"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" is an autobiography written by Harriet Jacobs under the pen name of Linda Brent. Jacobs' narrative describes her struggle as a slave and her constant pursuit of freedom.
Until Jacobs was six years old, she lived in a house with her brother, mother, and father. Jacobs relates the details of her early childhood as an unusually happy one for a slave child. When Jacobs is six-years-old, her mother becomes ill and passes away. Jacobs and her brother, Willie, were then under the care of her mother's mistress. When Jacobs was twelve years old her mistress died and she was sold to Dr. Flint's five-year-old daughter. Jacobs' father dies suddenly and she is denied the right to go to his funeral. Shortly after, Jacobs' grandmother was bought and freed by her mistress' sister because the whole community knew that the grandmother had finally earned her freedom. Jacobs' uncle, Benjamin, ran away from his master and was captured and put in jail until he was bought. .
During her first year of service (while Jacobs is 15 years old), Dr. Flint begins to make sexual advances towards her. He threatens to kill her grandmother if she tries to tell her. Mrs. Flint becomes very jealous of Dr. Flint and Jacobs, but Mrs. Flint primarily takes her anger out on Jacobs. In order to stop Mrs. Flint from interfering with Dr. Flint's sexual intents towards Jacobs, he starts to build a cottage outside of town for Jacobs.
Jacobs meets a white man named, Mr. Sands. She is convinced that she can be easily bought by him if she has his child. Jacobs believed by having a child by Mr. Sands, Dr. Flint would lose interest in her, but he didn't. A few months later she had a baby boy. A part of her wished her son death because she did not want him to live as a slave. But with new life in her arms, she now had a new reason to live.
Harriet Jacobs shows in her autobiography that the life of a slave woman is much more complex than that of a slave man, though both are arguably equal in hardships.
