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How did Harriet Jacobs describe the experiences of enslaved women in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl?

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Phillis Wheatley's first book of poetry — African American literature Frontispiece and title page of *Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral* (1773) by Phillis Wheatley, the first Black woman to become a poet of note in the United States. The portrait on which the frontispiece's engraving is based is often attributed to Scipio Moorhead, an Black artist and writer who, like Wheatley, was enslaved and living in Boston.

In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs—writing under the pseudonym Linda Brent—provides a harrowing, firsthand account of the systemic dehumanization of enslaved women. She explicitly details the persistent sexual abuse and harassment she and others endured at the hands of their enslavers, framing these acts as fundamental components of the "pit of abominations" that was slavery.12

Jacobs emphasizes the profound anguish of enslaved motherhood, highlighting the constant threat of having children forcibly taken or controlled by enslavers. By sharing her own struggle to protect her children, she sought to expose the moral depravity of the institution to women in the North. Her narrative serves as a powerful testament to the resilience of enslaved women, documenting not only the everyday brutality and cruelty they faced but also their active resistance against a system that sought to strip them of their humanity and agency.21