This image is a drawing of where Harriet Jacobs hid for seven years.She hid in a small crawl space that was on the upper floor, measuring about nine feet long and seven feet wide. It was above a shack in her grandmother home. Jacobs lived there seven years in her grandmother's attic before escaping to the North 1842. Her children lived with Jacobs's grandmother so, while in hiding, the highest point was just three feet. Her children were unaware of her hiding Harriet was able to see them through a little hole.
I'm genuinely lost for words. I can't imagine anyone spending that long in a place that small. In fact the closest things I can equate to that today are people who travel to the moon, and people who are bedridden. But it certainly doesn't take seven years to travel to the moon. On top of which if you were bedridden at least you could breath the fresh air and openly be cared for. I cant imagine that slavery would have been so bad that she would allow herself to suffer 7 years and without her children. Would it have been a worse reality if she had for those 7 years been out in the open laboring. Though this seems like an obvious question that Jacobs answers herself, I cannot say I would make the same decision.
ReplyDeleteI also wonder where the drawing came from. I agree that it certainly gives a good visual. Yet I wonder when it came about. Is it in a version of the narrative itself?