Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay – The Daughter of a Slave who became a Wealthy Heiress

FILM POSTER FOR BELLE (2014)

Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay was born 1761 as the natural daughter of Maria Belle, an enslaved African woman and 24-year-old Sir John Lindsay, a British career naval officer and captain of the British warship HMS Trent, based in the British West Indies, who was already much-feted by the newspapers back home for his exploits. Lindsay is thought to have found Maria Belle held as a slave on a Spanish ship which his forces captured in the Caribbean. He took her as his lover and she later gave birth to his daughter. 

Margo Stringfield, an archaeologist at the University of West Florida, has been digging at the site of the house of Dido’s mother, Maria Belle. Stringfield found, among other things, a document, signed by Sir John Lindsay, deeding a lot in Pensacola, Florida, to Maria in 1772. “It was such an unusual situation -you would not normally have men conveying property to an ex-slave.”

LORD MANSFIELD & SIR JOHN LINDSAY

In 1764, when Dido was three, Lindsay was sent to Pensacola to test naval equipment. Maria Belle accompanied him. Once in Florida, Lindsay took his pick of land that had been granted to the British Navy. “The British named the streets after men of importance and I believe Lindsay chose this lot deliberately,” says Stringfield. Maria Belle’s former house is on the corner of Lindsay and Mansfield streets. Lindsay and Maria returned to London in subsequent years and their relationship continued well into Lindsay’s 1768 marriage to Mary Milner, an MP’s daughter. But it appears to have ended in 1774, when Maria returned to Pensacola alone.In the deed for the house, Lindsay guaranteed Maria her freedom, and he set her up well. Stringfield has found china tea pots and cups, “a beautiful decanter top” and pieces of delicate wine glass. “It was certainly a genteel life.”

Lindsay returned to London after the war in 1765 and bought his young daughter, who was baptised as Dido Elizabeth Belle in 1766 at St. George's, Bloomsbury. In London in the 18^th Century there were around 10,000 black people already in the city, and there were more of mixed parentage by the time Belle was living there. 

KENWOOD HOUSE, HAMPSTEAD

Lindsay took Dido Belle to Kenwood House in Hampstead which was set in beautiful landscaped gardens with a view of St Paul’s Cathedral six miles away. Kenwood House was the home of Lindsay’s Uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, and his wife Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Mansfield. The Murray family raised Belle as a free, educated woman along with their great-niece and Dido's cousin, Lady Elizabeth Murray, whose mother had died when Elizabeth was six. The Mansfield’s took Belle in to be Lady Elizabeth's playmate and, later in life, her personal attendant and companion, .

Belle lived at Kenwood House for 31 years and "was treated like the rest of the family when she was in company with only the family." As the black, illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, Belle was too well-born to belong with commoners but too different to be welcomed whole-heartedly in high society. When the Mansfield’s were entertaining, Belle didn't eat with the guests but she was always treated as "a loved but poor relation" by the family.

FROM THE FILM BELLE

Being given expensive medical treatments and luxurious bedroom furnishings, were further evidence of her special position at Kenwood She had a four-poster bed draped in chintz, mahogany furniture in her rooms and costly remedies were purchased when she was ill. She received an allowance that was twice the annual salary of the first coachman. She, just like Elizabeth, had private lessons from a governess and was taught how to play the piano. “Dido was very, very privileged,” says William Murray, a descendant of the Earl . “She was in the top 5 per cent, perhaps the top 1 per cent, in terms of how she lived."

 

PAINTING OF DIDO AND ELIZABETH

The family commissioned a painting of Dido and Elizabeth. Completed in 1779, it was formerly attributed to Johann Zoffany though is currently thought to have been painted in the Zoffany style by David Martin. It is unique in British art of the 18th century in depicting a black woman and a white woman as near equals. It shows Dido alongside and slightly behind her cousin Elizabeth, carrying exotic fruit and wearing a turban with a large ostrich feather. Dido is portrayed with great vivacity, while her cousin appears more sedate and formal; both women wear gowns reflecting their high social status. They are standing together on the grounds of Kenwood and her cousin's hand lies gently upon Dido's arm, suggesting affection and the possibility that they are walking the grounds together. Their positioning in the painting may hint to differences in their race: Elizabeth stands holding a book while Dido holds a plate of fruit, as if on her way to serve others. However, Dido's gown and accessories demonstrate an expensive, fashion-forward style contrasting with Elizabeth's more traditional dress.

 Esther Chadwick, a member of the History of Art department at Yale University said “What’s remarkable is that Dido is painted at the same height as Elizabeth Murray, and Elizabeth Murray is shown reaching out to her. But what’s most unusual is her direct gaze.”

The painting is owned by the present Earl of Mansfield and housed at Scone Palace in Perth, Scotland. In 2007, it was exhibited in Kenwood House, together with more information about Belle, during an exhibition marking the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807. For a long time, the double portrait at Scone Palace was labelled with only one name: “The Lady Elizabeth Murray”. As William Murray explains, “It was only when my grandmother was taking some tourists around Scone in the early Nineties that one of them who had heard of Dido questioned who was in this portrait.” The family then started digging for more information on Belle. 

Lord Mansfield had a close paternal relationship with Belle. She often assisted him in his work by taking dictation of his letters and later acted as his personal secretary. This sort of work was normally done by a male clerk. Belle he had beautiful handwriting as a result of her good education. 

FROM THE FILM BELLE

“So why did the first Earl take her on?” asks William Murray. “I think it’s because of his own experience of being an outsider.” Mansfield grew up in Scotland, the fourth son of the Viscount of Stormont. It was a noble but impoverished line and Mansfield was dispatched to London aged 12 to make his own way.”

One of Mansfield's friends, American Thomas Hutchinson, a former governor of Massachusetts who as a Loyalist had moved to London, recalled in his personal diary that Belle "….was called upon by my Lord every minute for this thing and that, and showed the greatest attention to everything he said".

 He also talks about his first impressions of her at Lord Mansfield's house, saying:

 "A Black girl came in after dinner and sat with the ladies, and after coffee, walked with the company in the gardens, one of the young ladies having her arm within the other. She had a very high cap, and her wool was much frizzled in her neck, but not enough to answer the large curls now in fashion. I knew her history before, but my Lord mentioned it again. Sir Lindsay, having taken her mother prisoner in a Spanish vessel, brought her to England, where she delivered of this girl, of which she was then with child, and which was taken care of by Lord M., and has been educated by his family. He calls her Dido, which I suppose is all the name she has. He knows he has been reproached for shewing a fondness for her – I dare say not criminal.”

A reference to Belle also appears briefly in volume II of James Beattie's Elements of Moral Science. Beattie refers to her intelligence, saying;

"But I happened, a few days after, to see his theory overturned, and my conjecture established by a negro girl about ten years old, who had been six years in England, and not only spoke with the articulation and accent of a native, but repeated some pieces of poetry, with a degree of elegance, which would have been admired in any English child of her years." 

Following this is a footnote which states, "She was in Lord Mansfield's family ; and at his desire, and in his presence, repeated those pieces of poetry to me. She was called Dido, and I believe is still alive." This is and the quotations from Thomas Hutchinson are some of the few direct references to Dido found in primary source material.

FROM THE FILM BELLE

As Belle grew older, she took on the responsibility of managing the dairy and poultry yards at Kenwood. This was a typical occupation for ladies of the gentry. Belle was given an annual allowance of £30 10s, which was several times the wages of a domestic servant. By contrast, Lady Elizabeth received around £100, but she was a beneficiary in her own right through her mother's family. Belle, quite apart from her race, was illegitimate, in a time and place when great social stigma usually accompanied such status.

Lady Mansfield died tragically early in 1784 and her husband never got over her loss.  Mansfield’s retreat from public life began then. After his retirement, he withdrew to the first floor apartments at Kenwood. According to the novelist, Fanny Burney, writing in her diary at this time,

    “Poor Lord Mansfield has not been downstairs, the housekeeper told us, for the last four years…”

Then a year later, Elizabeth left Kenwood to marry George Finch-Hatton. Elizabeth and Belle had been friends and companions since they were small children.They shared everything, but now Elizabeth was to embrace the life she had been bred for, as a wife and mistress of Eastwell Park in Kent. She would bear five children and their son George would become the tenth Earl of Winchilsea and fifth Earl of Nottingham.

With no sons, it was Lord Mansfield’s nephew Lord Stormont who would inherit Kenwood, and it would have been unlikely that he would have wanted Belle there. Now more than ever she would have been aware of her peculiar position in the family. It was inconceivable that she could hope to make a similar marriage to Elizabeth, not merely because of her skin colour but also because she was illegitimate.

Not surprisingly, Lord Mansfield and Belle grew even closer after his wife’s death. After Elizabeth’s marriage, Mansfield added a codicil to his will, giving an extra £200 for Belle ‘to set out with’. It seems he was worried about what would become of her after his death. Over the years he added more codicils increasing her inheritance. 

The original will of 1782 also specifically requests that his wife’s friend the Dowager Duchess of Portland should bequeath Belle a portrait of himself by Van Loo, ‘to hang in her room, to put her in mind of one she knew from her infancy, and always honoured with uninterrupted confidence and friendship’.

The phrasing here is astonishing: for a lord to have stated in his will that he honoured a young black woman would have been remarkable enough, but for Mansfield to say that Belle honoured him with her confidence and friendship gives an intimation of the deep affection and respect in which he held her. Equally importantly in this document of 1782 he made a striking statement, ‘I confirm to Dido Elizabeth Belle her freedom,’ revealing his absolute determination that there should be no possibility of her somehow being sold back into slavery after his death.

Belle's father had died in 1788 without legitimate heirs, bequeathing £1000 to be shared by his "reputed children", John and Elizabeth Lindsay. Historian Gene Adams believed this suggested that Lindsay referred to his daughter as Elizabeth, and she may have been named Dido by his uncle and aunt after they took charge of the girl.. A contemporary obituary of Sir John Lindsay, who had eventually been promoted to admiral, acknowledged that he was the father of Dido Belle, and described her: 

"[H]e has died, we believe, without any legitimate issue but has left one natural daughter, a Mulatta who has been brought up in Lord Mansfield's family almost from her infancy and whose amiable disposition and accomplishments have gained her the highest respect from all his Lordship's relations and visitants." 

When Lord Mansfield died in 1793, Belle lost her friend and protector – but she had become a woman of some means. Belle was in her 30s and no doubt considered herself past marriageable age at this point but this was to change very shortly. 

In his will written in 1783, Lord Mansfield bequeathed her with £500 as an outright sum and a £100 annuity, which she received after his death in 1793.  In 1799 Belle also inherited £100 from Lady Margery Murray, one of two female relatives who had come to live with and help care for the Murrays in their later years.

William Murray left his niece Elizabeth Murray £10,000. Her father was in line to inherit his father's title and more money.

FROM THE FILM BELLE

Five months after her great-uncle's death in March 1793, Belle married John Davinier, a Frenchman who worked as a gentleman's steward. They wed on 5 December 1793 at St George's, Hanover Square. They were both then residents of the parish. He was the son of the local Reverend in Hampstead, and they had known each other, at least by sight, for many years. They moved to what is now Ebury Street in Belgravia. The Daviniers had at least three sons: twins Charles and John, both baptised at St George's on 8 May 1795; and William Thomas, baptised there on 26 January 1802. The young family must have lived a comfortable life, thanks to the legacies Belle had and Davinier’s earnings as a trusted servant. 

Belle died of natural causes in 1805 at the age of 43, and was interred in July of that year at St George's Fields, Westminster, a burial-ground close to what is now Bayswater Road. In the 1970s, the site was redeveloped and her grave was moved.

Her husband later remarried and had two more children with his second wife.

Belle's son Charles Davinier served with the Madras Army - one of the territorial armies of the East India Company , preceding the British Indian Army. In 1810, he was listed as a lieutenant in the 15th Native Infantry In August 1836, he married at Kensington Church, Hannah Nash, youngest daughter of J. Nash, Esquire, of Kensington. At this time, he held the rank of captain in the 30th Native Infantry. In August 1837, Captain Charles Davinier was relieved from his former duty and was "to have charge of Infantry recruits" in the headquarters at Fort St. George. He retired from service in 1847, still being with the 30th Native Infantry. After his retirement he lived with his wife, children and servants at Lansdowne Villas in Notting Hill, where he died on 24th January 1873.

Belle's last known descendant, her great-great-grandson Harold Davinier, died childless in South Africa in 1975.

Belle’s great-uncle, Lord Mansfield, in his capacity as Lord Chief Justice, ruled in two very significant slavery cases. 

The first was that of James Somerset. A slave who had been brought to England, Somerset escaped, was caught and then forced onto a ship bound for the West Indies. Somerset’s “owner” argued he could do with him as he pleased. But witnesses were shocked by Somerset’s violent capture and commentators horrified that a man’s freedom could be denied on English soil. Mansfield set him free, judging that colony slave laws were not binding in England.

The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England.

Mansfield's ruling that slavery did not exist in common law and had never been introduced by positive law was taken by abolitionists to mean that slavery was abolished in England. 

His ruling was narrow and reserved judgment on this point, saying only that the slave's owner had no right to remove Somerset from England against his will. Mansfield later said his decision was intended only to apply to the slave at issue in the case. At the time, it was suggested that Mansfield's personal experience with raising Dido Belle influenced his decision. Thomas Hutchinson later recalled a comment by a slave-owner:

 "A few years ago there was a cause before his Lordship brought by a Black for recovery of his liberty. A Jamaica planter, being asked what judgment his Lordship would give [answered] 'No doubt... he will be set free, for Lord Mansfield keeps a Black in his house which governs him and the whole family.'"

The second case he ruled on was The Zong massacre. In 1781, a slave ship bound for Jamaica threw 132 slaves overboard. The ship’s owners claimed the vessel had run out of water and the crew had to sacrifice some slaves to save the 300 others on board. Now, they wanted their insurers to pay up for the lost “cargo”. The insurance company rejected the claim and it found its way to Lord Mansfield.

“It is a very shocking case,” he wrote. It appalled English society. The legal argument hinged on whether the slaves had been killed out of necessity or whether, as was suspected, they had become diseased during the journey - and therefore worthless - and had been murdered for the insurance pay out. In the end, the owners couldn’t prove necessity and dropped the claim amid a storm of negative publicity. 

Dido Belle’s story has been told in plays, films and books:

Dido Belle (2006), a film by Jason Young, was written as a short period drama titled Kenwood House. It was workshopped at Battersea Arts Centre on 21 June 2006 as part of the Battersea Writers' Group script development programme.

Shirley J. Thompson's operatic trilogy, Spirit Songs – including Spirit of the Middle Passage about Dido Elizabeth Belle, with Abigail Kelly in the role – was performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, in March 2007 as part of the 200-year commemoration of the act abolishing the international slave trade.

 Let Justice Be Done, a 2008 play by Mixed Blessings Theatre Group, explores the influence that Belle might have had on her great-uncle's Somersett Ruling of 1772.

 An African Cargo by Margaret Busby, a play staged by Nitro Black Theatre Co-operative at Greenwich Theatre, 2007, in commemoration of the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, deals with a landmark 1783 trial presided over by Lord Mansfield at the Guildhall, resulting from the Zong massacre. The character of Dido Belle expresses to the audience feelings of horror and injustice for the murder of the slaves on the ship.

Family Likeness, a 2013 novel by Caitlin Davies, was inspired in part by the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle. Zadie Smith mentions the story of Belle in her 2016 novel Swing Time when the narrator goes to Kenwood House and overhears a tour guide talking about her.

Belle (2013), a major feature film directed by Amma Asante, explores Dido's life as the multiracial natural daughter of an aristocrat in 18th-century England; she became an heiress but occupied an ambiguous social position. The film is based on the 1779 painting of Dido and her cousin Elizabeth, formerly thought to be by Zoffany. The film stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Dido and Tom Wilkinson as her guardian Lord Mansfield. 

Author Paula Byrne was commissioned to write Belle: The True Story of Dido Belle (2014) as a tie-in to the 2013 film Belle. It was published as an audiobook when the movie opened in the United States.

The film Belle, directed by Amma Asante and starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, tells Dido Elizabeth Belle’s story for the 21st century. Like all historical-biographical films, it takes considerable artistic licence even with the few facts that we know about her. The Zong case, being more dramatic, is made the centrepiece of the courtroom drama, although the Somerset ruling was more significant for the abolitionists’ cause. John Davinier becomes an idealistic clergyman’s son instead of a French servant and much of their romance is invented but the spirit of the film is true to the astonishing story of Belle’s bond with Lord Mansfield.

Belle’s grave may be lost and she may have no living descendants, but the painting remains a testament to her extraordinary legacy. She lives on for ever in this portrait, striding back from the orangery, perpetually in motion, gazing out boldly with her quizzical, dimpled smile, making no apology for her presence and her vitality.

Just as the portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray sparked Paula Byrne’s interest, it was also the starting point for Belle director Amma Asante. ‘I’d just been to see an exhibition entitled The Black Character in Art, so when Damian Jones [Belle’s producer] sent me a postcard of this portrait depicting a black girl and white girl with equal prominence, I knew it was significant.’ Amma’s interest in Belle’s story grew and so began her journey to turn it into a film.

Amma had to make some changes to the known facts about Belle’s life: ‘We wanted to show the development of Dido’s relationship with her father figure, Lord Mansfield and her romantic affairs, alongside the documenting of this momentous time in history.’

FROM THE FILM BELLE

Set against the background of the Zong slave massacre, Amma made Belle older than she would have been at the time as she felt it was key that she had a political conscience and an understanding of the social upheavals. The landmark verdict against slavery that concludes Belle was in fact delivered by Lord Mansfield at the Somerset case, but it is no less significant for this. ‘We don’t know whether Dido had an influence on Lord Mansfield’s verdict, or whether he was that courageous already,’ says Amma.

Despite auditioning ‘every mixed-race actress possible’, on meeting 30-year-old Oxford-born Gugu, Amma knew she’d found her Belle. Gugu had previously won praise for her portrayal of Ophelia alongside Jude Law’s Hamlet and was working in Los Angeles on TV shows Touch and Undercovers at the time of the audition. ‘She has a natural elegance and understood the history,’ says Amma.

‘I’d walked passed Kenwood House [Lord Mansfield’s home in which Belle was raised] countless times when I was living in Highgate and studying at Rada, so I could imagine myself as her,’ says Gugu.

Belle is a coming-of-age story. During the film, Dido discovers her position as a member of the aristocracy, as a daughter and as a black woman,’ says Amma. 

 OFFICIAL TRAILER FOR THE FILM BELLE (2014)

 DOCUMENTARY ON THE LIFE OF DIDO BELLE

BUY YOUR COPY OF BELLE BY PAULA BYRNE HERE 

Harriet Ann Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Harriet Ann Jacobs was an African-American writer who escaped from slavery and became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Jacobs' single work, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, was one of the first autobiographical narratives about the struggle for freedom by female slaves. It was also an account of the sexual harassment and abuse they endured, and was based on events of her own life. Harriet Jacobs’ story is as remarkable as the writer who tells it. During a time when it was unusual for slaves to read and write, self-publishing a first-hand account of slavery’s atrocities was extraordinary. That it was written by a woman, unprecedented.

"I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what slavery really is. Only by experience can anyone realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit of abominations."

HARRIET JACOBS AS A YOUNG WOMAN - SEATED

Harriet Jacobs was born in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813 and had a brother called John S. Jacobs. Her father was Elijah Knox, an enslaved house carpenter owned by Andrew Knox. Elijah was said to be the son of the enslaved woman Athena Knox and a white farmer, Henry Jacobs.

Harriet's mother was Delilah Horniblow, an enslaved black woman held by John Horniblow, a tavern owner. Both Harriet and John Jacobs were born into slavery, as their mother was enslaved. Their grandmother, Molly Horniblow, was a beloved adult in young Harriet’s life – a confidant who doled out encouraging advice along with bits of crackers and sweets for her grandchildren.

“I was born a slave; but I never knew till six years of happy childhood had passed away.”

Harriet lived with her mother until Delilah's death around 1819, when Harriet was six. Then she lived with her mother's mistress, Margaret Horniblow, who taught Harriet to read, write and sew. Welcomed into the family, she remained there happily until Margaret’s death in 1825.

 “…though we were all slaves, I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed I was a piece of merchandise, trusted to them (slave owners) for safe keeping, and liable to be demanded of them at any moment.”

Harriet had hopes she would be emancipated. Three months before she died in 1825, Jacobs' mistress Margaret Horniblow had signed a will leaving her slaves to her mother, but Dr. James Norcom and a man named Henry Flury witnessed a later codicil to the will directing that the girl Harriet be left to Norcom's daughter Mary Matilda, Horniblow's five-year-old niece. The codicil was not signed by Margaret Horniblow. Norcom became Harriet's de facto master.

DR JAMES NORCOM

At age 11, Harriet and her brother John, who had been purchased by Dr. Norcom, moved into the physician’s household in Edenton. “When we entered our new home we encountered cold looks, cold words, and cold treatment," Harriet recalled. “The degradation, the wrongs, the vices that grow out of slavery are more than I can describe.

Harriet was deeply unhappy, and after her father’s death, the Norcom’s residence “seemed drearier than ever.”

“The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition,” she wrote. “My master was, to my knowledge, the father of 11 slaves. But did the mothers dare to tell who the father of their children was? Did the other slaves dare to allude to it, except in whispers among themselves? No indeed. They knew too well the terrible consequences.”

MRS NORCOM

Over the years, Dr. Norcom’s unwanted advances and his wife’s vindictive jealousy tormented Harriet. Norcom sexually harassed Harriet. He refused to allow her to marry, regardless of the man's status. Hoping to escape his attentions, Jacobs took Samuel Sawyer, a free white lawyer, as a consensual lover. He later was elected as a member of the US House of Representatives.  

SAMUEL SAWYER

With Sawyer, she had two children, Joseph and Louisa Matilda. Because she was enslaved, their children were born into slavery and Norcom was their master. Before the birth of her first child, Harriet moved to her grandmother’s home – where Dr. Norcom continued to pursue her. When Harriet again refused to become his mistress, she was banished to Dr. Norcom’s son’s plantation to work in the home. Harriet later reported that Norcom threatened to sell her children if she refused his sexual advances, but she continued to evade him. When she learned her young children would soon join her, to be brought up as plantation slaves, Harriet quickly plotted her escape. If she were to leave, the children would remain with her grandmother, avoiding the brutalities of slavery. “Whatever slavery might do to me,” she wrote, “it could not shackle my children. If I fell a sacrifice, my little ones were saved.

By 1835 her domestic situation had become unbearable, and Harriet deftly managed to escape. Jacobs first hid in the home of a friend in Edenton, in order to keep an eye on her children. After a short stay, she took refuge in a swamp called Cabarrus Pocosin. She then her place of safety became ia crawl space above a shack in her Grandmother Molly’s home.

 There, above a storeroom, she hid in a small garret, measuring about nine feet long and seven feet wide. The highest point was just three feet. “To this hole I was conveyed as soon as I entered the home," she wrote. Norcom searched for her and offered a reward:

Whilst in hiding, Jacobs had glimpses of her children from the attic and could hear their voices. Although the children were unaware of her presence, Harriet was able to hear and observe Joseph and Louisa Matilda as they grew.

LOUISA

JOSEPH

“Season after season, year after year, I peeped at my children’s faces, and heard their sweet voices, with a heart yearning all the while to say, ‘Your mother is here.’ ”

Under stifling conditions, with no room to stand or exercise, and separated from her children, Harriet remained for nearly seven years in her self-contained “prison” until opportunity presented an escape.

“At times, I was stupefied and listless; at other times I became very impatient to know when these dark years would end, and I should again be allowed to feel the sunshine, and breathe the pure air.”

She was more than glad to leave the Attic and was filled with hope. “For the last time I went up to my nook. Its desolate appearance no longer chilled me, for the light of hope had risen in my soul.”

Jacobs finally escaped in 1842 to the North by boat to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sawyer had purchased their two children from Norcom, and they moved in with Jacobs' grandmother but he could not free them. The state had made manumissions difficult.

HARRIET JACOBS WORKING AS A NURSEMAID FOR THE WILLIS FAMILY

After reaching the North in 1842, Jacobs was taken in by anti-slavery friends from the Philadelphia Vigilant Committee. They helped her get to New York in September 1845. There she found work as a nursemaid in the home of Nathaniel Parker Willis and made a new life. Willis was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS

She was also able to reunite with her daughter, Louisa, who had been sent to New York at a young age to work as a "waiting-maid".

In 1845, Jacobs' employer Mrs Mary Stace Willis died.  Jacobs continued to care for Mary's daughter Imogen and to assist the widower Nathaniel Willis. In January she travelled to England with him and his daughter. In letters home, Jacobs claimed there was no prejudice against people of colour in England. After returning from England, Jacobs left her employment with the Willises.

She moved to Boston to visit with her daughter, son and brother for ten months. Her brother, John S. Jacobs, who had also escaped and was part of the anti-slavery movement, in 1849 decided to open an anti-slavery reading room in Rochester, New York.

John Jacobs found a school for Louisa and by November 1849, she was attending the Young Ladies Domestic Seminary School located in Clinton, New York. The school was founded by abolitionist Hiram Huntington Kellogg in 1832. In 1849 Jacobs joined her brother in Rochester, where she met Quaker Amy Post. Amy and her husband Isaac were staunch abolitionists. As Jacobs became part of the Anti-Slavery Society, she became politicized. She helped support the Anti-Slavery Reading Room by speaking to audiences in Rochester to educate people and to raise money.

On October 1, 1850, John S. Jacobs' speech was quoted in Meetings of Coloured Citizens. Following Congressional passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, both John Jacobs and Harriet Jacobs feared for each other’s safety, as the new law increased pressure to capture escaped slaves and required cooperation from officials and citizens of Free states. They left Rochester and returned to New York City. John, was furious about the act, and wanted to leave the country. When he heard that the new state of California did not enforce the act, he decided to go there. He worked in the gold mines during the Gold Rush, where he was joined in 1852 by his nephew Joseph Jacobs, Harriet's son.

On February 29, 1852, Harriet Jacobs was informed that Daniel Messmore, the husband of her young legal mistress, had checked into a hotel in New York. To avert the risk of Jacobs being kidnapped, Cornelia Grinnell Willis (Willis' second wife) took Harriet and the Willis baby to a friend’s house where they hid. Cornelia Willis encouraged Jacobs to take the baby and go to Willis relatives in Massachusetts. Without Jacobs' knowledge, Cornelia Willis paid $300 to Messmore for the rights to Harriet and gave Jacobs her freedom. Jacobs returned to New York with the Willis child.

“My heart was exceedingly full,” wrote Harriet. “I remembered how my poor father had tried to buy me, when I was a small child, and how he had been disappointed. I hoped his spirit was rejoicing over me now. I remembered how my good old grandmother had laid up her earnings to purchase me in later years, and how often her plans had been frustrated.”

MEMORIAL TO MOLLY, HARRIET'S GRANDMOTHER

Writing her memoir and other work

In late 1852 or early 1853, Amy Post suggested that Jacobs should write her life story. She also suggested that Jacobs contact the author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was working on A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. When Stowe wanted to use Jacobs' history in her own book, Jacobs decided to write her own account. She wrote secretly at night, in a nursery in the Willis’ Idlewild estate.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

In June 1853, Jacobs wrote a letter in response to an article in the New York Tribune by former First Lady Julia Tyler, called “The Women of England vs. the Women of America”. Her letter was Jacobs' first published work. As Tyler referred to the lives of enslaved women in the United States, Jacobs believed she had the right to comment, as she had lived that life.

Over the next several years, Jacobs continued to write her memoir as well as letters to newspapers. In 1854, as Nathaniel Parker Willis was downstairs writing Out-doors at Idlewild; Or, The Shaping of a Home on the Banks of the Hudson, Jacobs was upstairs completing her own manuscript.

THE TWO BOOKS

Jacobs changed the names of all the people she depicted, including her own, to conceal their true identities and protect them from any adverse reaction. The villainous slave owner "Dr. Flint" was based on Jacobs' former master, Dr. James Norcom.

In 1856, Jacobs' daughter Louisa became a governess in the home of James and Sara Payson Willis Parton. She was the sister of Nathaniel Parker Willis and became known as the writer, Fanny Fern.

FANNY FERN

Publication

Boston publishing house Phillips and Samson agreed to print Jacobs' autobiography, if she could convince Willis or Harriet Beecher Stowe to provide a preface, which they thought would help sales. She refused to ask Willis for help and Stowe turned her down. As it happened, the Phillips and Samson company soon closed shop.

In 1860 Jacobs signed an agreement with the Thayer and Eldridge publishing house, which requested a preface by Lydia Maria Child. Child also became involved in editing the manuscript, and the company introduced her to Jacobs. The two women remained in contact for much of their lives. Thayer and Eldridge published the book in 1861.

LYDIA MARIA CHILD

Jacobs shaped her slave narrative to appeal to middle class white Christian women in the North.  She focused on the detrimental effect of slavery on women's chastity and sexual virtues. Slave women had often been blamed for men using them sexually, and Jacobs wanted to show how they were abused by the impossible power relationships. Christian women could perceive how slavery was a temptation to masculine lusts. The later part of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was devoted to the Jacobs' struggle to free her two children after she escaped.

Civil War years

Starting in January 1861, the United States suffered break-up; South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas all seceded from the Union. The first six were the states that held the most slaves.

In February, representatives from the southern states elected Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy. At this time, Harriet Jacobs and her editor, Lydia Marie Child, were trying to sell Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. They wrote to authors and editors of newspapers, to bookstore owners, and to friends or frequent correspondents; they wanted anyone to advertise or sell Jacobs' narrative.

In May 1861, John S. Jacobs, Harriet’s younger brother, was in London to publish a condensed version of her narrative called A True Tale of Slavery." This book covered much of Harriet Jacobs' story but it excluded the account of sexual harassment. John Jacobs' goal was to focus on slavery as an institution, trying to convince the people of England to support the Union. Not long after he published his narrative, the Civil War began in April 1861 with the firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

In the early years of the war, abolitionists were disturbed that Lincoln directed troops "to avoid any destruction of property," and they did not know what he was going to do about slavery. Unsure of what was to come; John S. Jacobs did not want to return to the United States until the government decided to abolish slavery. Many English had strong business ties to the South; southern cotton supplied British textile mills; and in addition to economic ties, aristocrats and others had some sympathies for the South. There was a threat that Great Britain might enter the war on the side of the Confederacy.

John Jacobs stayed in London until the US government indicated it was serious about ending slavery. By January 14, 1862, John had already sold fifty copies of the narrative and stayed only two more weeks in England.

As the war continued, both A True Tale of Slavery and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl became more popular among abolitionists. Both books sold more copies in England than in the United States. The narratives encouraged the war as a fight against slavery.

In January 1862, Jacobs went with the Female Anti-Slavery Society to Philadelphia to lecture in support of her book. She also sent her book to a member of the Emancipation Committee in London. In England the book was received as a major work of literature in addition to its anti-slavery position.

In August 1862, Jacobs worked in Alexandria, Virginia, and the Washington DC area to help organize, feed, and shelter refugee slaves and the poor free blacks of the region. She also tried to recruit more relief workers. During this period she wrote to abolitionists Garrison and Charlotte Forten, both to share news and to ask for aid with work and supplies.

By March 1863, Jacobs noted the condition of poor refugees in Alexandria had improved, although there were 1500 on a list for housing in the barracks, which could hold only 500. During this time, the marriage laws were changed to allow slaves and freedmen to marry, which she noted brought joy to many people.

JULIA WILBUR

In April, Julia A. Wilbur reported the needs of the black people in Alexandria to the Secretary of War, and he took immediate measures for their relief. She said she had the duty to go to Alexandria and act as a “visitor, advisor and instructor to the Contrabands of Alexandria.” She ordered barracks to be built for the people of Alexandria, and the government honoured her request. The additional barracks would house the old, disabled, women, children and orphans. Jacobs was sent to Alexandria to distribute donations among these people.

During this same period, Jacobs was working in Boston to help many poor blacks who had migrated there. An outbreak of smallpox caused many deaths. Other than the smallpox though, the condition of the lives of these people has greatly improved. The biggest demand of the people is that they pay for their child to get schooling; they did not want to have a charity school. During this time, the ex-slaves denied having been slaves, and hated being called "contrabands". Alexander Thomas Augusta, a free man of color from Virginia, had earned his medical degree in Canada and started practice there. After returning to the US after the outbreak of war, he appealed to President Lincoln to serve in the Army and received a commission. Jacobs reported that in 1863 he was appointed as a surgeon in the Union Army by the Secretary of War, the first African American to have such a position.

On June 5, 1863, Jacobs and two orphan children were featured at the New England Anti-Slavery Convention. She said she planned to bring many more orphaned black children from Virginia to Boston, and asked for help in placing them in new homes. People in the audience offered to take the two orphans home that day.

From October 1863 to April 1865, Jacobs saw progress for the freedmen in Virginia. While living in Alexandria, again, she concentrated on setting up schools run by the community. Her daughter Louisa Matilda Jacobs and a friend, Sarah Virginia Lawton of Cambridge, dedicated their lives to educating freedmen. “On January 11, 1864, the Jacobs Free School was named in her honor.” She also contributed to organizing the communities of African Americans and to the building of hospitals, churches, schools and homes for newly freed slaves.

Jacobs and her partner, Julia A. Wilbur, founded schools in Washington and Alexandria at the camps of black refugees from the South. But military officers took over houses they were using, as they needed quarters. In the camp areas, the loss of good housing was felt.

Educating all people of colour still was Jacobs' priority for improving their lives.

According to records, Louisa Jacobs worked in a hospital throughout the Civil War. Although she was not paid much, she was glad to see progress. She left when her father moved in the spring of 1864, as she wanted to be with him.

Jacobs mused about whether the lives of former slaves would be better because of their own efforts or those of "their white superiors". Jacobs’ daughter taught in private homes until they could arrange a proper school. Soon after a trustee meeting was called for her and other women who wished to teach, they gained a lease to have a building built for their use for five years.  Jacobs' students studied well and had steady progress. There was also a school at night for adults to learn. But the school lacked accommodations for the teachers, who had to board with families. Louisa needed more teachers to help her, and the school was $180.00 in debt with 275 children enrolled.

In May 1864, Jacobs wrote to the editors of American Baptist requesting help with the “Free Mission", an antislavery group. She wanted to collect clothing and basic necessities for the freedmen.

On August 1, 1864, Jacobs returned to Arlington and set up an awareness day about the “struggle against chattel slavery", to celebrate the 30th anniversary of emancipation in the British West Indies.[10] It was called the “First of August” celebration, and was Alexandria’s first celebration of its kind. Festivals occurred throughout the North to raise awareness about slavery. This day gave a new meaning to the flag because it now symbolized freedom for all.

In October 1864, Jacobs wrote about the Small Pox Hospital in Claremont, which was used for both white soldiers as well as coloured people. All patients were properly cared for and treated alike. Other hospitals were struggling for lack of supplies. Jacobs worked to raise funds and acquire clothing and other supplies; she wanted to ensure quality treatment for black patients.

By the end of October 1864, Jacobs updated her readers on the current conditions in Alexandria. She said that only a few of the freedmen relied on the government for food and shelter. Most were finding jobs and supporting themselves without additional assistance. Able to find housing in and around Washington, DC, they were living with improved conditions. In December 1864, Alexandria School received donations to help provide for the children. Along with monetary donations they received books, slates, and writing materials.

In 1865, Lydia Maria Child presented pages of Harriet Jacobs' narrative in The Freedmen’s Book. She modified and republished certain passages from Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Child emphasized Jacobs' grandmother, to focus on her devotion and hard work. Such an account gave newly freed slaves an uplifting view to help them deal with their freedom.

In April 1865, a New York committee reported on its visit to freedmen in Alexandria. It noted that African Americans were happy with the efforts of Harriet Jacobs. Her school was under her management, and was successful.

On March 8, 1866, Harriet Jacobs wrote to Lydia Maria Child, noting that freedmen were being offered low wages in the Alexandria market. When they turned down job offers, whites complained they did not want to work. "Don’t believe the stories so often repeated that the negroes are not willing to work. They are generally more than willing to work, if they can get anything for it," wrote Jacobs. Salaries were frequently offered to a group of labourers; for instance, Jacobs mentioned a group of former slaves who, for a salary, had to split a dollar and 50 cents.

Jacobs rejoiced when General Sherman gave freedmen 10–20 acres each of their rebel master’s land for three years. Even though it was late in the season to grow any crop, many freedmen were able to find success. “I visited some of the plantations, and I was rejoiced to see such a field of profitable labour opened for these poor people,” says Jacobs. But, President Johnson pardoned most rebels and restored their properties. The freedmen had to find new housing and work. When this happened, Jacobs told the freedmen to remain on the land until ordered to leave by the US Government, hoping to stall until Congress stepped in. But the land was eventually returned. The freedmen suffered in winter weather, and the area had an outbreak of smallpox.

In May 1866, Louisa Matilda Jacobs wrote a letter that was quoted in The Fifth Report of New York Yearly Meeting of Friends on the Conditions and Wants of Freedmen. She starts off saying how Harriet Jacobs was in Savannah with her daughter where much help was needed with the great amount of newly freed slaves. In the city, 3,933 slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, but by 1866, more freedmen had left rural areas to settle there, reaching a total population of 10,500. She said starvation, sickness and disease were widespread. “Often in the cold weather were hundreds of them huddled together in misery and rags, over a few burning sticks, so desolate and filthy that they scarcely looked like human beings,” wrote Louisa Jacobs. When spring came, some slaves were able to obtain some property to grow crops which were provided by the Committee that Harriet worked for. A school was also opened for freed children to go and get an education. The school acquired books and staff to teach the growing number of students.

On May 26, 1866, a letter was written to Mr. and Mrs. Cheney from Louisa Jacobs. In the letter she talks about the success of her school. She has been watching children who were at one time not able to read, begin to study arithmetic and geography with a full understanding of the English language. This, she says, is what brings her encouragement for all the work she has been doing. Jacobs then talks about how most freedmen now have their own land or are living on shares with other freedmen. Jacobs still knows that despite this glimpse of success, it will be hard for coloured people to really succeed in the south. She mentions that arrests are constant within the coloured community—even for the slightest offenses that a white man would get away with. A small charge could put a coloured person on the chain gang for 6 months or more. Jacobs stresses that, though things are going well, there are still obstacles ahead.

Around July 1866, there was a shooting that involved one African getting beaten severely and another being shot and killed. Two stories came from this latter incident, one stating that the white man’s life was in danger and he acted in self-defence and the other stating that these incidents could have been avoided. Whatever the true reason, Jacobs and her daughter decided to leave Savannah soon after the incident and head back north for the summer. So on July 20, 1866, Harriet and Louisa boarded the steamship that took them to New York.

In November 1866, Harriet Jacobs received news that her son, Joseph, was sick in Australia and needed money for the trip home. Meanwhile, Louisa decided to join the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), which travelled from state to state advocating equal rights for all regardless of age, sex or colour. She decided to leave the AERA, however, due to internal disagreements over the proposed 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, to provide citizenship and suffrage to all African Americans. Jacobs and Louisa travelled to England to raise funds for the orphanage and home for the elderly they hoped to establish in Savannah. This refuge for destitute African Americans was never built.

In February 1867, Charles Lenox Redmond and Jacobs spoke to audiences in Johnstown, New York, thanks to arrangements made by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Later years and death

Harriet Jacobs became less active in her later years but supported her daughter and others in working for education of African Americans. She died in 1897 in Washington, DC. She was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts; her headstone reads: "Patient in tribulation, fervent in spirit serving the Lord".

Winner of the 2004 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, Harriet Jacobs: A Life recovers the experience of this once-forgotten but remarkable woman who lived 29 years as a slave, seven of which were spent in a cramped hiding place to escape a sexually predatory master. Jean Fagan Yellin’s book explores beyond Jacobs’ own autobiography and traces Jacobs’ flight to the North, the harassment she endured from her former owner, and her return South during the Civil War to establish a school for black refugees behind Union lines.

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