Children Museum Podcasts

Voice Over by Margarette Robinson Writer and abolitionist Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina to parents who were owned by different masters. This narrative is the story of her life as a young girl in slavery and the sexual oppression and degradation she suffered as a slave. After the death of her mother at the age of six, Harriet was taken in by her mistress who educated her as one of her own. Upon her mistresses death, Harriet was willed to her niece. It was here where she withstood years of sexual advances from the father of her new mistress. Every free moment she was followed and harassed by her new master at the same time suffering the jealousy and rage of his wife. Because of his favor towards Harriet, she was never beaten or punished.This only increased the wife's fury against Harriet. In her narrative, Harriet discusses the nature of the 'relationship' that exist between slave women and their masters, both coerced and consensual. All were subjected to the masters will, even husbands who were sometimes forced to beat their own wives for not submitting. A frequent punishment was to tie a rope around the man's body suspended from the ground as a fire was kindled over him cooking a piece of fat back. The hot oil from the back would drip on one's bare skin. After repeated refusals of her master's advances and his jealousy of her other relationships, she was sent to the fields to be broken in as a field hand. Refusing to submit, Harriet ran away to her grandmother's house. There she remained for the next seven years hiding in attic of a shed to escape capture. She left Edenton and found freedom in New York. Here she worked as an abolitionist and became a feminist as well. Fellow activists encouraged her to tell her story about the abuses of slavery, especially concerning women. read less