Edward Covey

Edward Covey was an early 19th-century American slaveholder. He is described by Frederick Douglass in My Bondage and My Freedom (published in 1855) as a "first rate hand at breaking young negroes". In 1833, Douglass was rented to Covey for a year so that Covey would break the teenage slave's spirit. One day, after numerous vicious beatings at Covey's hands, Douglass fought back. He fought off Covey's cousin and his fight with Covey himself, which lasted nearly two hours long, ended in a draw. Covey did not physically assault Douglass thereafter.

In 2003, then United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld bought a Georgian home in the village of Saint Michaels, Maryland (an hour and a half from Washington, D.C.) that is located where Covey's old home was, Mount Misery.

External links

• My Bondage and My Freedom at Project Gutenberg.