What is Harriet Jacobs?
{{Infobox Person | name = Harriet Jacobs | residence = | other_names = Linda Brent | image = Harriet_Jacobs_carte_de_visite.jpg | imagesize = 250px | caption = Harriet Jacobs | birth_date = {{birth date|1813|2|11}} | birth_place = Edenton, North Carolina | death_date = {{death date and age|1897|3|7|1813|2|11}} | death_place = [[Washington, D.C.]] | children = 2 }} '''Harriet Jacobs''' (1813 or 1815 &ndash; March 7, 1897) was an [[African American]] in the 19th century. She was born as a [[slavery|slave]] in [[North Carolina]], but learned to read and escaped to the North in the 1842. When she was still a girl, her master wanted to start a sexual relationship with her. She refused and entered into a relationship with [[Samuel Tredwell Sawyer]]. Sawyer was a lawyer and had some power to protect her. He became the father of her two children, Joseph and Louisa Matilda. Still, the law gave a master absolute power over a slave. Jacobs's master wanted to sell her children away from her. In 1835, she decided to hide in a small room in her grandmother's house. That room was so small that she could not stand up. She had to stay there for seven years. Because she could neither stand nor walk, she was suffering from leg problems for many years afterwards. In 1842, she was finally able to escape to [[Philadelphia]] by boat. From Philadelphia, she went to [[New York]] where she found work as a nanny for the children of [[Nathaniel Parker Willis]]. Also her brother John S. Jacobs and her children were able to escape from slavery. While she was still working as nanny for the Willis children during the day, at night she wrote down her experiences. In January 1861, her experiences were finally published as a book called ''Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, written by herself.'' After the [[American Civil War]] had started in April 1861, she went to [[Alexandria, Virginia]]. There she helped black people who had just escaped