Religion: Africa Remains
The Slave Breaker
Mr. Covey had acquired a very high reputation for breaking young slaves, and this reputation was of immense value to him.
I had been at my new home but one week before Mr. 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.
I lived with Mr. Covey one year. During the first six months, of that year, scarce a week passed without his whipping me. I was seldom free from a sore back. My awkwardness was almost always his excuse for whipping me.
The Story of Sandy and the Root
He told me, with great solemnity, I must go back to Covey; but that before I went, I must go with him into another part of the woods, where there was a certain root, which, if I would take some of it with me, carrying it always on my right side, would render it impossible for Mr. Covey, or any other white man, to whip me. He said he had carried it for years; and since he had done so, he had never received a blow, and never expected to while he carried it. I at first rejected the idea, that the simple carrying of a root in my pocket would have any such effect as he had said, and was not disposed to take it; but Sandy impressed the necessity with much earnestness, telling me it could do no harm, if it did no good. To please him, I at length took the root, and, according to his direction, carried it upon my right side. This was Sunday morning.
I immediately started for home; and upon entering the yard gate, out came Mr. Covey on his way to meeting.
He spoke to me very kindly, bade me drive the pigs from a lot near by, and passed on towards the church. Now, this singular conduct of Mr. Covey really made me begin to think that there was something in the root which Sandy had given me; and had it been on any other day than Sunday, I could have attributed the conduct to no other cause than the influence of that root; and as it was,
I was half inclined to think the root to be something more than I at first had taken it to be. All went well till
Monday morning. On this morning, the virtue of the
root was fully tested.
On that Monday in 1834, Frederick Douglass beat
Mr. Covey in a brutal fight and was never whipped by him again. He remembered the root and the victory as
a dramatic turning point in his life when he realized
that he would not remain enslaved.
Mr. Covey had acquired a very high reputation for breaking young slaves, and this reputation was of immense value to him.
I had been at my new home but one week before Mr. 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.
I lived with Mr. Covey one year. During the first six months, of that year, scarce a week passed without his whipping me. I was seldom free from a sore back. My awkwardness was almost always his excuse for whipping me.
The Story of Sandy and the Root
He told me, with great solemnity, I must go back to Covey; but that before I went, I must go with him into another part of the woods, where there was a certain root, which, if I would take some of it with me, carrying it always on my right side, would render it impossible for Mr. Covey, or any other white man, to whip me. He said he had carried it for years; and since he had done so, he had never received a blow, and never expected to while he carried it. I at first rejected the idea, that the simple carrying of a root in my pocket would have any such effect as he had said, and was not disposed to take it; but Sandy impressed the necessity with much earnestness, telling me it could do no harm, if it did no good. To please him, I at length took the root, and, according to his direction, carried it upon my right side. This was Sunday morning.
I immediately started for home; and upon entering the yard gate, out came Mr. Covey on his way to meeting.
He spoke to me very kindly, bade me drive the pigs from a lot near by, and passed on towards the church. Now, this singular conduct of Mr. Covey really made me begin to think that there was something in the root which Sandy had given me; and had it been on any other day than Sunday, I could have attributed the conduct to no other cause than the influence of that root; and as it was,
I was half inclined to think the root to be something more than I at first had taken it to be. All went well till
Monday morning. On this morning, the virtue of the
root was fully tested.
On that Monday in 1834, Frederick Douglass beat
Mr. Covey in a brutal fight and was never whipped by him again. He remembered the root and the victory as
a dramatic turning point in his life when he realized
that he would not remain enslaved.