The Narrative of Frederick Douglass: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

On January 1st, 1833, Douglass leaves Master Thomas’s to work as a field hand for Mr. Covey. Douglass’s city upbringing makes him unfit for this labor. In the first few days, Covey sends Douglass with a team of oxen into the forest to retrieve some wood. Douglass does not know how to manage the oxen, and they startle and upset the cart. Douglass narrowly escapes injury. He is stranded in the middle of the woods with a damaged cart and a team of oxen tangled in their own reins. Douglass manages to re-yoke the oxen and sets off again, but they quickly become frightened for a second time, and nearly run Douglass into a gate. After Douglass reports his troubles to Covey, Covey whips him savagely.

During Douglass’s first six months living with Covey, he was whipped roughly once a week. Covey works his slaves from before dawn till after dusk, and while he gives them enough food to eat, he does not give them enough time to eat it. To ensure productivity, Covey labors alongside his slaves, and Covey will often sneak up on his slaves in order to make sure they work even when unsupervised. Covey often uses elaborate ruses to trick the slaves into thinking he has disappeared, only to watch his slaves from a hidden vantage point. This forces the slaves to work constantly, from fear of constant surveillance.

Covey’s sinister powers of deception also extend into his religious practice. He prays frequently, but only in ways that do not give the slaves a break from fieldwork. Covey often sings hymns with his family, but is not a strong reader, and Douglass is usually required to read the hymns. However, Douglass often refuses, which unsettles Covey, and forces him to read haltingly to show his independence from the slave.

Covey is a poor man, who can only afford to own one slave (he “rents” the others from different slave-owners). This slave was a twenty-year-old woman named Caroline, whom Covey bought as a “breeder.” He compels another man to sleep with Caroline nightly, and after some time, Caroline gives birth to a pair of twins.

Douglass is broken by his six months with Covey. He is forced to work in every weather condition, no matter how hot or cold. The constant toil erodes Douglass’s hope and destroys his interest in intellectual pursuits. He spends Sundays—his only leisure time—in a dream-like stupor, unable to think clearly. He entertains the idea of killing himself or Mr. Covey, but cannot follow through out of a combination of hope and fear.

Covey’s house is on the Chesapeake Bay, and Douglass’s regular sight of the far-ranging ships in the harbor makes him fearful and sad about his wretched condition. The sight of the ships inspires him to attempt to run away and seek freedom.

While fanning wheat for Covey in August of 1833, Douglass collapses from heat exhaustion and is unable to continue working. Covey hits Douglass and demands he continue working. Douglass rises and resumes work, but he vows to complain to Master Thomas about Covey’s treatment. After work, a disoriented Douglass ignores Covey’s orders to stay put and stumbles seven miles to Thomas’s house. Thomas ignores Douglass’s complaints, and says that Covey is a good man who poses no danger of killing Douglass.

Douglass spends the night in St. Michael’s, and returns to Covey’s the next day. He sees Covey running out to whip him and successfully hides in the cornfields. Douglass spends the day in the woods, and meets a slave named Sandy Jenkins, who is on his way to the house where his free wife lives. Jenkins takes Douglass home with him. There, he tells Douglass to return to Covey, but to always carry with him a special root on his right side. This root, Jenkins says, will prevent a master from hitting any slave that carries it. Douglass is skeptical, but agrees to follow Sandy’s insistent advice.

The next day, Sunday, Douglass returns to Covey’s carrying the root on his right side. On his way back, he passes Covey, who is headed to church. Covey speaks to Douglass kindly, and Douglass begins to believe in the root’s powers. The next morning, Douglass is given an early chore, and as he works, Covey catches Douglass off guard and ties his legs up. Douglass falls down, but resolves to fight Covey, and seizes his master by the throat. Another farmhand, Hughes, comes to help Covey, but Douglass incapacitates him with a kick to the ribs. The two fight for two more hours, and Covey finally gives up without having whipped Douglass.

The fight with Covey renews Douglass’s self-confidence and his desire to be free, and he experiences a satisfaction that could only be understood by someone who has himself repelled slavery. Though Douglass remains a slave for four years after the fight, he is never again whipped.

Douglass is at first surprised that Covey doesn’t have him whipped by a constable. Douglass theorizes that Covey doesn’t want to lose his reputation as a slave-breaker, and having Douglass whipped in public would discredit Covey.

Douglass’s year of service to Mr. Covey ends on Christmas Day of 1833. Slaves are given the days between Christmas and New Years off as holidays. Some spend this time preparing industriously for the coming season, but most simply revel. Douglass sees these holidays not as an illustration of the slaveholders’ benevolence, but as a calculated attempt to prevent insurrection. Slaveholders encourage the slaves to drink heavily and sicken themselves, so that the slaves will believe they cannot live independently. Part of the inhumane fraud of slavery, Douglass says, is to disgust the slave with his freedom.

On January 1st, 1834, Douglass is sent to live with William Freeland, who lives near St. Michael’s. Freeland is a more honorable man than Covey, and does not deceive his slaves. Douglass is also relieved that Freeland does not try to use religion to justify owning slaves, because Douglass has found religious slaveholders to be the most cowardly and cruel. For example, Mr. Weeden and Mr. Hopkins, two ministers who live near Mr. Freeland, regularly whip their slaves for no reason other than to assert their own authority.

Mr. Freeland treats Douglass more fairly than Covey did, giving his slaves both enough to eat and enough time to eat. Freeland himself owns only two slaves, Henry and John Harris. Douglass is a hired hand, along with Sandy Jenkins and Handy Caldwell. Douglass instills in his fellow slaves the desire to learn to read, and he spends his Sundays teaching them. The school expands—Douglass remembers teaching over 40 people at one point. Douglass is touched by the risks the slaves take in order to educate themselves, and looks back on his teaching days with great pleasure and pride.

Douglass passes a relatively easy year with Mr. Freeland. He attributes some of his comfort to the love that he shares with his fellow slaves. In 1835, at the end of his first year, Douglass is taken again for a second year with Freeland. Douglass decides that he would rather live “upon free land” than “with Freeland,” and resolves that 1835 will not come and go without an attempt to escape.

It is important to Douglass to convince his fellow slaves to escape with him. They meet frequently to plan their flight, and are intimidated by the dismal odds they face. Finally, they become determined to run away—to Douglass, this is more impressive than Patrick Henry’s trademark cry of “give me liberty or give me death,” as the slaves were faced with the prospect of dubious liberty or certain death.

Douglass’s escape plan involves his group of slaves paddling a canoe up the Chesapeake to reach the north. The group of escapees consists of Henry Harris, John Harris, Henry Bailey, and Charles Roberts. Sandy Jenkins was initially going to come, but backed out. To give their escape some plausibility, Douglass forges written travel passes from a master.

On the day the slaves had planned to flee, Douglass goes to work as usual. However, he is overcome with an inexplicable feeling of betrayal. Then, without warning, Douglass and his co-conspirators are tied up and brought to jail in Easton. Douglass manages to destroy the pass he had written, and he and his co-conspirators agree to deny their plot.

In jail, slave traders appraise and demean the imprisoned slaves. After some time in jail, all the slaves except Douglass are taken home; this separation pains Douglass dearly. Douglass believes that he will be the only one sold, because he was the ringleader of the escape plan.

While languishing in jail, Douglass abandons hope. His master, Thomas Auld, announces plans to send him to Alabama. However, Thomas decides instead to send Douglass back to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld.

When Douglass arrives in Baltimore, he is apprenticed to a ship-builder named William Gardner, who will teach him how to caulk ships. However, because the shipyard is scrambling to meet a tight deadline, Douglass is overwhelmed with simple errands and cannot learn any new skills. After eight months working in the shipyard, Douglass is assaulted by a group of four white apprentices. The white carpenters have become disgruntled working with blacks, because they fear that the blacks will take their jobs. Douglass tries to fight back, but is badly beaten. Despite there being many witnesses to Douglass’s assault, nobody comes to his aid.

Douglass returns to Master Hugh that day, and Sophia cares for his wounds. Hugh is outraged at the violence done to Douglass, and speaks to a lawyer. The lawyer informs Hugh that he has no legal recourse, unless a witness will step forward on Douglass’s behalf. No blacks can testify, and no whites—even those who sympathize with Douglass—will testify for Douglass and against a fellow white man.

With no chance for redress, Hugh nurses Douglass back to health in his home, and then apprentices the slave to another caulker, Mr. Walter Price. Douglass learns the trade, and is soon able to earn wages of six or seven dollars per week. Douglass now routinely earns money, but is compelled to turn it all over to Master Hugh at the end of each week. This “piracy” of his pay makes Douglass resent slavery still more: he realizes that every improvement in his condition only makes him desire freedom further, because slavery depends on keeping the enslaved in moral and intellectual darkness, so that slaves cannot see the inconsistencies of slavery.