January 1842

Harriet Jacobs, enslaved in Edenton, North Carolina, documented in her 1861 memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl the systematic sexual harassment and coercion she endured from her enslaver Dr. James Norcom beginning when she was approximately 13 years old. To avoid Norcom's assaults she entered a relationship with another white man, Samuel Sawyer, with whom she had two children. She hid for seven years in a tiny crawl space above her grandmother's house before escaping north. Her memoir provided the first detailed first-person account by an enslaved woman of the sexual violence endemic to slavery. Scholars estimate sexual exploitation was near-universal for enslaved women on large plantations.

Harriet Jacobs, enslaved in Edenton, North Carolina, documented in her 1861 memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl the systematic sexual harassment and coercion she endured from her enslaver Dr. James Norcom beginning when she was approximately 13 years old. To avoid Norcom's assaults she entered a relationship with another white man, with whom she had two children. She hid for seven years in a tiny crawl space before escaping north. Her memoir provided the first detailed first-person account by an enslaved woman of the sexual violence endemic to slavery.

Secretary of State Daniel Webster demands Britain return the Creole's freed enslaved people, arguing they are property under US law. Britain refuses, citing that slavery does not exist in the Bahamas. Southern congressmen rage. The dispute is settled by the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty without requiring Britain to return the freed people — a de facto victory for freedom.