The Value of the Female Slave Narrative as Demonstrated by Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Anonymous College

When students learn about abolition, they are typically introduced to significant texts written by historical literary figures such as Fredrick Douglass and William Wells Brown. However, the slave narrative genre is overwhelmingly comprised by male authors such as these. Slave narratives written by females are a critical addition to the story of slavery and the need for abolition because they provide insight into the unique methods of abuse and oppression for enslaved women, as seen in Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, including forced motherhood and the emotional anguish that accompanied it.

Unlike the many enslaved females who were raped or forced to be a mistress by their masters, Harriet Jacobs was forced into motherhood in a rather unusual way. She procreated with a white man in the hopes that he would grow to care enough about her and their children to free them. She explained this decision when she wrote, “I wanted to keep myself pure; and, under the most adverse circumstances, I tried hard to preserve my self-respect; but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of the demon Slavery; and the monster proved too strong for me” (144). She was never forced to conceive children by her master (though...