Quotes by Harriet Ann Jacobs

About Harriet Ann Jacobs:

Harriet Ann Jacobs was an African-American writer who escaped from slavery and was later freed. She became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Jacobs wrote an autobiographical novel, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, first serialized in a newspaper and published as a book in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent. It was a reworking of the genres of slave narrative and sentimental novel, and was one of the first books to address the struggle for freedom by female slaves, and to explore their struggles with sexual harassment and abuse, and their effort to protect their roles as women and mothers.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment

Harriet Ann Jacobs

DURING the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family, I was accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

Death is better than slavery.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

There is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south. If a man goes to the communion table, and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

For years, my master had done his utmost to pollute my mind with foul images, and to destroy the pure principles inculcated by my grandmother, and the good mistress of my childhood.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

The slave girl is reared in an atmosphere of licentiousness and fear.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

When my babe was born, they said it was premature. It weighed only four pounds; but God let it live.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a jealous mistress.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

But I now entered on my fifteenth year - a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

Every where the years bring to all enough of sin and sorrow; but in slavery the very dawn of life is darkened by these shadows.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

I WAS born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

When I was nearly twelve years old, my kind mistress sickened and died.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the year.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

No pen can give an adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

If you want to be fully convinced of the abominations of slavery, go on a southern plantation, and call yourself a negro trader. Then there will be no concealment; and you will see and hear things that will seem to you impossible among human beings w...

Harriet Ann Jacobs

When I was six years old, my mother died; and then, for the first time, I learned, by the talk around me, that I was a slave.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

Dr. Flint had sworn that he would make me suffer, to my last day, for this new crime against him, as he called it; and as long as he had me in his power he kept his word.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

Author Bio

  • NameHarriet Ann Jacobs
  • DescriptionAmerican Civil War nurse, slave, writer and abolitionist
  • BornFebruary 11, 1813
  • DiedMarch 7, 1897
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionNurse
  • WorksIncidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl