American Romanticism
Prof. Bruce Harvey
Excerpt from Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)
Compare
the Covey fight scene below in Douglass's expanded 1855 autobiography with the
scene in our 1845 narrative (at about the 1st third of Chapter X).
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 than
myself (as was sometimes said of him), or whether he had obtained a special
indulgence, for his faithful Sabbath day's worship, it is not necessary for me
to know, or to inform the reader; but, this I may say -- the pious and benignant smile which graced Covey's
face on Sunday, wholly
disappeared on Monday. Long
before daylight, I was called up to go and feed, rub, and curry the horses. I
obeyed the call, and 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 Mr. Covey should then undertake to
beat me, to defend and protect myself to 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 subjected, and my hands were no
longer tied by my religion. Master Thomas's indifference had served the last
link. I had now to this extent "backslidden" from this point in the
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 feed 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, in his peculiar snake-like
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 up my feet. As soon as I found what he was up to,
I gave a sudden spring (my two day's 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 defeated in his plan of tying me. While down, he seemed to think he had me
very securely in his power. He little thought he was -- as the rowdies 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,
eight-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, 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 was forgotten. I felt as
supple as a cat, and was ready for the snakish
creature at every turn. Every blow of his was parried, though I dealt no blows
in turn. I was strictly on the defensive,
preventing him from injuring me, rather than trying to injure him. I flung him
on the ground several times, when he meant 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?" 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, 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 Hughs, 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 (as the musty proverb goes) that "I might as well be hanged for an
old sheep as a lamb." I was still defensive
toward Covey, but aggressive
toward Hughs; 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 pain, and manifesting no 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.
Taken completely by surprise, Covey seemed to have 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 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 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 cow yard. He had selected the place for the fight, and it was but
right that he should have all the advantages of his own selection.
By this time, Bill, the hired man, came home. He had been to Mr. 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 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, Mr. Covey," said Bill. "Take hold of him -- take hold of
him!" said Covey. With a toss of his head, peculiar to Bill, he said,
"indeed, Mr. 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
But, my present advantage was threatened when I saw Caroline (the slave-woman
of Covey) coming to the cow yard to milk, for she was a powerful woman, and
could have mastered me very easily, exhausted as I now was. As soon 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, it was at greater peril so to answer; she was the
slave 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 her
refusal. He gave her several sharp blows.
Covey at length (two hours had elapsed) 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 the scuffle, 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 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, this battle with Mr. Covey -- undignified as it was, and
as I fear my narration of it is -- was the turning point in my "life as
a slave." It rekindled in my breast the smouldering
embers of liberty; it brought up my
He can only understand the 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 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 had reached the point, at which I was not afraid to die.
This spirit made me a freeman in fact, while I remained a slave in form.
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 unto Covey, to accommodate
that preference. From this time, 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.