Incidents 3

                In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs’s chapters 29 through 33, life in the North is not completely free of racism.  This is very troublesome for Linda Brent as she expected that African-Americans would be treated equally in the North.  Jacobs writes, “They don’t allow colored people to go in the first-class cars” (Jacobs 168).  This experience showed Brent that some people in the North still treated African Americans as second class citizens.  Even though she had the money to have a more luxuriant trip, she was limited to riding in a filthy box with windows where you had to stand up to see outside. In the South, she could have the same quality ride but she would not have had to pay for the ride.  Within her first few days on free soil she still felt that she was being treated inferior to whites. 

Jacobs writes, “In order to protect my children it was necessary that I should own myself… I wrote a civil letter to Dr. Flint asking him to state the lowest terms on which he would sell me” (172).    The law at the time stated that the children followed the condition of the mother.  In order for Brent’s children to be free, Brent herself needed to be free.   Despite the seven year passage of time, Brent is worried that Dr. Flint has not gotten over his feelings for her and might not be willing to sell her.  She also sends a letter to Dr. Flint’s daughter asking for her freedom.  Since Dr. Flint’s daughter has no recollection of Brent, she might be more willing to sell her.