My Bondage and My Freedom

by Frederick Douglass

  I have already said, or implied, that Mr. Edward Covey was a poor man. He was, in fact, just commencing to lay the foundation of his fortune, as fortune is regarded in a slave state. The first condition of wealth and respectability there, being the ownership of human property, every nerve is strained, by the poor man, to obtain it, and very little regard is had to the manner of obtaining it. In pursuit of this object, pious as Mr. Covey was, he proved himself to be as unscrupulous and base as the worst of his neighbors. In the beginning, he was only able—as he said—“to buy one slave ; ” and, scandalous and shocking as is the fact, he boasted that he bought her simply “as a breeder.” But the worst is not told in this naked statement. This young woman (Caroline was her name) was virtually compelled by Mr. Covey to abandon herself to the object for which he had purchased her ; and the result was, the birth of twins at the end of the year. At this addition to his human stock, both Edward Covey and his wife, Susan, were extatic with joy. No one dreamed of reproaching the woman, or of finding fault with the hired man—Bill Smith—the father of the children, for Mr. Covey himself had locked the two up together every night, thus inviting the result.

  But I will pursue this revolting subject no further. No better illustration of the unchaste and demoralizing character of slavery can be found, than is furnished in the fact that this professedly christian slaveholder, amidst all his prayers and hymns, was shamelessly and boastfully encouraging, and actually compelling, in his own house, undisguised and unmitigated fornication, as a means of increasing his human stock. I may remark here, that, while this fact will be read with disgust and shame at the north, it will be laughed at, as smart and praiseworthy in Mr. Covey, at the south ; for a man is no more condemned there for buying a woman and devoting her to this life of dis honor, than for buying a cow, and raising stock from her. The same rules are observed, with a view to increasing the number and quality of the former, as of the latter.

  I will here reproduce what I said of my own experience in this wretched place, more than ten years ago :“If at any one time of my life, more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold ; it could never rain, blow, snow, or hail too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night. The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights were too long for him. I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there ; but a few months of this discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body soul and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed ; my intellect languished ; the disposition to read departed ; the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died ; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me ; and behold a man transformed into a brute !

  “Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times, I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition. I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality.

  “Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake bay, whose broad bosom was ever white with sails from every quarter of the habitable globe. Those beautiful vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful to the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition. I have often, in the deep stillness of a summer’s Sabbath, stood all alone upon the banks of that noble bay, and traced, with saddened heart and tearful eye, the countless number of sails moving off to the mighty ocean. The sight of these always affected me powerfully. My thoughts would compel utterance ; and there, with no audience but the Almighty, I would pour out my soul’s complaint in my rude way, with an apostrophe to the moving multitude of ships :

  “ ‘You are loosed from your moorings, and free ; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip ! You are freedom’s swift-winged angels, that fly around the world ; I am confined in bands of iron ! O, that I were free ! O, that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing ! Alas ! betwixt me and you the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O that I could also go! Could I but swim ! If I could fly ! O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute ! The glad ship is gone ; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O God, save me ! God, deliver me ! Let me be free ! Is there any God ? Why am I a slave ? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught, or get clear, I’ll try it. I had as well die with ague as with fever. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it ; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free ! Try it ? Yes ! God helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave. I will take to the water. This very bay shall yet bear me into freedom. The steamboats steered in a north-east coast from North Point. I will do the same ; and when I get to the head of the bay, I will turn my canoe adrift, and walk straight through Delaware into Pennsylvania. When I get there, I shall not be required to have a pass ; I will travel without being disturbed. Let but the first opportunity offer, and, come what will, I am off. Meanwhile, I will try to bear up under the yoke. I am not the only slave in the world. Why should I fret ? I can bear as much as any of them. Besides, I am but a boy, and all boys are bound to some one. It may be that my misery in slavery will only increase my happiness when I get free. There is a better day coming.’ ”

  I shall never be able to narrate the mental experience through which it was my lot to pass during my stay at Covey’s. I was completely wrecked, changed and bewildered ; goaded almost to madness at one time, and at another reconciling myself to my wretched condition. Everything in the way of kindness, which I had experienced at Baltimore ; all my former hopes and aspirations for usefulness in the world, and the happy moments spent in the exercises of religion, contrasted with my then present lot, but increased my anguish.

  I suffered bodily as well as mentally. I had neither sufficient time in which to eat or to sleep, except on Sundays. The over work, and the brutal chastisements of which I was the victim, combined with that ever-gnawing and soul-devouring thought—“I am a slave—a slave for life—a slave with no rational ground to hope for freedom”—rendered me a living embodiment of mental and physical wretchedness.

  CHAPTER XVI.

  Another Pressure of the Tyrant’s Vice.

  EXPERIENCE AT COVEY’S SUMMED UP—FIRST SIX MONTHS SE-VERER THAN THE SECOND—PRELIMINARIES TO THE CHANGE—REASONS FOR NARRATING THE CIRCUMSTANCES—SCENE IN THE TREADING YARD—AUTHOR TAKEN ILL—UNUSUAL BRUTALITY OF COVEY—AUTHOR ESCAPES TO ST. MICHAEL’S—THE PURSUIT—SUFFERING IN THE WOODS—DRIVEN BACK AGAIN TO COVEY’S—BEARING OF “MASTER THOMAS”—THE SLAVE IS NEVER SICK—NATURAL TO EXPECT SLAVES TO FEIGN SICKNESS—LAZINESS OF SLAVE-HOLDERS.

  THE foregoing chapter, with all its horrid incidents and shocking features, may be taken as a fair representation of the first six months of my life at Covey’s. The reader has but to repeat, in his own mind, once a week, the scene in the woods, where Covey subjected me to his merciless lash, to have a true idea of my bitter experience there, during the first period of the breaking process through which Mr. Covey carried me. I have no heart to repeat each separate transaction, in which I was a victim of his violence and brutality. Such a narration would fill a volume much larger than the present one. I aim only to give the reader a truthful impression of my slave life, without unnecessarily affecting him with harrowing details.

  As I have elsewhere intimated that my hardships were much greater during the first six months of my stay at Covey’s, than during the remainder of the year, and as the change in my condition was owin
g to causes which may help the reader to a better understanding of human nature, when subjected to the terrible extremities of slavery, I will narrate the circumstances of this change, although I may seem thereby to applaud my own courage.

  You have, dear reader, seen me humbled, degraded, broken down, enslaved, and brutalized, and you understand how it was done ; now let us see the converse of all this, and how it was brought about ; and this will take us through the year 1834.

  On one of the hottest days of the month of August, of the year just mentioned, had the reader been passing through Covey’s farm, he might have seen me at work, in what is there called the “treading yard”—a yard upon which wheat is trodden out from the straw, by the horses’ feet. I was there, at work, feeding the “fan,” or rather bringing wheat to the fan, while Bill Smith was feeding. Our force consisted of Bill Hughes, Bill Smith, and a slave by the name of Eli ; the latter having been hired for this occasion. The work was simple, and required strength and activity, rather than any skill or intelligence, and yet, to one entirely unused to such work, it came very hard. The heat was intense and overpowering, and there was much hurry to get the wheat, trodden out that day, through the fan ; since, if that work was done an hour before sundown, the hands would have, according to a promise of Covey, that hour added to their night’s rest. I was not behind any of them in the wish to complete the day’s work before sundown, and, hence, I struggled with all my might to get the work forward. The promise of one hour’s repose on a week day, was sufficient to quicken my pace, and to spur me on to extra endeavor. Besides, we had all planned to go fishing, and I certainly wished to have a hand in that. But I was disappointed, and the day turned out to be one of the bitterest I ever experienced. About three o’clock, while the sun was pouring down his burning rays, and not a breeze was stirring, I broke down ; my strength failed me ; I was seized with a violent aching of the head, attended with extreme dizziness, and trembling in every limb. Finding what was coming, and feeling it would never do to stop work, I nerved myself up, and staggered on until I fell by the side of the wheat fan, feeling that the earth had fallen upon me. This brought the entire work to a dead stand. There was work for four ; each one had his part to perform, and each part depended on the other, so that when one stopped, all were compelled to stop. Covey, who had now become my dread, as well as my tormentor, was at the house, about a hundred yards from where I was fanning, and instantly, upon hearing the fan stop, he came down to the treading yard, to inquire into the cause of our stopping. Bill Smith told him I was sick, and that I was unable longer to bring wheat to the fan.

  I had, by this time, crawled away, under the side of a post-and-rail fence, in the shade, and was exceedingly ill. The intense heat of the sun, the heavy dust rising from the fan, the stooping, to take up the wheat from the yard, together with the hurrying, to get through, had caused a rush of blood to my head. In this condition, Covey finding out where I was, came to me ; and, after standing over me a while, he asked me what the matter was. I told him as well as I could, for it was with difficulty that I could speak. He then gave me a savage kick in the side, which jarred my whole frame, and commanded me to get up. The man had obtained complete control over me ; and if he had commanded me to do any possible thing, I should, in my then state of mind, have endeavored to comply. I made an effort to rise, but fell back in the attempt, before gaining my feet. The brute now gave me another heavy kick, and again told me to rise. I again tried to rise, and succeeded in gaining my feet ; but, upon stooping to get the tub with which I was feeding the fan, I again staggered and fell to the ground ; and I must have so fallen, had I been sure that a hundred bullets would have pierced me, as the consequence. While down, in this sad condition, and perfectly helpless, the merciless negro breaker took up the hickory slab, with which Hughes had been striking off the wheat to a level with the sides of the half bushel measure, (a very hard weapon,) and with the sharp edge of it, he dealt me a heavy blow on my head which made a large gash, and caused the blood to run freely, saying, at the same time, “If you have got the headache, I’ll cure you.” This done, he ordered me again to rise, but I made no effort to do so ; for I had made up my mind that it was useless, and that the heartless monster might now do his worst ; he could but kill me, and that might put me out of my misery. Finding me unable to rise, or rather despairing of my doing so, Covey left me, with a view to getting on with the work without me. I was bleeding very freely, and my face was soon covered with my warm blood. Cruel and merciless as was the motive that dealt that blow, dear reader, the wound was fortunate for me. Bleeding was never more efficacious. The pain in my head speedily abated, and I was soon able to rise. Covey had, as I have said, now left me to my fate ; and the question was, shall I return to my work, or shall I find my way to St. Michael’s, and make Capt. Auld acquainted with the atrocious cruelty of his brother Covey, and beseech him to get me another master ? Remembering the object he had in view, in placing me under the management of Covey, and further, his cruel treatment of my poor crippled cousin, Henny, and his meanness in the matter of feeding and clothing his slaves, there was little ground to hope for a favorable reception at the hands of Capt. Thomas Auld. Nevertheless, I resolved to go straight to Capt. Auld, thinking that, if not animated by motives of humanity, he might be induced to interfere on my behalf from selfish considerations. “He cannot,” thought I, “allow his property to be thus bruised and battered, marred and defaced ; and I will go to him, and tell him the simple truth about the matter.” In order to get to St. Michael’s, by the most favorable and direct road, I must walk seven miles ; and this, in my sad condition, was no easy performance. I had already lost much blood ; I was exhausted by over exertion ; my sides were sore from the heavy blows planted there by the stout boots of Mr. Covey ; and I was, in every way, in an unfavorable plight for the journey. I however watched my chance, while the cruel and cunning Covey was looking in an opposite direction, and started off, across the field, for St. Michael’s. This was a daring step ; if it failed, it would only exasperate Covey, and increase the rigors of my bondage, during the remainder of my term of service under him ; but the step was taken, and I must go forward. I succeeded in getting nearly half way across the broad field, toward the woods, before Mr. Covey observed me. I was still bleeding, and the exertion of running had started the blood afresh. “Come back ! Come back !” vociferated Covey, with threats of what he would do if I did not return instantly. But, disregarding his calls and his threats, I pressed on toward the woods as fast as my feeble state would allow. Seeing no signs of my stopping, Covey caused his horse to be brought out and saddled, as if he intended to pursue me. The race was now to be an unequal one ; and, thinking I might be overhauled by him, if I kept the main road, I walked nearly the whole distance in the woods, keeping far enough from the road to avoid detection and pursuit. But, I had not gone far, before my little strength again failed me, and I laid down. The blood was still oozing from the wound in my head ; and, for a time, I suffered more than I can describe. There I was, in the deep woods, sick and emaciated, pursued by a wretch whose character for revolting cruelty beggars all opprobrious speech—bleeding, and almost bloodless. I was not without the fear of bleeding to death. The thought of dying in the woods, all alone, and of being torn to pieces by the buzzards, had not yet been rendered tolerable by my many troubles and hardships, and I was glad when the shade of the trees, and the cool evening breeze, combined with my matted hair to stop the flow of blood. After lying there about three quarters of an hour, brooding over the singular and mournful lot to which I was doomed, my mind passing over the whole scale or circle of belief and unbelief, from faith in the overruling providence of God, to the blackest atheism, I again took up my journey toward St. Michael’s, more weary and sad than in the morning when I left Thomas Auld’s for the home of Mr. Covey. I was bare-footed and bare-headed, and in my shirt sleeves. The way was through bogs and briers, and I tore my feet often during the journey. I was full five hours in going the seven
or eight miles ; partly, because of the difficulties of the way, and partly, because of the feebleness induced by my illness, bruises and loss of blood. On gaining my master’s store, I presented an appearance of wretchedness and woe, fitted to move any but a heart of stone. From the crown of my head to the sole of my feet, there were marks of blood. My hair was all clotted with dust and blood, and the back of my shirt was literally stiff with the same. Briers and thorns had scarred and torn my feet and legs, leaving blood marks there. Had I escaped from a den of tigers, I could not have looked worse than I did on reaching St. Michael’s. In this unhappy plight, I appeared before my professedly christian master, humbly to invoke the interposition of his power and authority, to protect me from further abuse and violence. I had begun to hope, during the latter part of my tedious journey toward St. Michael’s, that Capt. Auld would now show himself in a nobler light than I had ever before seen him. I was disappointed. I had jumped from a sinking ship into the sea ; I had fled from the tiger to something worse. I told him all the circumstances, as well as I could ; how I was endeavoring to please Covey ; how hard I was at work in the present instance ; how unwillingly I sunk down under the heat, toil and pain ; the brutal manner in which Covey had kicked me in the side ; the gash cut in my head ; my hesitation about troubling him (Capt. Auld) with complaints ; but, that now I felt it would not be best longer to conceal from him the outrages committed on me from time to time by Covey. At first, master Thomas seemed somewhat affected by the story of my wrongs, but he soon repressed his feelings and became cold as iron.8 It was impossible—as I stood before him at the first—for him to seem indifferent. I distinctly saw his human nature asserting its conviction against the slave system, which made cases like mine possible ; but, as I have said, humanity fell before the systematic tyranny of slavery. He first walked the floor, apparently much agitated by my story, and the sad spectacle I presented ; but, presently, it was his turn to talk. He began moderately, by finding excuses for Covey, and ending with a full justification of him, and a passionate condemnation of me. “He had no doubt I deserved the flogging. He did not believe I was sick ; I was only endeavoring to get rid of work. My dizziness was laziness, and Covey did right to flog me, as he had done.” After thus fairly annihilating me, and rousing himself by his own eloquence, he fiercely demanded what I wished him to do in the case !