My Bondage And My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

CHANGE OF MASTERS--BENEFITS DERIVED BY THE CHANGE--FAME OF THE FIGHT WITH COVEY--RECKLESS UNCONCERN--MY ABHORRENCE OF SLAVERY--ABILITY TO READ A CAUSE OF PREJUDICE--THE HOLIDAYS--HOW SPENT--SHARP HIT AT SLAVERY--EFFECTS OF HOLIDAYS--A DEVICE OF SLAVERY--DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COVEY AND FREELAND--AN IRRELIGIOUS MASTER PREFERRED TO A RELIGIOUS ONE--CATALOGUE OF FLOGGABLE OFFENSES--HARD LIFE AT COVEY'S USEFUL--IMPROVED CONDITION NOT FOLLOWED BY CONTENTMENT--CONGENIAL SOCIETY AT FREELAND'S--SABBATH SCHOOL INSTITUTED--SECRECY NECESSARY--AFFECTIONATE RELATIONS OF TUTOR AND PUPILS--CONFIDENCE AND FRIENDSHIP AMONG SLAVES--I DECLINE PUBLISHING PARTICULARS OF CONVERSATIONS WITH MY FRIENDS--SLAVERY THE INVITER OF VENGEANCE.

My term of actual service to Mr. Edward Covey ended on Christmas day, 1834. I gladly left the snakish Covey, although he was now as gentle as a lamb. My home for the year 1835 was already secured--my next master was already selected. There is always more or less excitement about the matter of changing hands, but I had become somewhat reckless. I cared very little into whose hands I fell--I meant to fight my way. Despite of Covey, too, the report got abroad, that I was hard to whip; that I was guilty of kicking back; that though generally a good tempered Negro, I sometimes "_got the devil in me_." These sayings were rife in Talbot county, and they distinguished me among my servile brethren. Slaves, generally, will fight each other, and die at each other's hands; but there are few who are not held in awe by a white man. Trained from the cradle up, to think and feel that their masters are superior, and invested with a sort of sacredness, there are few who can outgrow or rise above the control which that sentiment exercises. I had now got free from it, and the thing was known. One bad sheep will spoil a whole flock. Among the slaves, I was a bad sheep. I hated slavery, slaveholders, and all pertaining to them; and I did not fail to inspire others with the same feeling, wherever and whenever opportunity was presented. This made me a marked lad among the slaves, and a suspected one among the slaveholders. A knowledge of my ability to read and write, got pretty widely spread, which was very much against me.