Fiction · 1859
Our Nig; Or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-story White House, North
Showing That Slavery’s Shadows Fall Even There
Frado, abandoned by her white mother after her Black father's death, is raised as an indentured servant in the household of the Bellmont family in antebellum New Hampshire, enduring years of abuse from Mrs. Bellmont and her daughter Mary before being freed at eighteen, sickly and alone, to make her own way.
Harriet E. Wilson published Our Nig in Boston in 1859, presenting it as a true account of her own life; it is widely recognized as the first novel published in North America by a Black author, though it went almost unnoticed until its rediscovery more than a century later.
Bibliomancer restores the 1859 text exactly as Wilson wrote it.
Contents
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Preface
- Chapter I — Mag Smith, My Mother
- Chapter II — My Father’s Death
- Chapter III — A New Home for Me
- Chapter IV — A Friend for Nig
- Chapter V — Departures
- Chapter VI — Varieties
- Chapter VII — Spiritual Condition of Nig
- Chapter VIII — Visitor and Departure
- Chapter IX — Death
- Chapter X — Perplexities.—Another Death
- Chapter XI — Marriage Again
- Chapter XII — The Winding Up of the Matter
- Appendix
- Note of etext transcriber
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About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
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