. . .
A man named Edward Covey, living at Bayside, at no great distance from
the campground where Thomas Auld was converted, had a wide reputation
for "breaking in unruly niggers." Covey was a "poor white" and a farm
renter. To this man Douglass was hired out for a year. In the month
of January, 1834, he started for his new master, with his little bundle
of clothes. From what we have already seen of this sensitive,
thoughtful young slave of seventeen years, it is not difficult to
understand his state of mind. Up to this time he had had a
comparatively easy life. He had seldom suffered hardships such as fell
to the lot of many slaves whom he knew. To quote his own words: "I was
now about to sound profounder depths in slave-life. Starvation made me
glad to leave Thomas Auld's, and the cruel lash made me dread to go to
Covey's." Escape, however, was impossible. The picture of the
"slave-driver," painted in the lurid colors that Mr. Douglass's
indignant memories furnished him, shows the dark side of slavery in the
South. During the first six weeks he was with Covey he was whipped,
either with sticks or cowhides, every week. With his body one
continuous ache from his frequent floggings, he was kept at work in
field or woods from the dawn of day until the darkness of night.
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