U of Ideas of General Interest -- May 1999
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact: Andrea Lynn, Humanities/Social Sciences Editor (217) 333-2177; [email protected]
AMERICAN LITERATURE Slave stories depict suffering and resourcefulness, scholar says
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Two slave narratives -- one "lost," the other famous, among the best and most-read ever -- have been paired for the first time in a single volume. Together, the compelling stories, written by a sister and brother, "expand our knowledge of the differing ways males and females coped with enslavement and, in their cases, later ordeals in flight."
So argues co-editor George Hendrick, a professor of American literature at the University of Illinois, who with his wife, Willene, an independent scholar, have just published the new double-book "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," by Harriet A. Jacobs, and "A True Tale of Slavery," by John S. Jacobs (Brandywine Press). The Jacobses, born into bondage in North Carolina in 1813 and 1815, paint vivid and disturbing pictures of "a suffering but resourceful slave family," George Hendrick said.
After her owner repeatedly sexually abused her, Harriet escaped his unwanted advances by holing up in a crawl space in her grandmother's house for nearly seven years. As a fugitive, after her escape to the North, she scrambled all over the country, sometimes in search of her children, and eventually traveled to England to look for a publisher for her life story. Two publishers agreed to publish it, but went bankrupt before they could. Jacobs self-published in 1861 what would become "part of the canon of American literature, history and women's studies," Hendrick said.
Meanwhile, after escaping, John sailed on a whaling ship for three years, educated himself, became a paid agent of the Anti-Slavery Society and panned for gold in Australia. He wrote his story for a London journal, "The Leisure Hour," which ran it in four issues, in 1861. From that point on, his story was all but lost, known only to a few scholars until the Hendricks retrieved it from oblivion. The editors and their publisher hope that this inexpensive edition will make Harriet and John S. Jacobs' graphic slave narratives better known to contemporary readers.
The authenticity of Harriet's tale was once in doubt, primarily because Harriet used pseudonyms for people and places. She fictionalized identities to protect herself and her children, who resulted from her affair with a white attorney, "which was not going to be acceptable to the 19th century audience," George Hendrick said, "so she becomes Linda Brent and changes all of the names." Today, Harriet's tale is accepted as authentic, largely because of the efforts of scholar Jean Fagan Yellin, who spent years re-establishing identities for the names and places in Harriet's "Life."
However, mystery continues to surround the works, including the significance of the letter S in John's name, the reason both books were published in 1861, the details of John's life on the ship and in Australia, the whereabouts of both original manuscripts and the extent of the editorial process. There is reason to believe that Harriet's editor, abolitionist-feminist writer Lydia Maria Child, like other 19th century American editors, took "unconscionable liberties" with the text, Hendrick said, adding that Child "rearranged things" to make the book more acceptable to Northern abolitionist women.
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