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Considered the first novel by a female African-American, Our Nig was ignored upon first publication in 1859 and lost for more than 100 years. The novel achieved national attention when it was rediscovered and reprinted in 1983. Our Nig tells the story of Frado growing up as an indentured servant in the antebellum northern United States. Like Our Nig number of novels and other works of fiction of the period were in some part based on real-life events, including Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall; Louisa May Alcott's Little Women; or even Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette.
"I sat up most of the night reading and pondering the enormous significance of Harriet Wilson's Our Nig." — Author Alice Walker This seminal autobiographical novel, originally published in 1859, is believed to have been the first by an African-American woman. Harriet Wilson's compelling story describes the life of a mulatto girl who, after the death of her mother, is exploited first by a terrifying Northern family for whom she worked and then by an opportunistic husband. A classic of African-American literature, Our Nig has made an enduring contribution to understanding the lives of free blacks in the nineteenth century. A fascinating combination of slave narrative and sentimental novel, the story traces the hardships and suffering of Frado, who grows up as an indentured servant to a white family in Massachusetts and spends much of her destitute life wandering through New England. A clear and accurate account of race relations and perceptions of race in the antebellum North, Our Nig is essential reading for students of African-American history and culture.
First published in 1859, Our Nig is an autobiographical narrative that stands as one of the most important accounts of the life of a black woman in the antebellum North. In the story of Frado, a spirited black girl who is abused and overworked as the indentured servant to a New England family, Harriet E. Wilson tells a heartbreaking story about the resilience of the human spirit. The female child of a white female outcast and a black freeman, Harriet Wilson gives a detailed account of what it was like being raised by a white family in the pre-Civil War North of the United States (a household where she was abandoned by her mother at 3). This biography gives a general idea of what a Negro's li...
This seminal autobiographical tale, believed to have been the first published by an African-American woman, describes the life and struggles of an orphaned mulatto. Part slave narrative and part sentimental novel, it recounts the heroine's exploitation, first by her employers and later by an opportunistic husband. Essential for students of African-American history and culture.
Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859) is an autobiographical novel by Harriet E. Wilson. Published anonymously, Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black is considered the first novel by an African American to be published in North America, having been rediscovered by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 1981. Based on Wilson's own experience as a free black forced into indentured servitude in New Hampshire, the novel critiques the racism and indifference of white Northerners and abolitionists who claim to oppose slavery while upholding prejudice and injustice against African Americans. Abandoned by her white mother following the death of her father, a free black ...
This volume, with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., advances efforts to correct the historical record about the racial complexity and richness characteristic of rural New England s past"
This volume, with a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., advances efforts to correct the historical record about the racial complexity and richness characteristic of rural New England's past
Harriet E. Wilson's Our nig (1859) is a startling tale of the mistreatment of a young African American mulatto woman, Frado, living in New England at a time when slavery, though abolished in the North, still existed in the South. Frado, a Northern free black', yet treated as badly as many Southern slaves of the time, is unforgettably portrayed as experiencing and resisting vicious mistreatment. To achieve this disturbing portrait, Harriet Wilson's book combines several different literary genres - realist novel, autobiography, abolitionist slave narrative and sentimental fiction. R.J. Ellis explores the relationship of Our nig to these genres and, additionally, to laboring class writing (Harriet Wilson was an indentured farm servant). He identifies the way Our nig stands as a double first: the first separately-published novel written in English by an African American female it is also one of the first by a member of the laboring class about the laboring class.
Lewis’ A VOCABULARY CONCORDANCE OF HARRIET E. WILSON’S NOVEL, OUR NIG (2021) tracks empathy featured in Harriet E. Wilson’s 1859 novel, OUR NIG; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black. Wilson’s main character, Mag Smith, presents behaviors that display the full humanity of African Americans. Lewis’ CONCORDANCE . . . catalogues the biased interactions among comingled populations. Lewis’ CONCORDANCE . . . identifies Wilson’s biased interactions imposed upon African American characters. The word, “OUR . . .” in Wilson’s title, embraces readers as family members who accept the main characters’ values as their own. Wilson’s subtlety engages topics about Earth’s natural environment, family relations, societal attitudes, cross-cultural exchanges, moral/corrupt practices, finances, entertainments, and personal struggles. Heading each of OUR NIG’s chapters, Wilson’s quotations challenge contemporary racial intolerance and gender bias. Overall, Wilson’s point-counterpoint style denounces ethnic degradations while claiming liberation for the Statue of Liberty’s 1886 “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
"The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson", Harriette Wilson. Harriette Wilson was a celebrated British Regency courtesan (1786-1845).