Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black is an autobiographical novel by Harriet E. Wilson.
[4] It was long considered the first novel published by an African-American woman in North America,[5][6] though that record is now contested by another manuscript found by Gates, The Bondwoman's Narrative, which may have been written a few years earlier.
Our Nig opens with the story of Mag Smith, a white woman who lives in the northern United States.
In this new town, she meets a "kind-hearted African"[7] man named Jim who falls in love with her.
Eventually, Mag and Seth decide they must leave town to search for work, and do not want to take both of the children.
Six-year-old Frado is dropped off at the Bellmonts under the pretense that Mag will be back to pick her up later in the day.
The Bellmonts have five children, three boys, Jack, James, and Lewis (the latter two are not currently living with the family) and two girls (sickly Jane and irascible Mary).
The following day, Mrs. Bellmont calls for Frado early in the morning and puts her to work in the kitchen, washing dishes, preparing food, etc.
Mrs. Bellmont is not happy with Frado living with them but puts her to work doing household chores, frequently upbraiding her and hitting her.
Jack buys Frado a dog named Fido, who becomes her friend and eases her loneliness.
After James' death, Frado suffers conflict, feeling she is unworthy to be in Heaven.
Before Mrs. Bellmont strikes her for taking too long to bring firewood, Frado threatens to stop working for her if she does.
Frado rejoices in the death of her tormentor, and considers leaving the Bellmonts, but Aunt Abby counsels her against it.
She marries a fugitive slave named Samuel but finds that her back has been more seriously marked by beatings than his.
The distribution of Our Nig: Sketches in the Life of a Free Black was limited, and not appreciated by northern abolitionists because Wilson called for awareness of the abuse and "shadow of slavery" that existed even in the Northern United States.
Ernest asserts that Wilson risked undermining the paradigm that African-American narratives portrayed of the "New England ideal".
[11] Robin Bernstein in Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights argued that the novel responds critically to Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and to other works of abolitionist fiction that debate whether black children who die may become angels.
"One marker of the way in which Our Nig 'signifies' on dominant representations is the fact that, in light of the extreme sexualization of black women's bodies, it is a white woman whom Wilson represents as sexual — Frado's mother Mag, but not Frado herself.
But, her white mother lost her virginity before marriage, had a child out of wedlock, and married twice.
Eric Gardner's article, "'This Attempt of Their Sister': Harriet Wilson's Our Nig from Printer to Readers",[14] explores why the novel initially escaped notice and was not widely publicized.
Lois Leveen's article, "Dwelling in the House of Oppression: The Spatial, Racial, and Textual Dynamics of Harriet Wilson's Our Nig",[15] incorporates her view on the "two story house" symbolizing the ties that bind her.
Our Nig did not sell well, partly because rather than criticizing slavery in the South, it also indicts the economy of the northern states.