Our Nig

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Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black by Harriet E. Wilson is considered the first novel published by an African American woman in the United States. It is a semi-autobiographical work that tells the story of Frado, a mixed-race girl who is abandoned by her white mother and forced into indentured servitude in a racist household in the North.

Unlike many 19th-century narratives that focused on slavery in the South, Our Nig exposes racism and abuse in the supposedly "free" North. The novel follows Frado's journey from childhood to adulthood as she endures cruelty, labor exploitation, and racial discrimination while struggling for autonomy and dignity.

Though largely forgotten until rediscovered in the 1980s, Our Nig is a groundbreaking novel that provides a rare firsthand account of Black life in the 19th-century North. It is essential reading for understanding early African American literature and the complexities of race in American history.