Covey tried to tackle and beat the slave, but this time Douglass fought back. The following day changed Douglass’ life forever.
He hid out for a day, then returned to Covey. The master turned him out and sent him back, leaving Douglass feeling powerless.
He mustered up the courage to defy Covey and walked seven miles to his master’s house to relate what happened. Douglass tried several times to rise and was beaten harder with every failure, including a blow to the head with a hickory stick. Covey discovered Douglass lying on the ground, gave him a “savage kick in the side,” and told the slave to get up. One day, mentally drained and physically ill, he was too weak and dizzy to work. 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 on me and behold a man transformed into a brute!”ĭouglass fell into a deep depression. Covey beat Douglass at least once a week.ĭouglass said the experience crushed him. Covey gave me a very severe whipping, cutting my back, causing the blood to run, and raising ridges on my flesh as large as my little finger,” Douglass later reported. Covey attempted to break the bodies and spirits of slaves within a week, Covey whipped Douglass savagely. In 1833, Douglass’ owner sent him to a “slave breaker” named Edward Covey as Douglass was seen as difficult to manage, and suspected of planning to escape. Like most slaves, he was not taught to read and had little hope for the future. He did not really know his mother, who was separated from him by many miles, and he only visited with her a few times before she died when he was a little boy. He did not know the date of his birth, his age, or who his father was, although he theorized that it was one of the white men on the plantation where he lived. NARRATIVEįrederick Douglass knew little about his own identity. Frederick Douglass successfully achieved his liberty and sought to lift all slaves out of bondage. It took incredible courage for slaves to find ways to win their freedom, self-worth, and individual identity. The system of owning human beings and their labor took away slaves’ rights, dignity, and identity by reducing people to the status of property. Slavery was a violent system of repression that forced African Americans to work for white owners for no pay and with no control of their lives. Frederick Douglass was one of almost 4 million slaves who lived in the antebellum South.
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