18 - My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglasss remarkable journey unfolds in these pages, showcasing not only his extraordinary rise against overwhelming odds but also serving as a powerful testament to the noble aspirations of the American anti-slavery movement. (Introduction)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter seventeen of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglas.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Last Flogging,
A sleepless night returned to Covey's pursued by Covey. The
chase defeated, vengeance postponed, Musing in the Woods, the alternative

(00:26):
deplorable spectacle Night in the Woods, expected attack, accosted by Sandy,
a friend not a hunter. Sandy's hospitality, the ash Cake Supper,
The interview with Sandy, his advice, Sandy a conjurer as
well as a Christian, The magic root, strange meeting with Covey,

(00:48):
his manner, Covey's Sunday Face, Author's defensive result, the fight,
the victory, and its results. Sleep itself does not always
come to the relief of the weary embody and the
broken in spirit, especially when passed troubles only foreshadow coming disasters.

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The last hope had been extinguished. My master, whom I
did not venture to hope would protect me as a man,
had even now refused to protect me as his property,
and had cast me back, covered with reproaches and bruises,
into the hands of a stranger. To that mercy, which

(01:30):
was the soul of the religion, he professed. May the
reader never spend such a night as that allotted to
me previous to the morning, which was to herald my
return to the den of horrors from which I had
made a temporary escape. I remained all night sleep I
did not at Saint Michael's, and in the morning Saturday,

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I started off according to the order of Master Thomas,
feeling that I had no friend on earth, and doubting
if I had one in heaven. I reached Coveys about
nine o'clock, and just as I stepped into the field.
Before I had reached the house, Covey, true to his
snaky habits, darted out at me from a fence corner

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in which he had secreted himself for the purpose of
securing me. He was amply provided with a cowskin and
a rope, and he evidently intended to tie me up
and to wreak his vengeance on me to the fullist extent.
I should have been an easy prey had he succeeded

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in getting his hands upon me, for I had taken
no refreshment since noon on Friday, and this, together with
the pelting excitement, and the loss of blood had reduced
my strength. I, however, darted back into the woods before
the ferocious hound could get hold of me, and buried

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myself in a thicket where he lost sight of me.
The cornfield afforded me cover in getting to the woods,
But for the tall corn Covey would have overtaken me
and made me his captive. He seemed very much chagrined
that he did not catch me, and gave up the
chase very reluctantly, for I could see his angry movements

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towards the house from which he had sallied on his foray. Well,
now I am clear of Covey and of his wrathful lash.
For the present I am in the wood, buried in
its somber gloom, and hushed in its solemn silence. He
had from all human eyes, shut in with nature and

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Nature's God, and absent from all human contrivances. It was
a good place to pray, to pray for help for deliverance,
a prayer I had often made before it. But how
could I pray? Covey could pray, Captain all could pray?
I would faint pray, but doubts, arising partly from my

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own neglect of the means of grace, and partly from
the sham religion which everywhere prevailed, cast in my mind
a doubt upon all religion, and led me to the
conviction that prayers were unavailing and elusive, prevented my embracing
the opportunity as a religious one. Life in itself had

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almost become burdensome to me. All my outward relations were
against me. I must stay here and starve, I was
already hungry, or go home to Coveys and have my
flesh torn to pieces and my spirit humbled under the
cruel lash of Covey. This was the painful alternative presented

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to me. The day was long and irksome. My physical
condition was deplorable. I was weak from the toils of
the previous day and from the want of food and rest,
and had been so little concerned of my appearance that
I had not yet washed the blood from my garments.
I was an object of horror even to myself. Life

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in Baltimore, when most oppressive, was a paradise to this.
What had I done? What had my parents done? That
such a life as this should be mine? That day
in the woods, I would have exchanged my manhood for
the brutethood of an ox. Night came. I was still
in the woods, unresolved what to do. Hunger had not

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yet pinched me to the point of going home, and
I laid myself down in the leaves to rest. For
I had been watching for hunters all day, but not
being molested. During the day, I expected no disturbance during
the night. I had come to the conclusion that Covey
relied upon hunger to drive me home, and in this

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I was quite correct. The facts showed that he had
made no effort to catch me since morning. During the
night I heard this step of a man in the woods.
He was coming toward the place where I lay, a
person lying still. As the advantage over one walking in
the woods in the daytime, and this advantage is much

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greater at night. I was not able to engage in
a physical struggle, and I had recourse to the common
resort of the week. I hid myself in the leaves
to prevent discovery. But as the knight rambler in the
woods drew nearer, I found him to be a friend,
not an enemy. It was a slave of mister William

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Groomes of Easton, a kind hearted fellow named Sandy. Sandy
lived with mister Kemp that year, about four miles from
Saint Michael's. He, like myself, had been hired out by
the year, but unlike myself, had not been hired out
to be broken. Sandy was the husband of a free
woman who lived in the lower part of pot Pie Neck,

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and he was now on his way through the woods
to see her, to spend the Sabbath with her. As
soon as I had ascertained that the disturber of my
solitude was not an enemy, but the good hearted Sandy,
a man as famous among the slaves of the neighborhood
for his good nature as for his good sense, I
came out from my hiding place and made myself known

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to him. I explained the circumstances of the past two
days which had driven me to the woods, and he
deeply compassionated my distress. It was a bold thing for
him to shelter me, and I could not ask him
to do so, for had I been found in his hut,
he would have suffered the penalty of thirty nine lashes

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on his bare back, if not something worse. But Sandy
was too generous to permit the fear of punishment to
prevent his relieving her brother Bondman from hunger and exposure.
And therefore, on his own motion, I accompanied him to
his home, or rather to the home of his wife,
for the house and lot were hers. His wife was

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called up, for it was now about midnight. A fire
was made, some Indian meal was soon mixed with salt
and water, and an ash cake was baked. In a
hurry to relieve my hunger. Sandy's wife was not behind
him in kindness. Both seemed to esteem it a privilege
to succor me. For although I was hated by Cubby

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and by my master, I was loved by the colored
people because they thought I was hated for my knowledge
and persecuted because I was feared. I was the only
slave now in that region who could read and write.
There had been one other man belonging to mister Hugh Hamilton,
who could read. His name was Jim, But he, poor fellow, had,

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shortly after my coming into the neighborhood, been sold off
to the far south. I saw Jim ironed in the
cart to be carried to east and for sale, pinioned
like a yearling for the slaughter. My knowledge was now
the pride of my brother slaves, and no doubt Sandy
felt something of the general interest in me. On that account,

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the supper was soon ready, And though I have feasted
since with honorables, lord mayors, and aldermen over the sea,
my supper on ash cake and cold water with Sandy
was the meal of all my life, most sweet to
my taste, and now most vivid in my memory. Supper
over Sandy and I went into a discussion of what

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was possible for me under the perils and hardships which
now overshadowed my path. The question was must I go
back to Covey or must I now attempt to run away?
Upon a careful survey, the latter was found to be impossible,
for I was on a narrow neck of land, every
avenue from which would bring me in sight of pursuers.

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There was the Chesapeake Bay to the right, and pop
Pie River to the left, and Saint Michael's and its
neighborhood occupying the only space through which there was any retreat.
I found Sandy an old adviser. He was not only
a religious man, but he professed to believe in a
system for which I had no name. He was a
genuine African and had inherited some of the so called

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magical power said to be possessed by African and Eastern nations.
He told me that he could help me, that in
those very woods there was an herb which in the
morning might be found possessing all the powers required for
my protection. I put his thoughts in my own language,
and that if I would take his advice, he would

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procure me the root of the herb of which he spoke.
He told me further that if I would take that
root and wear it on my right side, it would
be impossible for Cubby to strike me a blow. That
with this root about my person, no white man could
whip me. He said he had carried it for years
and that he had fully tested its virtues. He had

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never received a blow from a slaveholder since he carried it,
and he never expected to receive one, for he always
to carry that route as a protection. He knew Covey well,
for missus Covey was the daughter of mister camp and
he Sandy had heard of the barbarous treatment to which
I was subjected, and he wanted to do something for me. Now,

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all this talk about the root was to me very
absurd and ridiculous, if not positively sinful. I at first
rejected the idea that the simple carrying a route on
my right side, a route by the way over which
I walked every time I went into the woods could
possess any such magic power as he ascribed to it,

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And I was therefore not disposed to cumber my pocket
with it. I had a positive aversion to all pretenders
to divination. It was beneath one of my intelligence to
countenance such dealings with the devil as this power implied.
But with all my learning, it was really precious. Little
Sandy was more than a match for me. My book learning,

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he said, had not kept covey off me powerful argument
just then, and he entreated me with flashing eyes to
try this. If it did me no good, it could
do me no harm, and it would cost me nothing anyway.
Sandy was so earnest and so confident of the good
qualities of this weed, that to please him, rather than

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from any conviction of its excellence, I was induced to
take it. He had been to me the good Samaritan,
and had almost providentially found me and helped me when
I could not help myself. How did I know, but
that the hand of the Lord was in it. With
thoughts of this sort, I took the roots from Sandy
and put them in my right hand pocket. This was,

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of course, Sunday morning. Sandy now urged me to go
home with all speed, and to walk up bravely to
the house, as though nothing had happened. I saw in
Sandy too deep an insight into human nature, with all
his superstition, not to have some respect for his advice,
and perhaps to slight gleam or shadow of his superstition

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had fallen upon me. At any rate, I started off
toward Covey's as directed by Sandy, having the previous night
poured my griefs into Sandy's ears and got him enlisted
in my behalf. Having made his wife a sharer in
my sorrows, and having also become well refreshed by sleep
and food, I moved off quite courageously toward the much

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dreaded Coveys. Singularly enough, just as I entered his yard gate,
I met him and his wife, dressed in their Sunday best,
looking as smiling as angels, on their way to church.
The manner of Covey astonished me. There was something really
benignant in his countenance. He spoke to me as never before,

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told me that the pigs had got into the lot,
and he wished me to drive them out, inquired how
I was, and seemed an altered man. This extraordinary conduct
of Covey really made me begin to think that Sandy's
herb had more virtue in it than I and my
pride had been willing to allow. And had the date
been other than Sunday, I should have attributed Covey's altered

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manner solely to the magic power of the root. I suspected, however,
that the Sabbath, and not the root, was the real
explanation of Covey's manner. His religion hindered him from breaking
the Sabbath, but not from breaking my skin. He had
more respect for the day than for the man for
whom the day was Mercivey given. For while he would

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cut and slash my body during the week, he would
not hesitate on Sunday to teach me the value of
my soul or the way of life and salvation by
Jesus Christ. All went well with me till Monday morning,
and then, whether the root had lost its virtue or
whether my tormentor had gone deeper into the black art

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than myself, as was sometimes said of him, or whether
he had obtained a special indulgence for faithful Sabbath Day's worship.
It is not necessary for me to know or to
inform the reader, But this much, I may say. The
pious and benignant smile which grace Covey's face on Sunday
wholly disappeared. On Monday, long before daylight. I was called

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up to go and feed rob and curry the horses.
I obeyed the call, and I would have so obeyed
it had it been made at an earlier hour, for
I had brought my mind to a firm resolve during
that Sunday's reflection viz. To obey every order, however unreasonable,
if it were possible, and if mister Covey should then
undertake to beat me, to defend and protect myself to

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the best of my ability. My religious views on the
subject of resisting my master had suffered a serious shock
by the savage persecution to which I had been subjective,
and my hands were no longer tied by my religion.
Master Thomas's indifference had severed the last link I had
now to this extent backslidden from this point in the

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slave's religious creed, and I soon had occasion to make
my fallen state known to my sunday pious brother Covey.
Whilst I was obeying his order to feet and get
the horses ready for the field, and when in the
act of going up the stable loft for the purpose
of throwing down some blades, Covey sneaked into the stable

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in his peculiar snakelike way, and seizing me suddenly by
the leg, he brought me to the stable floor, giving
my newly mended body a fearful jar. I now forgot
my roots and remembered my pledge to stand up in
my own defense. The brute was endeavoring skillfully to get
a slip knot on my legs before I could draw

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up my feet. As soon as I found what he
was up to, I gave a sudden spring. My two
days rest had been of much service to me, and
by that means no doubt he was able to bring
me to the floor so heavily he was to feeded
in his plan of tying me while down. He seemed
to think he had me very securely in his power.

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He little thought. He was, as the routeris say, in
for a rough and tumble fight. But such was the
fact whence came the daring spirit necessary to grapple with
a man who, ate and forty hours before, could with
his slightest word have made me tremble like a leaf
in a storm. I do not know. At any rate

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I was resolved to fight, and what was better, still,
I was actually hard at it. The fighting madness had
come upon me, and I found my strong fingers firmly
attached to the throat of my cowardly tormentor, as heedless
of consequences. At the moment, as though we stood as
equals before the law, the very color of the man

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was forgotten. I felt as supple as a cat, and
was ready for the snaky creature. At every turn, every
blow of his was parried, though I dealt no blows.
In turn, I was strictly on the defense, preventing him
from injuring me. Rather than trying to injure him. I
flung him on the ground several times when he meant

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to have hurled me. There, I held him so firmly
by the throat that his blood followed my nails. He
held me, and I held him. All was fair thus far,
and the contest was about equal. My resistance was entirely unexpected,
and Covey was taken all aback by it, for he
trembled in every limb. Are you going to resist, you scoundrel?

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Said he, to which I returned a polite yes, sir,
steadily gazing my interrogator in the eye, to meet the
first approach or dawning of the blow, which I expected
my answer would call forth. But the conflict did not
long remain thus equal. Covey soon cried out lustily for help,
not that I was obtaining any marked advantage over him,

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or was injuring him, but because he was gaining none
over me and was not able single handed to conquer me.
He called for his cousin, Hughes, to come to his assistance.
And now the scene was changed. I was compelled to
give blows as well as to parry them. And since
I was in any case to suffer for resistance, I felt,

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as the musty proverb ghosts, that I might as well
be hanged for an old sheep as a lamb. I
was still defensive toward Covey, but aggressive toward Hughes. And
at the first approach of the latter, I dealt a
blow in my desperation, which fairly sickened my youthful assailant.
He went off, bending over with paint and manifesting no

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disposition to come within my reach again. The poor fellow
was in the act of trying to catch and tie
my right hand, and while flattering himself with success, I
gave him the kick which sent him staggering away in pain.
At the same time that I held Covey with a
firm hand, taking completely by surprise. Covey seemed to have

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lost his usual strength and coolness. He was frightened and
stood puffing and blowing, seemingly unable to command words or blows.
When he saw that poor Hughes was standing half bent
with pain, his courage quite gone, the cowardly tyrant asked
if I meant to persist in my resistance. I told

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him I did mean to resist, come what might, that
I had been by him treated like a brute during
the last six months, and that I should stand it
no longer. With that, he gave me a shake and
attempted to drag me toward a stick of wood that
was lying just outside the stable door. He meant to
knock me down with it, but just as he leaned
over to get the stick, I seized him with both

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hands by the collar, and with a vigorous and sudden snatch,
I brought my assailant harmlessly his full length on the
not over clean ground, for we were now in the cowyard.
He had selected the place for the fight, and it
was but right that he should have of the advantage
of his own selection. By this time, Bill, the hired man,

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came home. He had been to mister Hemsley's to spend
the Sunday with his nominal wife, and was coming home
on Monday morning to go to work. Covey and I
had been skirmishing from before daybreak till now that the
sun was almost shooting his beams over the eastern woods,
and we were still at it. I could not see
where the matter was to terminate. He evidently was afraid

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to let me go lest I should again make off
to the woods. Otherwise he would probably have obtained arms
from the house to frighten me. Holding me, Covey called
upon Bill for assistance. The scene here had something comic
about it. Bill, who knew precisely what Covey wished him
to do affected ignorance, and pretended he did not know
what to do. What shall I do, mister Covey, said Bill,

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Take hold of him. Take hold of him, said Covey,
with a toss of his head peculiar to Bill, he said, indeed,
mister Covey, I want to go to work. This is
your work, said Covey. Take hold of him. Bill replied
with spirit, my master hired me here to work, and
not to help you whip Frederick. It was now my
turn to speak. Bill said, I don't put your hands

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on me, to which he replied, my god, Frederick, I
ain't going to text you. And Bill walked off, leaving
Covey and myself to settle our matters as best we might.
But my present advantage was threatened when I saw Caroline,
the slave woman of Covey, coming to the cowyard to milk.
For she was a powerful woman and could have mastered
me very easily. Exhausted as I now was. As soon

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as she came into the yard, Covey attempted to rally
her to his aid. Strangely, and I may add, fortunately,
Caroline was in no humor to take a hand in
any such sport. We were all in open rebellion that morning.
Caroline answered the command of her master to take hold
of me precisely as Bill had answered. But in her

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it was at greater peril so to answer. She was
the slaver of Covey, and he could do what he
pleased with her. It was not so with Bill, and
Bill knew it. Samuel Harris, to whom Bill belonged, did
not allow his slaves to be beaten unless they were
guilty of some crime which the law would punish. But
poor Caroline, like myself, was at the mercy of the
merciless Covey. Nor did she escape the dire effects of

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her refusal. He gave her several sharp blows. Covey, at
length two hours had a lapse, gave up the contest,
letting me go, he said, puffing and blowing at a
great rate. Now, you scoundrel, go to your work. I
would not have whipped you half so much as I
have had you not resisted. The fact was he had
not whipped me at all. He had not, in all

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the scuffled, drawn a single drop of blood from me.
I had drawn blood from him. And even without this
satisfaction I should have been victorious, because my aim had
not been to injure him, but to prevent his injuring me.
During the whole six months that I lived with Covey
after this transaction, he never laid on me the weight
of his finger. In anger. He would occasionally say he

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did not want to have to get hold of me again,
a declaration which I had no difficulty in believing. And
I had a secret feeling which answered, you need not
wish to get hold of me again, for you will
be likely to come off worse in a second fight
than you did in the first. Well, my dear reader,
of this battle with mister Covey, undignified as it was,
and as I fear, my narration of it is, was

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the turning point in my life as a slave. It
rekindled in my breast the smoldering embers of liberty. It
brought up my Baltimore dreams and revived a sense of
my own manhood. I was a change being after that fight.
I was nothing before. I was a man now. It
recalled to life my crushed self respect and my self confidence,

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and inspired me with a renewed determination to be a
free man. A man without force is without the essential
dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted that it
cannot honor a helpless man, although it can pity him,
and even this it cannot do long if the signs
of power do not arise. He only can understand the

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effect of this combat on my spirit, who has himself
incurred something, hazarded something in repelling the unjust and cruel
aggressions of a tyrant. Covey was a tyrant and a
cowardly one withal. After resisting him, I felt as I
had never felt before. It was a resurrection from the
dark and pestiferous tomb of slavery to the heaven of

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comparative freedom. I was no longer a servile coward trembling
under the frown of a brother worm of the dust.
But my long cowed spirit was roused to an attitude
of manly independence. I'd reached the point at which I
was not afraid to die. This spirit made me a
free man in fact, while I remained a slave in form.

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When a slave cannot be flogged, he is more than
half free. He has a domain as broad as his
own manly heart to defend, and he is really a
power on earth. While slaves prefer their lives with flogging
to instant death, they will always find Christians enough like
them to Covey to accommodate that preference. From this time

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until that of my escape from slavery, I was never
fairly whipped. Several attempts were made to whip me, but
they were always unsuccessful. Bruises I did get, as I
shall hereafter inform the reader. But the case I have
been describing was the end of the brutification to which
slavery had subjected me. The reader will be glad to
know why, after I had so grievously offended mister Covey,

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he did not have me taken in hand by the authorities. Indeed,
why the law of Maryland, which has signs hanging to
the slave who resists his master, was not put in
force against me at any rate? Why I was not
taken up, as is usual in such cases, and publicly
whipped for an example to other slaves, and as a
means of deterring me from committing the same offense again.

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I confess that the easy manner in which I got
off was for a long time a surprise to me,
and I cannot even now fully explain the cause. The
only explanation I can venture to suggest is the fact
that Covey was probably ashamed to have it known and
confessed that he had been mastered by a boy of sixteen.

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Mister Covey enjoyed the unbounded and very valuable reputation of
being a first rate over at seer and negro breaker.
By means of this reputation he was able to procure
his hands for very trifling compensation, and with very great ease.
His interest in his pride mutually suggested the wisdom of
passing the matter by in silence. The story that he

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had undertaken to whip a lad and had been resisted,
was of itself sufficient to damage him, for his bearing should,
in the estimation of slaveholders, be of that imperial order
that should make such an occurrence impossible. I judged from
these circumstances that Covey deemed it best to give me
the go by. It is perhaps not altogether creditable to

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my natural temper that, after this conflict with mister Covey,
I did at times purposely aimed to provoke him to
an attack by refusing to keep with the other hands
in the field but I could never bully him to
another battle. I made up my mind to do him
serious damage if he ever again attempted to lay violent

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hands on me. Hereditary bondmen know ye not, who would
be free themselves must strike the blow. End of Chapter
seventeen