Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Harriet Jacobs writes about being enslaved as a woman: the harassment, the impossible choices about her children, and the seven years she spent hidden in a crawlspace to stay near them.
Things worth knowing
- The garret where she hides is nine feet long and seven wide, three feet high at its tallest, with no admission for light or air.
- Jean Fagan Yellin corroborated the seven years in hiding by matching the date of the runaway advertisement against a letter written seven years later placing Jacobs in Philadelphia.
Listen, or read along
Every chapter has the recording and the same chapter as text. Open both if you like: the text is the words you are hearing.
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1 Preface by the Author 2 min
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2 Chapter One. Childhood 9 min
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3 Chapter Two. The New Master And Mistress 14 min
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4 Chapter Three. The Slaves’ New Year’s Day 4 min
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5 Chapter Four. The Slave Who Dared To Feel Like a Man 26 min
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6 Chapter Five. The Trials Of Girlhood 8 min
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7 Chapter Six. The Jealous Mistress 15 min
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8 Chapter Seven. The Lover 15 min
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9 Chapter Eight. What Slaves Are Taught To Think Of The North 5 min
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10 Chapter Nine. Sketches Of Neighboring Slaveholders 19 min
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11 Chapter Ten. A Perilous Passage In The Slave Girl’s Life 13 min
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12 Chapter Eleven. The New Tie To Life 11 min
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13 Chapter Twelve. Fear Of Insurrection 12 min
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14 Chapter Thirteen. The Church And Slavery 19 min
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15 Chapter Fourteen. Another Link To Life 8 min
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16 Chapter Fifteen. Continued Persecutions 14 min
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17 Chapter Sixteen. Scenes At The Plantation 22 min
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18 Chapter Seventeen. The Flight 7 min
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19 Chapter Eighteen. Months Of Peril 17 min
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20 Chapter Nineteen. The Children Sold 12 min
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21 Chapter Twenty. New Perils 9 min
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22 Chapter Twenty-One. The Loophole Of Retreat 9 min
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23 Chapter Twenty-Two. Christmas Festivities 5 min
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24 Chapter Twenty-Three. Still In Prison 9 min
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25 Chapter Twenty-Four. The Candidate For Congress 6 min
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26 Chapter Twenty-Five. Competition In Cunning 12 min
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27 Chapter Twenty-Six. Important Era In My Brother’s Life 10 min
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28 Chapter Twenty-Seven. New Destination For The Children 16 min
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29 Chapter Twenty-Eight. Aunt Nancy 12 min
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30 Chapter Twenty-Nine. Preparations For Escape 21 min
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31 Chapter Thirty. Northward Bound 7 min
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32 Chapter Thirty-One. Incidents In Philadelphia 11 min
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33 Chapter Thirty-Two. The Meeting Of Mother And Daughter 8 min
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34 Chapter Thirty-Three. A Home Found 6 min
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35 Chapter Thirty-Four. The Old Enemy Again 9 min
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36 Chapter Thirty-Five. Prejudice Against Color 5 min
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37 Chapter Thirty-Six. The Hairbreadth Escape 12 min
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38 Chapter Thirty-Seven. A Visit To England 6 min
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39 Chapter Thirty-Eight. Renewed Invitations To Go South 5 min
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40 Chapter Thirty-Nine. The Confession 4 min
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41 Chapter Forty. The Fugitive Slave Law 13 min
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42 Chapter Forty-One. Free At Last 24 min
Where this comes from
US public domain: first published 1861, before the 1930 cutoff. Author d.1897, so also clear in life+70 jurisdictions.
Cover image: Harriet Jacobs's only known formal portrait, 1894.
Narration: text-to-speech.
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