we know the role that family plays, the powerful role that family plays for harriet jacobs, her grandmother and her uncle, who not only provide psychological support, but they are buttresses for jacobs's critique of her own condition. she has these kind of family interlocutors who are critical to her developing critique and her resistance to dr. flint over time. again, celia, unclear. five slaves in that household in 1850. only two, celia and george, by the time newsom is killed. what sort of community would that have been for celia? a modest one. perhaps one that was profoundly transient. we see enslaved people there and then disappear. were they sold? did they run away? we can't know. but transient. we can see the relationship with george and how that was immodest and perhaps a somewhat impoverished context to jacobs. siobhan pointed to the context that they are both mothers. motherhood is a theme we have come back to again and again. we see two women who clearly -- on one hand, jacobs secrets herself, looking not only to secure her own liberty away from north carolina, but thinking very

first, i want to come back to harriet jacobs. jacobs is perhaps the best remembered of enslaved women. she is so well remembered in part because she pens an extraordinary narrative, the book we come to know as "incidents in the life of a slave girl," published under the pen name linda brent. we saw that as a form of testimony, complicated testimony. filtered through jacobs's own concerns about her reputation as a free black woman when she publishes this narrative. filtered through anti-slavery politics. but we read, you will recall, very carefully to discern the way that jacobs allows us to glimpse something of the persistence, the presence of sexual assault, the threat of sexual assault in slave women's lives. remember in her story, dr. flint, the pseudonym for the father of jacobs's owner, the way in which this man in his household in edenton, north carolina over the course of years, threatens, confronts, promises -- almost promises, right? to ultimately have access to jacobs's body, to have sexual relations with her. she lives

we are able to uncover, in a sense, it kind of new one for harriet jacobs -- a kind of nuance for harriet jacobs that eludes us in celia's. case case.celia's her testimony, her confession, we realize that this came through a very complex channel before it comes to us. narrates the story. a justice of the peace listens to the story, writes his own interpretation, if you will, of her words. we are right to be skeptical about this sort of artifact, precisely because we know celia herself could not read and review the document, even though somehowggests she assented to the document. a number of you mentioned isolation. here are isolation in celia's story takes a number of forms, doesn't it? she lives in a small town where she has regular access -- we will come back to her family, but in the course of her freeo-day life, african-americans, other white people in edenton, jacobs has a kind of world that becomes critical to understanding how tor andists the doc ultimately how she escapes. it is that proximity to other people. contrast, you are absolutely right. what her life was like, we can't sa

the first i want to use for us to come back to harriet jacobs, who we visited a couple of weeks ago, of course perhaps the best remembered of enslaved women, she's so well remembered because she pens an extraordinary narrative, the book that we have come to know as incidents in the life of harriet jacobs. we talked about incidents and we saw that as a form of testimony, like complicated testimony, filtered through jacobs' own concerns about her reputation and her standing as a free black woman when she publishes this narrative. filtered through anti-slavery politics, but we read you'll recall very carefully to try and discern the ways in which still through this narrative that jacobs -- the threat of sexual assault as part of enslaved women's lives. you remember in her story, dr. flint, the pseudonym for the owner of or the father of jacobs' owner. the way in which this man in his household, in edenton north carolina, over the course of years, threatens, confronts, promises, almost promises, right, to ultimately have access to jacobs' body, to have sexual relations with her, she lives

the powerful role that family plays for harriet jacobs. r grandmother and her uncle early on who not only provide her psychological support. but they are a sort of moral compass, if you will. it butt residence s jacobs's critique of her mission, that she has these family interlokiters who are critical to her resistance over time. celia and george by the time newsome is killed. what sort of community might that have been for celia? a modest one. perhaps one that was profoundly transient. we see enslaved people there. disappear. are they sold? do they run away? we can't say. we know there is a transience to this. while she seems to have an intimate relationship with george. relative to jacob's choice. siobhan pointed to the similarity. mother hood is a theme we have come back to again and again. we see two women who clearly on the one hand jacobs who very strategically secrets herself looking not only to secure her own liberty away from north carolina but thinking strategically about how to secure the liberty of her children. celia with two s

we already had a chance to look at the case of harriet jacobs, one of the best remembered of the slave narratives. there, jacobs introduces us to that dimension of slavery that is exemplified, and we might say central to the experience of slave women and that is sexual violence. we will come back a little bit to talk about jacobs in comparison to our case today, that of celia. we also talked about wpa narratives, and one of the things we noticed is the extent some issues, including sexual violence -- violence generally, and sexual violence in particular -- was rather muted in the slave narratives. here we have the opportunity to take another pass at this question, to try to see this dimension of slavery through the experience of celia. so, why do i say "try to see this dimension of slavery?" as you have all begun to see in your readings for today, there are many ways in which the record and the evidence upon which we rely to discover, explore, and understands the case of celia is a challenging record to make use of. part of our work today will be to talk about the evidence in the celia