The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

by Various

  Calumniators of my despised race, read this and blush.

  ZILLAH.

  PHILADELPHIA, JULY 8TH, 1832.

  7

  HARRIET JACOBS

  (1813–1897)

  Harriet Jacobs is well-known to most students of African American literature who have read her now canonical autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), the first fugitive slave narrative written by a woman in the United States, published initially under the pseudonym Linda Brent. Born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, Harriet escaped and lived as a fugitive slave in New York for ten years. Her narrative was immediately popular and influential among abolitionists in the United States and England.

  “The Loophole of Retreat” details Jacobs’s painful experience in hiding before she escaped from slavery. Confined in a small, lightless, pest-infested crawl space, Jacobs demonstrates resilience and optimism even in the midst of excruciating pain. The conversations Jacobs recalls at the end of the piece, spoken by people walking by her hiding place, indicate how precarious her position was.

  “The Loophole of Retreat” from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

  SOURCE: Harriet Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Boston: Published for the Author, 1861).

  A small shed had been added to my grandmother’s house years ago. Some boards were laid across the joists at the top, and between these boards and the roof was a very small garret, never occupied by any thing but rats and mice. It was a pent roof, covered with nothing but shingles, according to the southern custom for such buildings. The garret was only nine feet long and seven wide. The highest part was three feet high, and sloped down abruptly to the loose board floor. There was no admission for either light or air. My uncle Phillip, who was a carpenter, had very skillfully made a concealed trap-door, which communicated with the storeroom. He had been doing this while I was waiting in the swamp. The storeroom opened upon a piazza. To this hole I was conveyed as soon as I entered the house. The air was stifling; the darkness total. A bed had been spread on the floor. I could sleep quite comfortably on one side; but the slope was so sudden that I could not turn on my other without hitting the roof. The rats and mice ran over my bed; but I was weary, and I slept such sleep as the wretched may, when a tempest has passed over them. Morning came. I knew it only by the noises I heard; for in my small den day and night were all the same. I suffered for air even more than for light. But I was not comfortless. I heard the voices of my children. There was joy and there was sadness in the sound. It made my tears flow. How I longed to speak to them! I was eager to look on their faces; but there was no hole, no crack, through which I could peep. This continued darkness was oppressive. It seemed horrible to sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without one gleam of light. Yet I would have chosen this, rather than my lot as a slave, though white people considered it an easy one; and it was so compared with the fate of others. I was never cruelly overworked; I was never lacerated with the whip from head to foot; I was never so beaten and bruised that I could not turn from one side to the other; I never had my heel-strings cut to prevent my running away; I was never chained to a log and forced to drag it about, while I toiled in the fields from morning till night; I was never branded with hot iron, or torn by bloodhounds. On the contrary, I had always been kindly treated, and tenderly cared for, until I came into the hands of Dr. Flint. I had never wished for freedom till then. But though my life in slavery was comparatively devoid of hardships, God pity the woman who is compelled to lead such a life!

  My food was passed up to me through the trap-door my uncle had contrived; and my grandmother, my uncle Phillip, and aunt Nancy would seize such opportunities as they could, to mount up there and chat with me at the opening. But of course this was not safe in the daytime. It must all be done in darkness. It was impossible for me to move in an erect position, but I crawled about my den for exercise. One day I hit my head against something, and found it was a gimlet. My uncle had left it sticking there when he made the trap-door. I was as rejoiced as Robinson Crusoe could have been at finding such a treasure. It put a lucky thought into my head. I said to myself, “Now I will have some light. Now I will see my children.” I did not dare to begin my work during the daytime, for fear of attracting attention. But I groped round; and having found the side next the street, where I could frequently see my children, I stuck the gimlet in and waited for evening. I bored three rows of holes, one above another; then I bored out the interstices between. I thus succeeded in making one hole about an inch long and an inch broad. I sat by it till late into the night, to enjoy the little whiff of air that floated in. In the morning I watched for my children. The first person I saw in the street was Dr. Flint. I had a shuddering, superstitious feeling that it was a bad omen. Several familiar faces passed by. At last I heard the merry laugh of children, and presently two sweet little faces were looking up at me, as though they knew I was there, and were conscious of the joy they imparted. How I longed to tell them I was there!

  My condition was now a little improved. But for weeks I was tormented by hundreds of little red insects, fine as a needle’s point, that pierced through my skin, and produced an intolerable burning. The good grandmother gave me herb teas and cooling medicines, and finally I got rid of them. The heat of my den was intense, for nothing but thin shingles protected me from the scorching summer’s sun. But I had my consolations. Through my peeping-hole I could watch the children, and when they were near enough, I could hear their talk. Aunt Nancy brought me all the news she could hear at Dr. Flint’s. From her I learned that the doctor had written to New York to a colored woman, who had been born and raised in our neighborhood, and had breathed his contaminating atmosphere. He offered her a reward if she could find out any thing about me. I know not what was the nature of her reply; but he soon after started for New York in haste, saying to his family that he had business of importance to transact. I peeped at him as he passed on his way to the steamboat. It was a satisfaction to have miles of land and water between us, even for a little while; and it was a still greater satisfaction to know that he believed me to be in the Free States. My little den seemed less dreary than it had done. He returned, as he did from his former journey to New York, without obtaining any satisfactory information. When he passed our house next morning, Benny was standing at the gate. He had heard them say that he had gone to find me, and he called out, “Dr. Flint, did you bring my mother home? I want to see her.” The doctor stamped his foot at him in a rage, and exclaimed, “Get out of the way, you little damned rascal! If you don’t, I’ll cut off your head.”

  Benny ran terrified into the house, saying, “You can’t put me in jail again. I don’t belong to you now.” It was well that the wind carried the words away from the doctor’s ear. I told my grandmother of it, when we had our next conference at the trap-door, and begged of her not to allow the children to be impertinent to the irascible old man.

  Autumn came, with a pleasant abatement of heat. My eyes had become accustomed to the dim light, and by holding my book or work in a certain position near the aperture I contrived to read and sew. That was a great relief to the tedious monotony of my life. But when winter came, the cold penetrated through the thin shingle roof, and I was dreadfully chilled. The winters there are not so long, or so severe, as in northern latitudes; but the houses are not built to shelter from cold, and my little den was peculiarly comfortless. The kind grandmother brought me bedclothes and warm drinks. Often I was obliged to lie in bed all day to keep comfortable; but with all my precautions, my shoulders and feet were frostbitten. O, those long, gloomy days, with no object for my eye to rest upon, and no thoughts to occupy my mind, except the dreary past and the uncertain future! I was thankful when there came a day sufficiently mild for me to wrap myself up and sit at the loophole to watch the passers by. Southerners have the habit of stopping and talking in the streets, and I heard many conversations not intended to meet my ear
s. I heard slave-hunters planning how to catch some poor fugitive. Several times I heard allusions to Dr. Flint, myself, and the history of my children, who, perhaps, were playing near the gate. One would say, “I wouldn’t move my little finger to catch her, as old Flint’s property.” Another would say, “I’ll catch any nigger for the reward. A man ought to have what belongs to him, if he is a damned brute.” The opinion was often expressed that I was in the Free States. Very rarely did any one suggest that I might be in the vicinity. Had the least suspicion rested on my grandmother’s house, it would have been burned to the ground. But it was the last place they thought of. Yet there was no place, where slavery existed, that could have afforded me so good a place of concealment.

  Dr. Flint and his family repeatedly tried to coax and bribe my children to tell something they had heard said about me. One day the doctor took them into a shop, and offered them some bright little silver pieces and gay handkerchiefs if they would tell where their mother was. Ellen shrank away from him, and would not speak; but Benny spoke up, and said, “Dr. Flint, I don’t know where my mother is. I guess she’s in New York; and when you go there again, I wish you’d ask her to come home, for I want to see her; but if you put her in jail, or tell her you’ll cut her head off, I’ll tell her to go right back.”

  8

  ELIZABETH KECKLEY

  (1818–1907)

  Born into slavery in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, Keckley lived as an enslaved dressmaker in St. Louis, Missouri, before buying her freedom and moving to Washington, D.C. There, she became a dressmaker for the city’s growing elite, including Mary Todd Lincoln, who soon became attached to Keckley. The two forged a close, longstanding, and complicated relationship. After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Keckley remained a supporter of his widow. Keckley published her autobiography, Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, in 1868, and horrified at what they saw as an invasion of privacy, Washington society and the Lincoln family turned their backs on Keckley. She lived on her income as a seamstress and after 1892 taught at Wilberforce University in the Department of Sewing and the Domestic Arts. She died in a home for the destitute that she had a role in founding.

  The following excerpt from Keckley’s Behind the Scenes shows the trust Mary Todd Lincoln put in her former dressmaker. With dwindling resources, Lincoln’s widow needed to sell pieces of her wardrobe. Keckley naturally sought to help but, as the excerpt closes, race remained a harsh and inexorable barrier.

  “The Secret History of Mrs. Lincoln’s Wardrobe in New York,” from Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (1868)

  SOURCE: Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (New York: G. W. Carlton and Co., 1868).

  In March 1867, Mrs. Lincoln wrote to me from Chicago that, as her income was insufficient to meet her expenses, she would be obliged to give up her house in the city, and return to boarding. She said that she had struggled long enough to keep up appearances, and that the mask must be thrown aside. “I have not the means,” she wrote, “to meet the expenses of even a first-class boardinghouse, and must sell out and secure cheap rooms at some place in the country. It will not be startling news to you, my dear Lizzie, to learn that I must sell a portion of my wardrobe to add to my resources, so as to enable me to live decently, for you remember what I told you in Washington, as well as what you understood before you left me here in Chicago. I cannot live on seventeen hundred dollars a year, and as I have many costly things which I shall never wear, I might as well turn them into money, and thus add to my income, and make my circumstances easier. It is humiliating to be placed in such a position, but as I am in the position, I must extricate myself as best I can. Now, Lizzie, I want to ask a favor of you. It is imperative that I should do something for my relief. I want you to meet me in New York, between the thirtieth of August and the fifth of September next, to assist me in disposing of a portion of my wardrobe.”

  I knew that Mrs. Lincoln’s income was small, and also knew that she had many valuable dresses, which could be of no value to her, packed away in boxes and trunks. I was confident that she would never wear the dresses again, and thought that, since her need was urgent, it would be well enough to dispose of them quietly, and believed that New York was the best place to transact a delicate business of the kind. She was the wife of Abraham Lincoln, the man who had done so much for my race, and I could refuse nothing for her, calculated to advance her interests. I consented to render Mrs. Lincoln all the assistance in my power, and many letters passed between us in regard to the best way to proceed. It was finally arranged that I should meet her in New York about the middle of September. While thinking over this question, I remembered an incident of the White House. When we were packing up to leave Washington for Chicago, she said to me, one morning:

  “Lizzie, I may see the day when I shall be obliged to sell a portion of my wardrobe. If Congress does not do something for me, then my dresses some day may have to go to bring food into my mouth, and the mouths of my children.”

  I also remembered of Mrs. L. having said to me at different times, in the years of 1863 and 1864, that her expensive dresses might prove of great assistance to her some day.

  “In what way, Mrs. Lincoln? I do not understand,” I ejaculated, the first time she made the remark to me.

  “Very simple. Mr. Lincoln is so generous that he will not save anything from his salary, and I expect that we will leave the White House poorer than when we came into it; and should such be the case, I will have no further need for an expensive wardrobe, and it will be policy to sell it off.”

  I thought at the time that Mrs. Lincoln was borrowing trouble from the future, and little dreamed that the event which she so dimly foreshadowed would ever come to pass.

  I closed my business about the tenth of September, and made every arrangement to leave Washington on the mission proposed. On the fifteenth of September I received a letter from Mrs. Lincoln, postmarked Chicago, saying that she should leave the city so as to reach New York on the night of the seventeenth, and directing me to precede her to the metropolis, and secure rooms for her at the St. Denis Hotel in the name of Mrs. Clarke, as her visit was to be incog. The contents of the letter were startling to me. I had never heard of the St. Denis, and therefore presumed that it could not be a first-class house. And I could not understand why Mrs. Lincoln should travel, without protection, under an assumed name. I knew that it would be impossible for me to engage rooms at a strange hotel for a person whom the proprietors knew nothing about. I could not write to Mrs. Lincoln, since she would be on the road to New York before a letter could possibly reach Chicago. I could not telegraph her, for the business was of too delicate a character to be trusted to the wires that would whisper the secret to every curious operator along the line. In my embarrassment, I caught at a slender thread of hope, and tried to derive consolation from it. I knew Mrs. Lincoln to be indecisive about some things, and I hoped that she might change her mind in regard to the strange program proposed, and at the last moment dispatch me to this effect. The sixteenth and then the seventeenth of September passed, and no dispatch reached me, so on the eighteenth I made all haste to take the train for New York. After an anxious ride, I reached the city in the evening, and when I stood alone in the streets of the great metropolis, my heart sank within me. I was in an embarrassing situation, and scarcely knew how to act. I did not know where the St. Denis Hotel was, and was not certain that I should find Mrs. Lincoln there after I should go to it.

  I walked up to Broadway, and got into a stage going uptown, with the intention of keeping a close lookout for the hotel in question. A kind-looking gentleman occupied the seat next to me, and I ventured to inquire of him:

  “If you please, sir, can you tell me where the St. Denis Hotel is?”

  “Yes; we ride past it in the stage. I will point it out to you when we come
to it.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The stage rattled up the street, and after a while the gentleman looked out of the window and said:

  “This is the St. Denis. Do you wish to get out here?”

  “Thank you. Yes, sir.”

  He pulled the strap, and the next minute I was standing on the pavement. I pulled a bell at the ladies’ entrance to the hotel, and a boy coming to the door, I asked:

  “Is a lady by the name of Mrs. Clarke stopping here? She came last night, I believe.”

  “I do not know. I will ask at the office”; and I was left alone.

  The boy came back and said:

  “Yes, Mrs. Clarke is here. Do you want to see her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, just walk round there. She is down here now.”

  I did not know where “round there” exactly was, but I concluded to go forward. I stopped, however, thinking that the lady might be in the parlor with some company; and pulling out a card, asked the boy to take it to her. She heard me talking, and came into the hall to see for herself.

  “My dear Lizzie, I am so glad to see you,” she exclaimed, coming forward and giving me her hand. “I have just received your note”—I had written her that I should join her on the eighteenth—“and have been trying to get a room for you. Your note has been here all day, but it was never delivered until tonight. Come in here, until I find out about your room”; and she led me into the office.