THE LAST FLOGGING.
A sleepless night--Return to Covey’s--Punished by him--The chase
defeated--Vengeance postponed--Musings in the woods--The
alternative--Deplorable spectacle--Night in the woods--Expected
attack--Accosted by Sandy--A friend, not a master--Sandy’s
hospitality--The ash-cake supper--Interview with Sandy--His
advice--Sandy a conjurer as well as a Christian--The magic root--
Strange meeting with Covey--His manner--Covey’s Sunday face--
Author’s defensive resolve--The fight--The victory, and its results.
Sleep does not always come to the relief of the weary in body,
and broken in spirit; especially is it so when past troubles only
foreshadow coming disasters. My last hope had been extinguished. My
master, who I did not venture to hope would protect me _as a_ MAN, had
now refused to protect me as _his property_, and had cast me back,
covered with reproaches and bruises, into the hands of one who was a
stranger to that mercy which is the soul of the religion he professed.
May the reader never know what it is to spend such a night as was that
to me, which heralded my return to the den of horrors from which I had
made a temporary escape.
I remained--sleep I did not--all night at St. Michaels, and in the
morning (Saturday) I started off, obedient to the order of Master
Thomas, feeling that I had no friend on earth, and doubting if I had
one in heaven. I reached Covey’s about nine o’clock; and just as I
stepped into the field, before I had reached the house, true to his
snakish habits, Covey darted out at me from a fence corner, in which he
had secreted himself for the purpose of securing me. He was provided
with a cowskin and a rope, and he evidently intended to _tie me up_,
and wreak his vengeance on me to the fullest extent. I should have
been an easy prey had he succeeded in getting his hands upon me, for I
had taken no refreshment since noon on Friday; and this, with the other
trying circumstances, had greatly reduced my strength. I, however,
darted back into the woods before the ferocious hound could reach
me, and buried myself in a thicket, where he lost sight of me. The
cornfield afforded me shelter in getting to the woods. But for the tall
corn, Covey would have overtaken me, and made me his captive. He was
much chagrined that he did not, and gave up the chase very reluctantly,
as I could see by his angry movements, as he returned to the house.
Well, now I am clear of Covey and his lash, for a little time. I am in
the wood, buried in its somber gloom, and hushed in its solemn silence;
hidden from all human eyes, shut in with nature, and with nature’s God,
and absent from all human contrivances. Here was a good place to pray;
to pray for help, for deliverance--a prayer I had often made before.
But how could I pray? Covey could pray--Capt. Auld could pray. I would
fain pray; but doubts arising, partly from my 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 delusive.
Life in itself had almost become burdensome to me. All my outward
relations were against me; I must stay here and starve, or go home to
Covey’s and have my flesh torn to pieces and my spirit humbled under
the cruel lash of Covey. These were the alternatives before me. The day
was long and irksome. I was weak from the toils of the previous day,
and from want of food and sleep, and I had been so little concerned
about my appearance that I had not yet washed the blood from my
garments. I was an object of horror, even to myself. Life 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 brutehood of an
ox.
Night came. I was still in the woods, and still unresolved what to do.
Hunger had not 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 by them during the day, I expected no
disturbance from them during the night. I had come to the conclusion
that Covey relied upon hunger to drive me home, and in this I was quite
correct, for he made no effort to catch me after the morning.
During the night I heard the step of a man in the woods. He was coming
toward the place where I lay. A person lying still has the advantage
over one walking in the woods in the day-time, and this advantage is
much greater at night. I was not able to engage in a physical struggle,
and I had recourse to the common resort of the weak. I hid myself in
the leaves to prevent discovery. But as the night rambler in the woods
drew nearer I found him to be a _friend_, not an enemy, a slave of Mr.
William Groomes of Easton, a kind-hearted fellow named “Sandy.” Sandy
lived with Mr. Kemp that year, about four miles from St. Michaels. He,
like myself, had been hired out that year, but unlike myself had not
been hired out to be broken. He was the husband of a free woman who
lived in the lower part of “Poppie Neck,” and he was now on his way
through the woods to see her and to spend the Sabbath with her.
[Illustration: FOUND IN THE WOODS BY SANDY.]
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 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 on
his bare back, if not something worse. But Sandy was too generous to
permit the fear of punishment to prevent his relieving a brother
bondman from hunger and exposure, and therefore, on his own motion, I
accompanied him home to his wife--for the house and lot were hers, as
she was a free woman. It was about midnight, but his wife was called
up, 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 Covey 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 in that region who could read or write. There had been one
other man, belonging to Mr. Hugh Hamilton, who could read, but he, poor
fellow, had shortly after coming into the neighborhood been sold off to
the far south. I saw him ironed, in the cart, to be carried to Easton
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. The supper was soon
ready, and though I have since feasted 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 to my memory.
Supper over, Sandy and I went into a discussion of what was _possible_
for me, under the perils and hardships which overshadowed my path. The
question was, must I go back to Covey, or must I 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. There was Chesapeake Bay to the right, and “Pot-pie”
river to the left, and St. Michaels and its neighborhood occupied 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 have no name. He was
a genuine African, and had inherited some of the so-called magical
powers said to be possessed by the 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 words in my own language), and that if I would
take his advice he would 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 Covey 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 never received a blow from a slaveholder since he carried it,
and he never expected to receive one, for he meant always to carry
that root for protection. He knew Covey well, for Mrs. Covey was the
daughter of Mrs. Kemp; and he (Sandy) had heard of the barbarous
treatment to which I had been subjected, and he wanted to do something
for me.
Now 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 root on my right side (a root, 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, 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,” he said, “had not kept Covey off me” (a
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 any way. Sandy was so earnest and so confident of
the good qualities of this weed that, to please him, 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 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, too, a slight gleam or shadow of his superstition had fallen
on me. At any rate, I started off toward Covey’s as directed. Having,
the previous night, poured my griefs into Sandy’s ears and enlisted
him 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 dreaded Covey’s. Singularly enough, just as I
entered the yard gate I met him and his wife, dressed in their Sunday
best, looking as smiling as angels, on their way to church. His manner
perfectly astonished me. There was something really benignant in his
countenance. He spoke to me as never before, told me that the pigs had
got into the lot and he wished me to go to drive them out; inquired how
I was, and seemed an altered man. This extraordinary conduct really
made me begin to think that Sandy’s herb had more virtue in it than I,
in my pride, had been willing to allow, and had the day been other than
Sunday I should have attributed Covey’s altered manner solely to the
power of the root. I suspected, however, that the _Sabbath_, not the
root, was the real explanation of the change. His religion hindered him
from breaking the Sabbath, but not from breaking my skin on any other
day than Sunday. He had more respect for the day than for the man for
whom the day was mercifully given; for while he would cut and slash my
body during the week, he would on Sunday teach me the value of my soul,
and 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 than I had (as was sometimes said of him), or whether he had
obtained a special indulgence for his faithful Sunday’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 graced the face of Covey
on _Sunday_ wholly disappeared on _Monday_.
Long before daylight I was called up to go feed, rub, and curry the
horses. I obeyed the call, as I should have done had it been made at
an earlier hour, for I had brought my mind to a firm resolve during
that Sunday’s reflection 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’ indifference had severed
the last link. I had back-slidden from this point in the slaves’
religious creed, and I soon had occasion to make my fallen state known
to my Sunday-pious brother, Covey.
While I was obeying his order to feed and get the horses ready for the
field, and when I was 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 way, and seizing me suddenly by the leg, he brought me
to the stable-floor, giving my newly-mended body a terrible jar. I now
forgot all about my _roots_, and remembered my pledge to stand up in
my own defense. The brute was skilfully endeavoring 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 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 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 actually was hard at it. The fighting madness had
come upon me, and I found my strong fingers firmly attached to the
throat of the tyrant, as heedless of consequences, at the moment, as
if we stood as equals before the law. The very color of the man was
forgotten. I felt supple as a cat, and was ready for him at every turn.
Every blow of his was parried, though I dealt no blows in return. 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, and 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 equal. Covey soon cried 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 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 (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 Hughes, on whom at his
first approach, I dealt a blow which fairly sickened him. He went off,
bending over with pain, and manifesting no disposition to come again
within my reach. 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
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 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.
Helmsley’s to spend Sunday with his nominal wife. Covey and I had been
at skirmishing from before daybreak till now, and the sun was now
shooting his beams almost 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, he called upon Bill to assist him. 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, Master 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 Master 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 my turn to speak. “Bill,” said I, “don’t put your
hands on me.” To which he replied: “My God, Frederick, I ain’t goin’ to
tech ye;” and Bill walked off leaving Covey and myself to settle our
differences as best we might.
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 easily, exhausted as I was.
As soon as she came near, Covey attempted to rally her to his aid.
Strangely, and 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 done, but in her it was at far greater peril, for 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.
At length (two hours had elapsed) the contest was given over. Letting
go of me, puffing and blowing at a great rate, Covey said: “Now, you
scoundrel, go to your work; I would not have whipped you half so hard
if you had 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 should even without this satisfaction
have been victorious, because my aim had not been to injure him, but to
prevent his injuring me.
During the whole six months I lived with Covey after this transaction,
he never again laid the weight of his finger on me 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 had better 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 Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my
own manhood. I was a changed 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, 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, though it can _pity_ him, and even this it cannot do long
if signs of power do not arise.
He only can 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 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 independence. I had
reached the point at which I was _not afraid to die_. This spirit made
me a freeman in _fact_, though I still 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.” From this time until my escape from slavery, I was
never fairly whipped. Several attempts were made, but they were always
unsuccessful. Bruises I did get, but the instance I have described was
the end of the brutification to which slavery had subjected me.
The reader may like to know why, after I had so grievously offended Mr.
Covey, he did not have me taken in hand by the authorities; indeed, why
the law of Maryland, which assigned hanging to the slave who resisted
his master, was not put in force against me; at any rate why I was
not taken up, as was usual in such cases, and publicly whipped, as an
example to other slaves, and as a means of deterring me from committing
the same offense again. I confess that the easy manner in which I got
off was always a surprise to me, and even now I cannot fully explain
the cause, though the probability is that Covey was ashamed to have it
known that he had been mastered by a boy of sixteen. He enjoyed the
unbounded and very valuable reputation of being a first-rate overseer
and negro-breaker, and by means of this reputation he was able to
procure his hands at very trifling compensation and with very great
ease. His interest and his pride would mutually suggest the wisdom of
passing the matter by in silence. The story that he had undertaken to
whip a lad and had been resisted, would of itself be damaging to him in
the estimation of slaveholders.
It is perhaps not altogether creditable to my natural temper that after
this conflict with Mr. Covey I did, at times, purposely aim 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 was determined
on doing him serious damage if he ever again attempted to lay violent
hands on me.
“Hereditary bondmen know ye not
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow!”