists, constructed their free, human identity through their self-narratives. Obviously, these slave-narratives by black women must be evaluated in a historical/cultural context and on the basis of debates about gender and race. 

Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself (1861) has been ground-breaking text by the black women slave, Harriet A. Jacobs since her life-story depicted the struggle against the system of Chattel Slavery. Jacobs’ voice may be considered as the collective voice of the sexually-abused and racially-deprived black women, who were silenced by the cruelties of her master, the jealousy of her white mistress and the humiliations of oppressive slavery. By writing about these suppressed experiences, Jacobs moved from silence to speech and corresponded to a worldview which ought to be against the exploitation of people by dominant group in the name of racism and sexism. This Research Paper proposes to highlight the double oppression of black woman during the era of dehumanizing slavery.

Before the abolition of slavery, black me and women, transported from Africa to South America, were treated as Chattel Slaves, violating all human rights of dignity and survival by white slave masters. Racial segregation and exploitation of the blacks went on unchecked by the white Europeans on the pretext of their socio – cultural and financial superiority. The condition of the black women was worst since they were the victims of ‘double oppression’ – both sexually and racially by the white slave – holders. These black women were forced to work either in the unhygienic conditions of the plantation or in the humiliating domestic conditions to satisfy the master’s sexuality. Moreover, these black were sexually utilized for breeding black children as slaves both from the black and the white men. These black women remained vulnerable from all sides of the white patriarchy since neither the black men nor the white women came forward to their rescue or respite from the double oppression of racism and sexism.

Nevertheless, these black women developed their own strategies of resistance against sexual exploitation by lending support to one another emotionally and physically, and by forming a matriarchal protection circle. After the abolition of slavery in 1833, caused by the persistent struggle and uprising of the enslaved Africans, around 800,000 slaves got freedom. Some of the British abolitionists, who had also protected and sheltered the fugitive slaves, encouraged them to write their life – history which later became the literary genre of slave – narratives. The slave – narratives of the black women reveal not only their traumatic experiences of sexual exploitation but also their modes of resistance and consequent freedom from inhuman slavery. Following the socio – cultural guidelines of Euro – centric tradition or patriarchy, these slaves – narratives were started writing first by the black men, and later by some self – conscious black slave women. Author will do the textual – critical study of Harriet A. Jacobs’ The Incidents in the light of all these socio – cultural degrading problems.

The voice of Jacobs represents not only her personal agony but also the collective and historical voice of the suppressed section of the Black women slaves. According to Jacobs, slavery was a curse to the Blacks whereas it is a disgrace to the whites. Her self – narrative has invited a number of scholarly literary reviews:

Sidonie Smith applauds … … (1993) and comments that Jacobs’ life story served the main purpose of the genre of slave narratives because it depicts how to achieve “true womanhood” by resisting the bondage of slavery and the Patriarchal norm of “submissiveness.” Through her frank narration of her life full of struggle, she defined various postures of the true womanhood without any trace of slavery. That’s why, she expressed her grievances without any hesitation, criticizing loudly the incompleteness of   both   Southern  and  Northern  Society,  and  her  revelation  of  sexual  concubine”  (1).

Yvonne Johnson exposes … … (1998) and appreciates Jacobs’ moral courage to raise the question, regarding the validity of true womanhood both in the position of a black and a white woman. She makes a scathing attack on the Pretentions and Snobbery of the Southern women who tried to ignore the infidelity and wandering sensuality of their husbands. Their slack moral sense encouraged their husbands to be “the father of many little slaves.” In her life narrative, Jacobs called these pretentious, snob white women as immoral as their husbands if they ignore “husbands transgressions”, but at the same time she also mentioned the appreciable step of two white ladies for compelling their husbands to free their children as “honourable exceptions”  (2).

Bell Hooks, the most acclaimed feminist for her intersectional theory of feminism stated that no theory of feminism was complete unless it included the oppressed black women, resisting the onslaughts of racism and sexism. In her celebrated book, ‘Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black’ (1989) Hooks discusses her own tenets of feminism in the context of racism. She acknowledges Jacobs’ narrative The Incidents as an example of ‘Talking Back’ which means to speak or dare to speak with an authority on equal terms. According to Hooks, by writing her autobiography, Jacobs has given a powerful voice to the silenced, oppressed lot of the black woman who had been subjected to exploitation by the white colonizers. Jacobs’ candid confessions must be appreciated as an act of defiance, “the expression of our movement from object to subject – liberated voice” (3).

Jean Fagan Yellin, the Post – American Civil Rights Movement feminist critic restored the true identity of Harriet Jacobs as the original author of her life history, The Incidents, on the basis of her six-year exhaustive historical research. Yellin states that Jacobs’ autobiography was written in “a radical feminist context” (4) which also highlighted the humanist gestures of the white women, “to assert their stronger allegiance to the sisterhood of all women” (5).

Katherine McKittrick, a Canadian scholar – critic of Gender and Black Studies, shows the closeness between the geographical locations of the black women and the inhuman legacy of oppressive slavery. In her book, Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (2006), McKittrick looks upon the crawling space of garret as a ‘demonic’ location for Jacobs’ because she had to confined herself within the garret to avoid the agencies of sexism and racism. She says further that these diasporic locations may be easily recognized, for they are invested with the emotional and physical harassment, inflicted upon the black women by the white colonizers. There geographical location, as in the case of Jacobs’ “garret”, may be studied as “black women’s … imaginary and creative concerns that respatialize the geographic legacy of racism – sexism” (6).

Harriet A. Jacobs confesses that she wrote her life – story as Linda Brent to conceal her real identity so that she might reveal the brutal face of racism and stark realities of slavery. Moreover, she had also used different names to her masters and mistresses to add a universal dimension, to the individual’s life history. Jacobs starts her life story as a girl child, a sexually exploited mistress, an unwed mother and finally as a fugitive slave to expose the domination of the whites over the blacks. Even as a free black woman in New York, she changed her name and the names of her offender only to protect herself and her family. Jacobs states that a black woman had been deprived of her right of maintaining true womanhood or chastity of character, since she was forced to be an object of sexual abuse by the master. Dr. Norcom (Dr. Flint) wanted Jacobs to be her concubine who aroused the feelings of jealousy and hostility from the side of Mrs. Norcom. The plight of a black slave woman has been described by Jacobs when her master called her directly as his property which he was free to use and enjoy at his own sweet-will, without expecting any defiance against him. Jacobs felt so humiliated that she called the dominance of Dr. Norcom “as the mean tyranny” and asked the reader in helpless tone, “But where (I) turn for protection?” (7)

Jacobs says that the sexual abuse of the black slave women had been overlooked as the legal right of the white master, and this fact was supported by the mention of eleven slave children, fathered by Dr. Norcom, but nobody had courage to challenge him. At the same time, she also denounced the moral decay of the Southern white women who remained mute witnesses to sexual abuse of the hapless slave women by their own men. She accepts her own immoral sexual relationship with another white man, Mr. Samuel Tredwell Sawyer at her own will, but she justifies her immoral act as an act of defiance against Dr. Norcom’s masculinity. Jacobs’ grandmother refused to see her face for pursuing such an immoral course of action

Dr. Norcom did never whip Jacobs for her refusal to appease him sexually, and in such a situation she found herself less unfortunate than other black women, working in plantation. Jacobs tried to escape from the clutch of Dr. Norcom, but she avoided the temptation only for the sake of her children. While narrating her own humiliating tale of slavery and sexual abuse, Jacobs also describes the failed escape of her uncle and brother who had been put into imprisonment for their daring act. The most horrible part of her painful life – history covered the seven years when she had concealed herself from the public view in a dark, crawling space of her grandmother’s attic. Jacobs informs her readers about her indomitable will power and patience which helped her to overcome the perpetual and frightening darkness of the garret. She felt her whole body cramped and shrunken in that enclosed, much – congested area. Jacobs, as a morally – emboldened black women impresses us with her determination, “yet I would have chosen this; rather than my lot as a slave” (8). She preferred cramping darkness with human dignity to easy life in slavery.

Jacobs’ indomitable courage and mode of resistance exploded the myth of hapless black women who used to undergo sexual or racial abuse without any challenge and resistance. Johnson applauds the patience and fortitude of Jacobs by saying that she has already reduced the gap between a sexually – abused black women and a married white wife of the house “by demonstrating that the ‘cult of true womanhood’ was a myth” (9). For this revelation of fact, Johnson gives credit to “the double – consciousness” (10) of Jacobs who realized the gender – bias and sexism, operating both in the cases of the black and the white women.

According to Johnson, Jacobs’ autobiography had been a daring act on the part of a woman, especially a black slave woman, to reveal boldly her sexual oppression by the whites since most of the women kept silence in this matter to maintain her feminine modesty. Jacobs had been in a downcast, degrading situation, but she did never leave nurturing her hopes and dreams of life. Jacobs confessed that her mind fluctuated between her gloomy past life and unpredictable future because she tried to ignore her present plight. In such a helpless condition, she shed tears to have mercy from her saviour, God who alone could “restore … children and enable … to be a useful woman and a good mother” (11).

The most remarkable aspect of her autobiography is its message of freedom, freedom from all sexual and racial oppression, which she started participating in anti – slavery meetings. ‘Jacobs gives credit to Amy Post, a member of the society of Friends in the state of New York’ and Bishop Paine who encourage her to write and publish her life story to arouse a universal condemnation for all inhuman cruelties, perpetrated and justified in the name of racism and slavery. Jacobs concludes her autobiography with her voice of double – consciousness – both as an oppressed but emancipated Southern Black Woman and as a spokesperson for the freedom of female sensibility – by saying that her plight-full autobiography represents “the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage” (12). As a narrator, Jacobs tries to draw the attention of the free women, living in the North America, to realize the sufferings of these black women since living in a state of freedom and human dignity, it is difficult to feel “what slavery really is” (13). Jacobs’ Autobiography must be appreciated as the foundation of the female slave – narratives, and she must be hailed as a torch – bearer to the Black Feminism.

The word ‘Racism’ has a negative connotation in the history of African – American regions due to its shameful legacy of slavery. Slavery didn’t reflect itself in terms of white domination over the black labour, but in terms of physical and sexual abuse, perpetrated upon the black women who were the worst victim of the Chattel Slavery. Sexual exploitation, rape and auction of black children to blackmail the black mothers were the general systems, regulated by the white slave masters in the Southern American Plantation. The writings of self – narrative by the rebellious voice of Harriet A. Jacobs had started anti – slavery movement and an awareness of the Black Feminism and the consequent sisterhood to resist their sexual abuse. Harriet Jacobs’ The Incidents is not only a testimony of the shameful slavery with sexual abuse but also a testimony of her newly acquired freedom as a dignified human being.

1. Smith, Sidonie. Subjectivity, Identity and Body: Women’s Autobiographical Practices in the Twentieth Century. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993.
2. Johnson, Yvonne (1998). The Voices of African American Women. New York, Peter Lang Pub. P. 20.
3. Hooks, Bell (1989). Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Boston M. A, South End Press, P. 9.
4. Yellin, J. F. (2009).  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (ed). Cambridge. P. vii.
5. Ibid; P. xxxv.
6. McKittrick, Katherine (2006). Demonic Grounds: Black women and the Cartographies of Struggle. University of Minnesota Press. P. 53.
7. Jacobs A. Harriet (2020). Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself. SANAGE Pub. House (2020). Senagepublishing@gmail.com
8. Ibid; P. 119.
9. Johnson, Yvonne (1998). Op. cit. P. 24.
10. Ibid; P. 24.
11. Jacobs A. Harriet (2020). Op. cit. PP. 138-139.
12. Ibid; PP. 7-8.
13. Ibid; PP. 7-8.