This historical marker is located on US 17 Business (North Broad Street) in Edenton. It was originally erected in 1987.
Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813 - March 7, 1897) was an American abolitionist and writer. In 1861, she published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl under the pseudonym Linda Brent.
She was born in Edenton, North Carolina to Daniel Jacobs and Delilah. Her father was a mulatto slave owned by Dr. Andrew Knox. Her mother was a mulatto slave owned by John Horniblow, a tavern owner. Harriet inherited the status of both her parents as a slave by birth. She was raised by Delilah until the latter died around 1819. She then was raised by her mother's mistress, Margaret Horniblow. Margaret taught Harriet to read, write, and sew....
She criticised the religion of the Southern United States as being un-Christian and as emphasizing the value of money ("If I am going to hell, bury my money with me", says a particularly brutal and uneducated slaveholder). She described another slaveholder in the sentence, "He boasted the name and standing of a Christian, though Satan never had a truer follower." Jacobs argued that these men were not exceptions to the general rule. The cruelty of slavery destroyed the virtue of an entire society, and "is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks".
Much of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is devoted to the Jacobs' struggle to free her two children after she runs away herself. In it, Jacobs changed the names of all characters, including her own, in order to conceal true identities. She spends seven years hiding in a tiny space built into her grandmother's barn to occasionally see and hear the voices of her children. The villainous slave owner "Flint" was clearly based on her former master, Dr. James Norcom.
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