Why is covey called the snake

He worked for civil rights. He wanted African Americans to have the freedoms other Americans had. He is then sent to dewar covey for a whole year, a poor man who is known for taming slaves. Thomas Auld was obviously one such person. Again, Douglass compares the treatment of slaves to the treatment of horses. Sending him to Mr. Why was Mr. He learned how slavery had come about and the origin of his ancestors and he learned the cruelty of slavery and the white man.

He is wary because white men have been known to encourage slaves to run away and then they capture them and return them to their masters for a reward. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search.

Dash on, dash on! His comings were like a thief in the night. He appeared to us as being ever at hand. He was under every tree, behind every stump, in every bush, and at every window, on the plantation. He would sometimes mount his horse, as if bound to St. Michael's, a distance of seven miles, and in half an hour afterwards you would see him coiled up in the corner of the wood-fence, watching every motion of the slaves.

He would, for this purpose, leave his horse tied up in the woods. Again, he would sometimes walk up to us, and give us orders as though he was upon the point of starting on a long journey, turn his back upon us, and make as though he was going to the house to get ready; and, before he would get half way thither, he would turn short and crawl into a fence-corner, or behind some tree, and there watch us till the going down of the sun.

His life was devoted to planning and perpetrating the grossest deceptions. Every thing he possessed in the shape of learning or religion, he made conform to his disposition to deceive. He seemed to think himself equal to deceiving the Almighty. He would make a short prayer in the morning, and a long prayer at night; and, strange as it may seem, few men would at times appear more devotional than he. The exercises of his family devotions were always commenced with singing; and, as he was a very poor singer himself, the duty of raising the hymn generally came upon me.

He would read his hymn, and nod at me to commence. I would at times do so; at others, I would not. My non-compliance would almost always produce much confusion. To show himself independent of me, he would start and stagger through with his hymn in the most discordant manner. Covey is skilled and methodical in his physical punishment of his slaves, but he is even more skilled at psychological cruelty. While other slaveholders in the Narrative can be deceitful with their slaves, Covey uses deception as his primary method of dealing with them.

He makes the slaves feel that they are under constant surveillance by lying to them and creeping around the fields in an effort to catch them being lazy. One way in which Douglass portrays Covey as a villain is by depicting him as anti-Christian.

Douglass also presents Covey as a false Christian. Covey tries to deceive himself and God into believing that he is a true Christian, but his evil actions reveal him to be a sinner.