Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897) was an American abolitionist and novelist. Jacobs was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina. She escaped from Edenton by boat in 1842, and moved to New York. Abolitionist Nathaniel Parker Willis gave Jacobs a job as a nursemaid for his family. Her most famous book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published under the pen name Linda Brent in 1861, places an emphasis on the frequent sexual exploitation of enslaved African-American women.

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