My Bondage and My Freedom
its place. This was an important step out of the difficulty, and its
performance increased my courage for the work which remained to be
done. The cart was provided with an ax, a tool with which I had become
pretty well acquainted in the ship yard at Baltimore. With this, I cut
down the saplings by which my oxen were entangled, and again pursued my
journey, with my heart in my mouth, lest the oxen should again take it
into their senseless heads to cut up a caper. My fears were groundless.
Their spree was over for the present, and the rascals now moved off as
soberly as though their behavior had been natural and exemplary. On
reaching the part of the forest where I had been, the day before,
chopping wood, I filled the cart with a heavy load, as a security
against another running away. But, the neck of an ox is equal in
strength to iron. It defies all ordinary burdens, when excited. Tame
and docile to a proverb, when _well_ trained, the ox is the most sullen
and intractable of animals when but half broken to the yoke.
I now saw, in my situation, several points of similarity with that of
the oxen. They were property, so was I; they were to be broken, so was
I. Covey was to break me, I was to break them; break and be broken—such
is life.
Half the day already gone, and my face not yet homeward! It required
only two day’s experience and observation to teach me, that such
apparent waste of time would not be lightly overlooked by Covey. I
therefore hurried toward home; but, on reaching the lane gate, I met
with the crowning disaster for the day. This gate was a fair specimen
of southern handicraft. There were two huge posts, eighteen inches in
diameter, rough hewed and square, and the heavy gate was so hung on one
of these, that it opened only about half the proper distance. On
arriving here, it was necessary for me to let go the end of the rope on
the horns of the “in hand ox;” and now as soon as the gate was open,
and I let go of it to get the rope, again, off went my oxen—making
nothing of their load—full tilt; and in doing so they caught the huge
gate between the wheel and the cart body, literally crushing it to
splinters, and coming only within a few inches of subjecting me to a
similar crushing, for I was just in advance of the wheel when it struck
the left gate post. With these two hair-breadth escape, I thought I
could sucessfully(sic) explain to Mr. Covey the delay, and avert
apprehended punishment. I was not without a faint hope of being
commended for the stern resolution which I had displayed in
accomplishing the difficult task—a task which, I afterwards learned,
even Covey himself would not have undertaken, without first driving the
oxen for some time in the open field, preparatory to their going into
the woods. But, in this I was disappointed. On coming to him, his
countenance assumed an aspect of rigid displeasure, and, as I gave him
a history of the casualties of my trip, his wolfish face, with his
greenish eyes, became intensely ferocious. “Go back to the woods
again,” he said, muttering something else about wasting time. I hastily
obeyed; but I had not gone far on my way, when I saw him coming after
me. My oxen now behaved themselves with singular propriety, opposing
their present conduct to my representation of their former antics. I
almost wished, now that Covey was coming, they would do something in
keeping with the character I had given them; but no, they had already
had their spree, and they could afford now to be extra good, readily
obeying my orders, and seeming to understand them quite as well as I
did myself. On reaching the woods, my tormentor—who seemed all the way
to be remarking upon the good behavior of his oxen—came up to me, and
ordered me to stop the cart, accompanying the same with the threat that
he would now teach me how to break gates, and idle away my time, when
he sent me to the woods. Suiting the action to the word, Covey paced
off, in his own wiry fashion, to a large, black gum tree, the young
shoots of which are generally used for ox _goads_, they being
exceedingly tough. Three of these _goads_, from four to six feet long,
he cut off, and trimmed up, with his large jack-knife. This done, he
ordered me to take off my clothes. To this unreasonable order I made no
reply, but sternly refused to take off my clothing. “If you will beat
me,” thought I, “you shall do so over my clothes.” After many threats,
which made no impression on me, he rushed at me with something of the
savage fierceness of a wolf, tore off the few and thinly worn clothes I
had on, and proceeded to wear out, on my back, the heavy goads which he
had cut from the gum tree. This flogging was the first of a series of
floggings; and though very severe, it was less so than many which came
after it, and these, for offenses far lighter than the gate breaking.
I remained with Mr. Covey one year (I cannot say I _lived_ with him)
and during the first six months that I was there, I was whipped, either
with sticks or cowskins, every week. Aching bones and a sore back were
my constant companions. Frequent as the lash was used, Mr. Covey
thought less of it, as a means of breaking down my spirit, than that of
hard and long continued labor. He worked me steadily, up to the point
of my powers of endurance. From the dawn of day in the morning, till
the darkness was complete in the evening, I was kept at hard work, in
the field or the woods. At certain seasons of the year, we were all
kept in the field till eleven and twelve o’clock at night. At these
times, Covey would attend us in the field, and urge us on with words or
blows, as it seemed best to him. He had, in his life, been an overseer,
and he well understood the business of slave driving. There was no
deceiving him. He knew just what a man or boy could do, and he held
both to strict account. When he pleased, he would work himself, like a
very Turk, making everything fly before him. It was, however, scarcely
necessary for Mr. Covey to be really present in the field, to have his
work go on industriously. He had the faculty of making us feel that he
was always present. By a series of adroitly managed surprises, which he
practiced, I was prepared to expect him at any moment. His plan was,
never to approach the spot where his hands were at work, in an open,
manly and direct manner. No thief was ever more artful in his devices
than this man Covey. He would creep and crawl, in ditches and gullies;
hide behind stumps and bushes, and practice so much of the cunning of
the serpent, that Bill Smith and I—between ourselves—never called him
by any other name than _“the snake.”_ We fancied that in his eyes and
his gait we could see a snakish resemblance. One half of his
proficiency in the art of Negro breaking, consisted, I should think, in
this species of cunning. We were never secure. He could see or hear us
nearly all the time. He was, to us, behind every stump, tree, bush and
fence on the plantation. He carried this kind of trickery so far, that
he would sometimes mount his horse, and make believe he was going to
St. Michael’s; and, in thirty minutes afterward, you might find his
horse tied in the woods, and the snake-like Covey lying flat in the
ditch, with his head lifted above its edge, or in a fence corner,
watching every movement of the slaves! I have known him walk up to us
and give us special orders, as to our work, in advance, as if he were
leaving home with a view to being absent several days; and before he
got half way to the house, he would avail himself of our inattention to
his movements, to turn short on his heels, conceal himself behind a
fence corner or a tree, and watch us until the going down of the sun.
Mean and contemptible as is all this, it is in keeping with the
character which the life of a slaveholder is calculated to produce.
There is no earthly inducement, in the slave’s condition, to incite him
to labor faithfully. The fear of punishment is the sole motive for any
sort of industry, with him. Knowing this fact, as the slaveholder does,
and judging the slave by himself, he naturally concludes the slave will
be idle whenever the cause for this fear is absent. Hence, all sorts of
petty deceptions are practiced, to inspire this fear.
But, with Mr. Covey, trickery was natural. Everything in the shape of
learning or religion, which he possessed, was made to conform to this
semi-lying propensity. He did not seem conscious that the practice had
anything unmanly, base or contemptible about it. It was a part of an
important system, with him, essential to the relation of master and
slave. I thought I saw, in his very religious devotions, this
controlling element of his character. A long prayer at night made up
for the short prayer in the morning; and few men could seem more
devotional than he, when he had nothing else to do.
Mr. Covey was not content with the cold style of family worship,
adopted in these cold latitudes, which begin and end with a simple
prayer. No! the voice of praise, as well as of prayer, must be heard in
his house, night and morning. At first, I was called upon to bear some
part in these exercises; but the repeated flogging given me by Covey,
turned the whole thing into mockery. He was a poor singer, and mainly
relied on me for raising the hymn for the family, and when I failed to
do so, he was thrown into much confusion. I do not think that he ever
abused me on account of these vexations. His religion was a thing
altogether apart from his worldly concerns. He knew nothing of it as a
holy principle, directing and controlling his daily life, making the
latter conform to the requirements of the gospel. One or two facts will
illustrate his character better than a volume of generalties(sic).
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 ecstatic 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 dishonor,
than for buying a cow, and raising stock from her. The same rules are