Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet A. Jacobs - HTML preview

APPENDIX.

The following statement is from Amy Post, a member of the Society of Friends in the State of New York, well known and highly respected by friends of the poor and the oppressed. As has been already stated, in the preceding pages, the author of this volume spent some time under her hospitable roof.

L.M.C.

The author of this book is my highly-esteemed friend. If its
   readers knew her as I know her, they could not fail to be deeply
   interested in her story. She was a beloved inmate of our family
   nearly the whole of the year 1849. She was introduced to us by
   her affectionate and conscientious brother, who had previously
   related to us some of the almost incredible events in his
   sister's life. I immediately became much interested in Linda; for
   her appearance was prepossessing, and her deportment indicated
   remarkable delicacy of feeling and purity of thought.

   As we became acquainted, she related to me, from time to time
   some of the incidents in her bitter experiences as a slave-woman.
   Though impelled by a natural craving for human sympathy, she
   passed through a baptism of suffering, even in recounting her
   trials to me, in private confidential conversations. The burden
   of these memories lay heavily upon her spirit—naturally virtuous
   and refined. I repeatedly urged her to consent to the publication
   of her narrative; for I felt that it would arouse people to a
   more earnest work for the disinthralment of millions still
   remaining in that soul-crushing condition, which was so
   unendurable to her. But her sensitive spirit shrank from
   publicity. She said, "You know a woman can whisper her cruel
   wrongs in the ear of a dear friend much easier than she can
   record them for the world to read." Even in talking with me, she
   wept so much, and seemed to suffer such mental agony, that I felt
   her story was too sacred to be drawn from her by inquisitive
   questions, and I left her free to tell as much, or as little, as
   she chose. Still, I urged upon her the duty of publishing her
   experience, for the sake of the good it might do; and, at last,
   she undertook the task.

   Having been a slave so large a portion of her life, she is
   unlearned; she is obliged to earn her living by her own labor,
   and she has worked untiringly to procure education for her
   children; several times she has been obliged to leave her
   employments, in order to fly from the man-hunters and
   woman-hunters of our land; but she pressed through all these
   obstacles and overcame them. After the labors of the day were
   over, she traced secretly and wearily, by the midnight lamp, a
   truthful record of her eventful life.

   This Empire State is a shabby place of refuge for the oppressed;
   but here, through anxiety, turmoil, and despair, the freedom of
   Linda and her children was finally secured, by the exertions of a
   generous friend. She was grateful for the boon; but the idea of
   having been bought was always galling to a spirit that could
   never acknowledge itself to be a chattel. She wrote to us thus,
   soon after the event: "I thank you for your kind expressions in
   regard to my freedom; but the freedom I had before the money was
   paid was dearer to me. God gave me that freedom; but man put
   God's image in the scales with the paltry sum of three hundred
   dollars. I served for my liberty as faithfully as Jacob served
   for Rachel. At the end, he had large possessions; but I was
   robbed of my victory; I was obliged to resign my crown, to rid
   myself of a tyrant."

   Her story, as written by herself, cannot fail to interest the
   reader. It is a sad illustration of the condition of this
   country, which boasts of its civilization, while it sanctions
   laws and customs which make the experiences of the present more
   strange than any fictions of the past.

   Amy Post. Rochester, N.Y., Oct. 30th, 1859.

The following testimonial is from a man who is now a highly respectable colored citizen of Boston.

L.M.C.

This narrative contains some incidents so extraordinary, that,
   doubtless, many persons, under whose eyes it may chance to fall,
   will be ready to believe that it is colored highly, to serve a
   special purpose. But, however it may be regarded by the
   incredulous, I know that it is full of living truths. I have been
   well acquainted with the author from my boyhood. The
   circumstances recounted in her history are perfectly familiar to
   me. I knew of her treatment from her master; of the imprisonment
   of her children; of their sale and redemption; of her seven
   years' concealment; and of her subsequent escape to the North. I
   am now a resident of Boston, and am a living witness to the truth
   of this interesting narrative.

   George W. Lowther.