3 Becoming a Man

Chapter 3 Becoming a Man While Frederick was in Baltimore, Captain Anthony died. This meant Frederick was now the property of Miss Lucretia and her husband, Thomas. It wasn't long before Lucretia died, too. When Frederick was fifteen, Hugh and Thomas Auld had an argument. Thomas demanded that Frederick be sent to him where he was now living, in the run-down port of Saint Michaels, near Frederick's birthplace. This was bad news for Frederick. Thomas Auld was a stingy master. Frederick and the other slaves had to beg and steal for food, while bread and meat sat spoiling in Master Thomas's storehouses. Frederick sometimes let his master's horse run off just so he could go after it. The horse liked the neighbor's pasture, and Frederick liked the bread he got from the cook there.

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Master Thomas knew what Frederick was doing and decided that city life had "ruined" his slave. He was "spoiled." To make Frederick more obedient, Master Thomas hired him out to a brutal "slave breaker" named Edward Covey. Mr. Covey rented a farm seven miles away on Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Covey made Frederick and the other slaves work in the fields in all weather, sometimes until midnight. "It was never too hot or too cold; it could

never rain, blow, hail, or snow too hard for us to work in the field," Frederick remembered. One blazing August day, Frederick and a few others were separating wheat from straw. Suddenly Frederick, dizzy and shaking, collapsed from the heat and hard work. Covey kicked him

and told him to get up. When Frederick couldn't, Covey hit him over the head with a slat of wood. Blood ran freely from Frederick's head as Covey continued to kick him and shout. Finally, Covey left Frederick lying in the dirt. Not long after, Frederick was tending the horses when he felt a rope slip around his ankles. Covey meant to take him down. But something in Frederick snapped. He had been worked like an animal long enough! Frederick grabbed Covey's throat and didn't let go. It was rare—and

dangerous—for a slave to attack a white man. After nearly two hours of fighting, Covey gave up. He never laid a hand on Frederick again. The fight with Covey was a turning point in Frederick's life as a slave. "I was nothing before; I was a man now," Frederick later wrote. His desire to be free grew stronger than ever.