Harriet Ann Jacobs Years Quotations

For years, my master had done his utmost to pollute my mind with foul images, and to destroy the pure principles inculcated by my grandmother, and the good mistress of my childhood

Every where the years bring to all enough of sin and sorrow; but in slavery the very dawn of life is darkened by these shadows

I WAS born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away

But I now entered on my fifteenth year - a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import

When I was nearly twelve years old, my kind mistress sickened and died.

When I was six years old, my mother died; and then, for the first time, I learned, by the talk around me, that I was a slave.

If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the year.

DURING the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family, I was accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress