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Primary source: Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, memoir, 1861.
Caption: Harriet A. Jacobs recounts the unique struggles of female slaves in her autobiography, which was later edited by the famous abolitionist, Lydia Maria Child.
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Even the little child, who is accustomed to wait on her mistress and her children, will learn, before she is twelve years old, why it is that her mistress hates such and such a one among the slaves. Perhaps the child's own mother is among those hated ones. She listens to violent outbreaks of jealous passion, and cannot help understanding what is the cause. She will become prematurely knowing in evil things. Soon she will learn to tremble when she hears her master's footfall. She will be compelled to realize that she is no longer a child. If God has bestowed beauty upon her, it will prove her greatest curse. That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave.
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Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, ed. L. Maria Child (Boston, 1861); reprint, edited and with an introduction by Jean Fagan Yellin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000) 28.
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