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View allOur Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black
Wilson
1859
The first novel published by a Black woman in North America — and an indictment of Northern 'freedom.'
Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black
Harriet E. Wilson · 1859
Published in 1859 and all but lost for over a century, Our Nig tells a story close to Harriet Wilson's own: a free-born Black child, indentured to a white New England family, whose mistress's cruelty makes a mockery of the North's claim to moral distance from slavery. Wilson wrote it, by her own account in the preface, to support her sick child and herself — and appended three testimonial letters asking readers to buy the book as an act of charity as much as literature. Rediscovered and authenticated by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 1982, it is now read as the first novel published in North America by a Black woman, and a document that refuses the comfortable idea that abolitionist New England was innocent of the harm it condemned in the South.
13 chapters · 24,993 words · ~1.9 hr read
Contents
Mag Smith and Frado's Childhood
Frado's mother Mag Smith's own fall from grace, and the abandonment that leaves young Frado with the Bellmont family.
Life in the Bellmont Household
Years of hard labor and Mrs. Bellmont's escalating cruelty, set against the few Bellmonts — James, Jack, Aunt Abby — who show Frado any kindness.
Freedom and Its Costs
Frado comes of age, leaves the Bellmonts, and faces marriage, poverty, and motherhood on her own.
Appendix
Three testimonial letters from Wilson's friends and acquaintances, appended to the original 1859 edition to vouch for her character and her story.