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What Is Harriet Jacobs Psychological Abuse

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Harriet Jacobs was an African American woman who wrote incidents in the life of a slave girl in order to discuss her experiences in slavery as a woman. She wanted to unveil the truth about the life of a slave and share her knowledge among white southerners and northerners of slavery. As a slave woman and a runaway, Harriet Jacobs had suffered emotionally, physically, and mentally in the institution of slavery. However, she had suffered far more psychological abuse than physical abuse due to her life as a slave, sexual harassment from her slave master, and the constant fear of being found as a runaway. All these experiences led to the truth of what slavery really was.
Harriet Jacobs didn’t realize that she was born a slave until "six years …show more content…

Harriet Jacobs suffered psychological abuse through Dr. Flint’s constant manipulation. Dr. Flint offered freedom to her children if she agreed to be his mistress. This is evident when she says, “Sometimes, when my master found that I still refused to accept what he called his kind offers, he would threaten to sell my child” (XIV). Even after she conceived two children with Mr. Sands, Dr. Flint’s threats continued. He saw Jacobs’ children as a goldmine that could later be sold. This type of manipulation from Dr. Flint was a huge impact on Harriet Jacobs decisions that led to her escaping from that home and leaving her children behind for their own sake. Jacobs fled to her grandmother’s house where she hid in the attic roof for 7 years to escape her masters mad lust towards her. She watched her children play and grow up through a peep hole with no way of communicating with them. That was the hardest challenge Harriet had to face because she was locked up in a small space with little food and no air to breathe. Harriet Jacobs wrote, “I feared the sight of my children would be too much for my full heart…I bent over the bed where lay my little Benny and baby Ellen. Poor little ones! fatherless and motherless!” (XVII). Her fight for her and her children’s freedom from slavery was what kept her

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