In 1859 Harriet Wilson published her novel, "Our Nig; or Sketches from the life of a Free Black," which, was based on her childhood in Milford, N.H., where she was raised by a white family that seemed sympathetic to the abolitionist movement but treated her as an indentured servant. Wilson is believed to be the first African-American to have a novel published in the United States. Although her novel did not get recognition in her lifetime, it was later rediscovered in 1981 and has been compared to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” for its significance in telling the experience of young black women.