Harriet E. Wilson

Harriet E. Wilson is widely recognized as the first African American novelist to publish a work in North America. Her seminal novel, "Our Nig", published in 1859, was rediscovered in 1982 and has since been acknowledged as a groundbreaking work in African American literature. The novel draws from Wilson's own experiences as an indentured servant in New England, offering a harrowing portrayal of racial and gender oppression in the antebellum North. Scholars P. Gabrielle Foreman and Reginald H. Pitts later identified the Hayward family, with whom Wilson lived as a child, as the inspiration for the abusive "Bellmont" family depicted in the book.

Born to an African American father and an Irish American mother, Wilson endured significant hardship from an early age. After being abandoned by her mother, she was indentured to a Milford farming family, an experience that deeply influenced her writing. Following her indenture, she worked as a seamstress and domestic servant before marrying Thomas Wilson, a man who falsely claimed to be an escaped slave. After their marriage dissolved, Wilson struggled to support herself and her son, eventually placing him in the care of a poor farm. It was during this period that she wrote "Our Nig", which she copyrighted in 1859. Tragically, her son died shortly after the novel's publication.

In her later years, Wilson became a prominent figure in Boston's Spiritualist movement, working as a trance reader and lecturer under the name "the colored medium." She remarried in 1870 to John Gallatin Robinson, though they later separated. Wilson remained active in Spiritualist circles until at least 1897, leaving behind a legacy not only as a pioneering author but also as a resilient figure who navigated the intersecting challenges of race, gender, and poverty in 19th-century America.