Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (40 page)

2. According to Frances Smith Foster, this quote from “A Woman of North Carolina” comes from Angelina E. Grimké (of South Carolina),
Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
(1836). See Frances Smith Foster, “Resisting
Incidents,”
in
Harriet Jacobs and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,
ed. Deborah M. Garfield and Rafia Zafar (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 71.

3. Isaiah 32:9. This line is followed two verses later by a warning that women at ease risk being stripped and dressed in sack-cloth should they not heed the cries of the prophet. Because these verses of Isaiah deal with Egypt, hence with slavery, Jacobs is also warning that leisured women’s heedlessness puts them at risk for being enslaved. See Frances Smith Foster, “Resisting
Incidents,”
72, and Deborah M. Garfield, “Earwitness: Female Abolitionism, Sexuality, and
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,”
in
Harriet Jacobs,
ed. Deborah M. Garfield and Rafia Zafar, 110.

4. Northern, free-born Daniel Payne (1811-1893) became a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1852, having served in the Philadelphia conference in the 1840s.

5. The “distinguished family” was that of the New York author and editor of the weekly
Home Journal
Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867).

6. The kind mistress was Margaret Horniblow (d. 1825).

CHAPTER I:
Childhood

1
Harriet Jacobs’s father, Elijah Knox, died in 1826.

2
Harriet Jacobs’s brother was John S. Jacobs (1815-1875). (As she states in her preface, Jacobs has “given persons fictitious names.”)

3
Harriet Jacobs’s maternal grandmother was Mary (Molly) Horniblow (d. 1853).

4
Harriet Jacobs’s maternal uncle was Molly Horniblow’s son Joseph (1808-?).

5
Harriet Jacobs’s mother Delilah (c. 1797-c. 1819) had three siblings: Betty (c. 1794-1841), Mark Ramsey (c. 1800-1858), and Joseph (1808-?). See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed.,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 261.

6
The child to whom Margaret Horniblow bequeathed Harriet was her niece, Mary Matilda Norcom, who was three years old, not five, in 1825. See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed.,
Incidents,
261. This Mary Matilda Norcom bore nearly the same name as her mother, Mary Matilda Horniblow Norcom, wife of James Norcom.

CHAPTER II:
The New Master and Mistress

1
Dr. James Norcom (1778-1850), the father of Mary Matilda Norcom, had received a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1799 and was very well connected within both the medical profession nationally and the elite of eastern North Carolina. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 152, 154.

2
Elijah died in about 1826.

3
Linsey-woolsey is a coarse fabric made of wool and linen or cotton.

4
Harriet Jacobs’s maternal aunt was Molly Horniblow’s daughter Betty (c. 1794-1841).

CHAPTER IV:
The Slave Who Dared to Feel Like a Man

1
Molly Horniblow’s home on West King Street in Edenton had belonged to a white silversmith and had seven rooms and a piazza. In 1830 she bought it for $1 from Alfred Moore Gatlin, to whom she may have had blood ties. See John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,” 244; and Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 93, 96, 183.

2
Young Master Nicholas was probably James Norcom, Jr. (1811-?). See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs,” 154.

3
According to Jean Fagan Yellin, cousin Fanny is Hannah Pritchard. The sister of Elizabeth Horniblow, she had bought Molly Horniblow at auction in 1828. See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed.,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), xxxvi; and Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs,” 97.

4
“Uncle Phillip” is Harriet Jacobs’s maternal uncle Mark Ramsey, whose mother, Molly Horniblow, bought him in 1830. Like many African-American men during the first half of the nineteenth century, Ramsey made his living as a seaman. According to his nephew John S. Jacobs, he worked as a steward on a passenger boat. See John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,”
Leisure Hour,
7 February 1861, 86.

5
According to John S. Jacobs, Horniblow used her savings of thirty years, which she had entrusted to a white friend, to buy herself and her son Mark. See John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,” 234.

CHAPTER VI:
The Jealous Mistress

1
Mrs. Flint is Mary Matilda Horniblow Norcom (1797-1869), James Norcom’s second wife, whom he had married when she was sixteen. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 158, 160. Jacobs portrays Mary Matilda Horniblow Norcom as coarse, ill-bred, and insecure.

2
The child was Elizabeth Hannah Norcom (1826-1849).

3
Harriet Jacobs’s aunt—not her great aunt—was her mother’s sister Betty, who was the Norcom’s head housekeeper.

CHAPTER VII:
The Lover

1
Lord Byron, “The Lament of Tasso,” iv. 7-10, according to Jean Fagan Yellin, ed.,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 266.

2
James Norcom’s oldest son, the product of his first marriage, was John Norcom, M.D. (1802-1856). See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed.,
Incidents,
229.

CHAPTER VIII:
What Slaves Are Taught to Think of the North

1
The Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850, strengthened existing statutes governing the return of runaway slaves by punishing any citizen who refused to aid in recapture, paying officials more for remanding people to slavery than for freeing them, and denying people accused of being slaves the right to appeal.

CHAPTER IX:
Sketches of Neighboring Slaveholders

1
“Mr. Litch” is identified as Josiah Coffield (?-1837) in Jean Fagan Yellin, ed.,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 267.

CHAPTER X:
A Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl’s Life

1
The “unmarried gentleman,” whom Jacobs calls “Mr. Sands,” is Samuel Tredwell Sawyer (1800-1863). Jean Fagan Yellin says he died in 1865, but Robanna Sumrell Knott (in “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 114) says he died on Long Island in 1863.

CHAPTER XI:
The New Tie to Life

1
Norcom is telling Harriet he could have given her an abortion.

2
Harriet Jacobs’s first child was Joseph Jacobs (1829-1863?).

CHAPTER XII:
Fear of Insurrection

1
In August 1831 in Southampton, Virginia, some forty miles from Edenton, Nat Turner (1800-1831), an enslaved Methodist exhorter (unlicensed preacher), led an uprising that took the lives of fifty-seven whites. Turner and twenty-eight of his followers were executed, and the affair set off pogroms such as Jacobs describes across the South.

CHAPTER XIV:
Another Link to Life

1
Harriet Jacobs’s daughter was Louisa Matilda Jacobs (1833-1917). See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed., Incidents in the Life
of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 273.

CHAPTER XV:
Continued Persecutions

1
In May 1835, James Norcom, Jr. (1812-1843), married Penelope Hoskins. See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed.,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 264.

2
“Selling well” refers to sale in the market for slave women concubines.

CHAPTER XVIII:
Months of Peril

1
Jean Fagan Yellin (ed., Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child
[Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987], 275) identifies the kindly lady as Martha Hoskins Rombaugh Blount (1777-1858).

2
Aunt Betty’s last pregnancy coincided with Harriet’s own, in 1829 or 1830. See Jean Fagan Yellin,
“Incidents
in the Life of Harriet Jacobs,” in
The Seductions of Biography,
ed. Mary Rhiel and David Suchoff (New York: Routledge, 1996), 142.

CHAPTER XX:
New Perils

1
Snaky Swamp is a familiar name for Cabarrus Pocosin. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 247.

CHAPTER XXI:
The Loophole of Retreat

1
Mark Ramsey, Molly Horniblow’s son, made a corner cupboard whose top abutted the ceiling. The top of the cupboard opened through the ceiling, affording Harriet Jacobs access to the crawl space above. Jacob’s loophole was nine feet long by seven feet wide and three feet high, covered with a thin roof. See John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,” 244; and Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 267-268.

2
A gimlet is a small tool with a screw point and handle, used to bore holes.

CHAPTER XXII:
Christmas Festivities

1
Johnkannaus, also known as John Canoe, was an end-of-the-year festival celebrated in the Carolinas and on Long Island. Its roots lie most likely in the traditional carnival called Homowowo in the West African area of Ghana.

CHAPTER XXIII:
Still in Prison

1
In 1854, Senator Albert Gallatin Brown (1813-1880) of Mississippi proclaimed slavery to be “of divine origin, and ... a great moral, social, and political blessing—a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master.” See Jean Fagan Yellin, ed.,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, by Harriet A. Jacobs. Edited by L. Maria Child
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 278.

2
In “A True Tale of Slavery,” John S. Jacobs says he used his medical knowledge to tend Harriet while she was hidden. See John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,” 244.

3
A Thompsonian doctor (after Samuel Thomson [1763-1843]) would have adhered to one of the many kinds of holistic medical practices popular in the nineteenth century, which today would be called natural healing.

CHAPTER XXIV:
The Candidate for Congress

1
According to Robanna Sumrell Knott (in “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 153, 227, 281-283), James Norcom had established a pattern of making annual trips north before his pursuit of Harriet. Rather than searching for her, Knott says, he was taking his children to and from their schools in the North.

CHAPTER XXVI:
Important Era in My Brother’s Life

1
Samuel Tredwell Sawyer married Lavinia Peyton, the niece of the owner of his boarding house in Washington, D.C., in Chicago in August 1838. Her family was from Loudon County, Virginia, but she married at the home of her sister. Sawyer lost the subsequent election and returned to North Carolina. See Robanna Sumrell Knott, “Harriet Jacobs: The Edenton Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1994, 296, 300.