Harriet Ann Jacobs was born as a slave in 1813 to Dr. James Norcom. After being constantly barraged with verbal abuses and sexual assaults she finally escaped to the North in 1835. Here she was able to write her famous slave narrative: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl which appealed mainly to an audience of catholic, middle-class, white women. The narrative, which used pseudonyms for the names and places in order to keep her identity secret, proved to be a huge success in rallying support for the abolitionist movement.