Harriet Jacobs was born in 1813, in Edenton, North Carolina. She was born into slavery to her father, Elijah Jacobs and her mother, Delilah Horniblow. Harriet's mother died when she six years old and she lived with her mother's mistress, Margaret Horniblow. Margaret taught Harriet to read, write and sew. When Harriet was 11, Margaret died, and Dr. James Norcom became her new master. Although Jacobs was still a child, Norcom sexually harassed her. When she asked permission to marry a free black slave, Norcom refused to allow it.

To get away from Norcom's sexual advances, she began a consensual sexual relationship with an unmarried, white lawyer named Samuel Sawyer. He was kind and caring to Jacobs. Harriet gave birth to two children with Sawyer, Joseph and Louisa. Norcom continued to pursue her and when Jacobs learned that he was going to force her children to work as plantation slaves, she ran away in 1835. For 7 years, she hid in her grandmother's attic, and during that time, wrote letters to Norcom to confuse him on her whereabouts. Also, during that time, Sawyer was elected as a member of the United States House of Representatives and had also purchased their children. While Jacobs hid in her grandmother's attic, her children also lived with her grandmother, and she was able to watch and listen to her children from the attic. In 1842, Jacobs made her escape north.

With the help of anti-slavery friends, she was able to make it to New York and find work as a housemaid in 1845 for Mary Stace Willis. She was able to be reunited with her daughter, Louisa, who had also been sent north by Sawyer to work as a house servant. Soon after, she was reunited with her brother, John, who was a fugitive slave. She continued to work for the Willis family after her mistress died. She accompanied Mr. Willis and his daughter to England, where she wrote that there was no prejudice against people of color. A short while later, after their return to the United States, Jacobs left her employment with the family and moved to Boston to be closer to her son, daughter and brother. Her brother was very active in the anti-slavery movement.

After her brother opened an anti-slavery reading room, Jacobs became involved with it and soon joined the American Anti-Slavery Society. She helped to support the anti-slavery reading room by giving speeches and collecting donations to help support the movement. In 1850, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, and the Jacobs family feared for the freedom and safety. Harriet Jacob;s brother, John, fled to California, where he found work in the gold mines of the Gold Rush, and her son, Joseph Jacobs joined his uncle there a few years later. Meanwhile, in an act of immeasurable kindness, and without the knowledge of Harriet Jacobs, the second wife of Mr, Willis, Cornelia Grinnell Willis paid $300 to purchase Harriet Jacobs and then gave Jacobs her freedom. Jacobs wrote Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl after a friend of hers, Amy Post, convinced her to do so. It was published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent. She also changed names in her book, so people wouldn't be recognized.

Mr Norcom is known as Mr Flint. Jacobs was the first woman in the United States to write a fugitive slave autobiography. After Jacobs published her book, she devoted her time to helping former slaves who were refugees of the Civil War. She supported her daughter as she worked to educate African Americans. In 1970, Harriet Jacobs ran a boarding house with Louisa in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In her later years, she lived with her daughter Louisa in Washington D.C., where she died March 7, 1887.