author
Harriet E. Wilson
1825–1900
Best known for Our Nig (1859), she broke new ground as the first African American to publish a novel in North America. Her work drew on hard personal experience to show that racism and exploitation were not limited to the South.
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About the author
Born in Milford, New Hampshire, on March 15, 1825, Harriet E. Wilson grew up in poverty and spent part of her childhood bound out as an indentured servant. Those early experiences later shaped the story and emotional force of her writing.
In 1859 she published Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, a novel now recognized as a landmark in American literary history. Published anonymously in Boston, it tells the story of a Black girl facing cruelty and hardship in the North, challenging the idea that racial injustice belonged only to the world of slavery in the South.
Wilson died on June 28, 1900. Although her book was little known in her lifetime, it was rediscovered in the late 20th century and is now widely valued for its honesty, historical importance, and powerful view of Black life in 19th-century America.