Short answer: text source

Harriet Jacobs on enslaved women

Unit 2
4 points
About 14 minutes

You read one written source (sometimes two closely related ones) and answer three or four short parts: what the source says, its historical context, and connections to related course content. On the exam: Section II, short-answer question 1 of 3 (required); the three short-answer questions share a suggested 40 minutes and are 18% of the score. In 2025 and 2026 this question had 4 parts (A–D).

The question and its sources

Read the source, then answer parts A, B, C and D. Write a few complete sentences for each part; you don't need a thesis. Harriet Jacobs escaped slavery in North Carolina in 1842 and published her narrative under the name “Linda Brent.” In it she calls the man who enslaved her “Dr. Flint.”

Source

“He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted against the mean tyranny. But where could I turn for protection? No matter whether the slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death . . . . Surely, if you credited one half the truths that are told you concerning the helpless millions suffering in this cruel bondage, you at the north would not help to tighten the yoke. You surely would refuse to do for the master, on your own soil, the mean and cruel work which trained bloodhounds and the lowest class of whites do for him at the south.

“. . . Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own.”

[Credited: believed. Superadded: added on top. Mortifications: humiliations.]

Source: Harriet A. Jacobs, writing as “Linda Brent,” Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, edited by L. Maria Child (Boston: Published for the Author, 1861), chapters V and XIV

Suggested time: 14 minutes

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Part (A)

1 point

Describe one claim Jacobs makes in the source.

Your answer to part (A)

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Part (B)

1 point

Describe the historical context in which Jacobs appealed to readers in the North.

Your answer to part (B)

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Part (C)

1 point

Explain how colonial or state laws shaped the conditions Jacobs describes for enslaved women.

Your answer to part (C)

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Part (D)

1 point

Using a specific example, explain one way enslaved women resisted slavery.

Your answer to part (D)

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