"Mothers should cultivate their souls so that in turn they may cultivate the souls of their children."
Karen Andreola penned those words long ago and later picked up the the term Mother Culture from a Parents' Review magazine. For years she has promoted Charlotte Mason's insistence that,
"A mother reaps advantages by applying Miss Mason’s education-through-the-humanities. These cultural things aren’t frivolity but a person’s very bread of life."
I found myself malnourished in the humanities after several month's of the news monopolizing every screen I accessed. I know what to do when this happens. It is time for fresh air, for working with our hands, and for study – meaty, challenging study. I dimmed the screens and dove into books.
It was a day of celebration when our little local library branch opened for in person browsing. Ordering books online was a lifesaver throughout the springtime quarantine, but you can't know what you're missing without walking the aisles. When I was able to do that I found Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in the new books section. I almost passed it up, thinking it was a new release fiction novel. That would not have been a non-starter mind you, but I was thrilled to discover it was a primary source memoir from 1862. Over the next few days I read through the entire thing and was launched on a rabbit trail of research.
“It has been painful to me, in many ways, to recall the dreary years I passed in bondage. I would gladly forget them if I could. Yet the retrospection is not altogether without solace; for with these gloomy recollections come tender memories of my good old grandmother, like light fleecy clouds floating over a dark and troubled sea.”
Harriet was born to a skilled carpenter who had been able to keep house with his wife and children. Hence for the first six years of her life she was unaware of her position as property of another. "Though we were all slaves, I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed I was a piece of merchandise, trusted to them (her parents)for safe keeping…” When she was orphaned at six years of age she and her brother were moved to her mother's owner, Margaret Horniblow, where she was embraced and raised as a member of the family for another six years. She was uncharacteristically taught to read and write during these years.
“When I was nearly twelve years old, my kind mistress sickened and died," writes Jacobs. "She had promised my dying mother that her children should never suffer for anything; and when I remembered that, and recalled her many proofs of attachment to me, I could not help having some hopes that she had left me free. My friends were almost certain it would be so. They thought she would be sure to do it, on account of my mother’s love and faithful service." This was not to be however, as was usually the case with benevolent owners' wishes. Her heirs considered such affection to be absurd, indulgent, and financially impractical. Harriet was moved to the home of a lecherous doctor and his family, where she – like innumerable young black women in her situation – endured all manner of abuse. This is where the heart of the memoir begins. It is an honest and unusually frank retelling and, though it has been established as accurate and factual, it apparently was too raw for 19th century sensibilities. It did not go into a second printing and was only resurrected during the Civil Rights movement of the next century.
Harriet had an indomitable spirit and a clever mind. She foiled the doctor's attempt to break her and was driven to ensure the freedom of her children, conceived through a clandestine affair with a local landowner. Her free grandmother and uncle eventually conspired to hide her in a crawl space attic 9×7 feet and only 3-4 feet high for what ended up being seven years in nearly complete darkness save for a tiny hole she carved out to watch her children or catch the sound of their voices below. Seven years. Body and spirit were nearly broken by the time she escaped. Thanks to the Fugitive Slave Act, many more years of eluding the doctor would follow. He was close on her heels as she attempted to support herself and regain physical custody of her children. (Louisa below)
Summaries of her story can be found here
and here
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Harriet eventually found refuge in the home of abolitionist Nathaniel Parker Willis and his wife Cornelia Grinnell Willis. Willis has been referred to as the Dickens of the West. The New York Times remembered Willis "as a poet, as [being as] popular with the mass of American readers as Byron was in England; his verses were the first found and the most read on the centre tables of polite society, and his prose sketches were deemed models of perfection" (New York Times, Jan. 22, 1867, 4) After the doctor's death Cornelia Willis finally succeeded in purchasing Harriet's freedom. Though grateful to have the long years of running behind her, Harriet expresses the outrage that such a thing was needed in a "free" nation,
“'The bill of sale!' Those words struck me like a blow. So I was sold at last! A human being sold in the free city of New York! The bill of sale is on record, and future generations will learn from it that women were articles of traffic in New York, late in the nineteenth century of the Christian religion. It may hereafter prove a useful document to antiquaries, who are seeking to measure the progress of civilization in the United States."
May we do just that – learn from it.
Harriet worked tirelessly for the remainder of her life as an abolitionist and teacher of newly freed children and adults. She and her brother ran a reading room for a time and she opened a school with her daughter. I will tell you what she knew and what I know to the true – reading is the great equalizer of persons. Education is a gift. Never take it for granted and do not stop learning during the busy years, dear mothers. There are stories you need to hear to make sense of your world. This is one of them.
A related title here
Upcoming reading on similar themes:
Running a Thousand Miles to Freedom by William and Ellen Craft
Viktor Frankel Man's Search for Meaning
Walter Cizek's He Leadeth Me
Starry Sky Journal 