Why read The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers?

Book cover of The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers

Book description

This is the only collection of papers of an African American woman held in slavery.Although millions of African American women were held in bondage over the 250 years that slavery was legal in the United States, Harriet Jacobs (1813-97) is the only one known to have left papers testifying to…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Chandra Manning

Author

As the Union Army penetrated into Confederate territory, enslaved men, women, and children fled bondage to take refuge with the army. Roughly half a million formerly enslaved people exited slavery in this way, spending the war in encampments appended to the army or in Union occupied cities. They influenced the progress and outcome of the war as well as emancipation. They also encountered conditions that amounted to a humanitarian crisis, one that soldiers tasked with fighting a war were ill-equipped to meet. Civilians from the North made their way to camps and occupied cities to serve as relief workers. Harriet…

From Chandra's list on accounts of the Civil War from people who were there.