@article{2013,title={SUBVERSION OF NORTHERN RACIST IDEOLOGY IN HARRIET E. WILSON’S OUR NIG: SKETCHES FROM THE LIFE OF A FREE BLACK},abstractNode={Abstract This paper tries to explore the racial ideologies in Harriet E. Wilson’s Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859). The novel is significant in that it is considered the first one published by a black woman in the United States. That it delineates “slavery’s shadow” in the antebellum North, which is known to be abolitionist, makes it more significant. It criticizes the racial ideology embodied by such disturbing components as the blurring of black/mulatto lines, the exploitation of Christianity and the unreliability of black people towards one another. The fact that racist white woman exerts power over the black one and the sympathetic attitudes of white men towards the subject prove to be insufficient are also shocking realities within that society known to be patriarchal and supports the racial ideology; that is when race is in question, patriarchy keeps silent. The novel begins with a six-year-old mulatto protagonist (Al) Frado, an intelligent and pretty girl, abandoned by her white mother to the Bellmont’s house, where she is cruelly labored, beaten and berated by Mrs. Bellmont, who is a pious Christian. She endures until her majority and obtains her freedom, lame and weak. While trying to earn her living and often in need of friends, she marries a fugitive slave, has a son and then is abandoned. She writes an autobiographical novel for supporting herself but it becomes a criticism on the hypocrisy of the abolitionist movement and on the Northern racism. Wilson exhibits an image of the North that can be identified with the South and hints that the Northerners are not innocent in blacks’ ongoing persecution, because of their indifference and lack of prudence. While illustrating the injustice of indentured servitude, Wilson puts forward the idea that the abolitionist discourse must be understood on the in},author={F.Gül KOÇSOY},year={2013},journal={The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies}}