The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers

Although millions of African American women were held in bondage over the 250 years that slavery was legal in the United States, Harriet Jacobs (1813–97) is the only one known to have left papers testifying to her life. Her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, holds a central place in the canon of American literature as the most important slave narrative by an African American woman.

Born in Edenton, North Carolina, Jacobs escaped from her owner in her mid-twenties and hid i...