Incidents in the life of a slave girl
...ld girl. This is when Dr. Norcom, the father of her mistress, entered her life and changed it forever. At only 15 years old Dr. Norcom began pursuing and harassing Harriet sexually but her hatred for him and the moral upbringing provided by her grandmother made her continually refuse and evade him. Harriett met another white man who became her lover and had two children with him. Because of the laws of that time her two children immediately became the property of Dr. Norcom as she was. Their father tried to buy her and their children but Dr. Norcom refused. Because of this, Harriett feared for her children and seriously began planning an escape. She ran away and after being hidden a few places by friends of the family she finally was hidden in the tiny crawl space above her grandmother’s house. The space was barely large enough for her body and allowed only limited movement. The space had no insulation or ventilation and so provided unbearable conditions for Harriett. She would spend a total of approximately seven years in that crawl space enduring extreme cold, heat, and illness. During this time she was able to hear and watch her children grow through a tiny hole in the wall that looked out over the front yard. She was also able to fool Dr. Norcom into believing that she had already fled to the North and was living quite happily and negotiated the sale of her children to their father who promised to free them one day. Her stay in the tiny crawl space ended when a neighboring servant discovered her and it became apparent she would have to leave immediately. A friend of the family told her grandmother of an escape plan in which she was to board a ship headed for the north in a few weeks. In the North she found employment as a nanny for a widow’s young child. Her daughter was sent to live with family members of her father’s in the North but was not treated as kindly as promi...