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Matthew Peeler

Mungo

African-American History 100

12 September 2019

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Reflection

In the autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, the author
recounts important experiences that occurred throughout her life and time as a slave and the lives
of her family members and friends. Throughout the entirety of the narrative, Jacobs uses
pseudonyms for herself and all of the characters that appear to protect their identities which, at
first, I was thoroughly confused by because the protagonist’s name is Linda so, in the beginning,
I was not sure if that was the name she lived by as a slave and that she might have changed it
after receiving her freedom in the end but I also guessed the real reason of protecting herself and
others from persecution for attempting to tell her story.
Linda was born into slavery and enjoyed a happy early childhood with her parents,
younger brother, and her maternal grandmother, who she calls Aunt Martha. When her mother
dies, Linda finally understands that she is a slave and is not considered a person. Linda goes to
live under her mother’s kind mistress but she eventually passes shortly after. She is then sent to
live with Dr. Flint and his wife, who are both very cruel to her because she does not accept Dr.
Flint’s sexual advances towards her and Mrs. Flint believes she is intentionally stealing her
husband’s attention away from her. Throughout her time with the Flints, good friends and family
members come and go in both good and bad ways but her grandmother, Aunt Martha, is always
keeping an eye on her and her brother, William; ensuring they know to do as they are
commanded to best avoid punishment. Believing he can save her from the hands of Dr. Flint,
Linda becomes involved with Mr. Sands, a white neighbor of the Flint family who owned
Linda’s brother, William, before he escaped, and she has two children with him named Ellen and
Benjamin; nicknamed Benny, he is named after Linda’s uncle that escaped to New York from his
cruel master. Because Linda is a slave mother, her children, and their future children would also
be considered slaves according to a cross-generational law of the time. Benny and Ellen are sold
by Dr. Flint to someone who is working with Mr. Sands. Sands gets elected into Congress,
marries and conceives a child with his new wife, and takes Ellen with them to Washington D.C.
so that his new daughter will have someone to tend to her. Linda goes into hiding in her Aunt
Martha’s cabin attic because she can no longer stand to be around Dr. Flint and hopes that he
will think she ran away to the North. After spending almost a decade in hiding, Linda makes her
way to the North in search of Ellen but learns she is enslaved by Mrs. Hobbs, Mr. Sands’ cousin.
Linda works as a servant to the Bruce family, who treat her with the same kindness as her
mother’s mistress. She goes to Boston and meets with Benny, who also escaped from Dr. Flint.
Mrs. Bruce dies and Linda remains in Boston with her children for some years but eventually
goes with Mr. Bruce’s daughter to England for a year. Linda and her children part ways with
Ellen being sent to a boarding school and Benny going to live in California with his uncle,
William. Linda goes back to work for Mr. Bruce, who has remarried and had a new child.
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Eventually, Dr. Flint passes but his daughter, Emily, wishes to claim ownership of her because it
is within her rights at the time and decides to come to New York City to capture her. Linda
begins hiding again because she does not wish to go back to the South and the new Mrs. Bruce
wishes to purchase Linda’s freedom from Emily so that she may live happily and freely for the
rest of her life. Linda is not happy with this arrangement due to the thought of being bought and
sold like many other times in her life but she, reluctantly, agrees and gives thanks to Mrs. Bruce
for what she has done for her. The narrative concludes with Linda accepting that her time in
slavery has not all been unbearable because she always had the tender memories of her loving
grandmother in her heart and is then followed by two testimonies from Amy Post and George W.
Lowther, who are close to Harriet Jacobs, a.k.a Linda, and wish to authenticate her courageous
story from bondage to freedom.
Overall, I felt this slave narrative to be something so sorrowful but also beautiful and
powerful. No matter how dark things became for Linda, she kept going for the sake of her
grandmother, her brother, and her own children. She wanted to obtain her own freedom so that
she could eventually somehow get their freedom as well. She was continuously abused by the
Flints but never gave up hope that she might someday be free to live as happily as she did when
she and William were younger children. Linda rose above each and every trial and tribulation
that came into her life and, although, she had no control of certain events, she took control by
escaping from an evil man’s clutches and making her own path to freedom.
I, truly, admire the adversity that Harriet Jacobs possessed when she experienced this all
those years ago. I feel such sadness that these things occurred and happened to good people who
had no control of their lives in any way. The fact that someone was choosing how a certain
population was supposed to serve a race just because they had a different skin color, culture, etc.
makes absolutely no sense and shows that ignorance is forever repeated throughout history
because the human species, no matter what color you are, is flawed and chaotic in nature. But
when we come together to change what some mistakenly believe to be as the “normal”, then we
can change history for the better and live in peace and harmony among all colors and cultures.
The main question that I am trying to consider though is how might have things turned
out for Linda (Jacobs) if she did not make the choices she did that, ultimately, brought her to
freedom in the end? Would she have still hidden from her cruel master and mistress for all those
years? Would she have continued to escape to the North in order to find her daughter? What
could have been another path of choices for her to take that still might have led her to freedom?