Master Thomas Auld was among them. Soon Douglass was accused of emulating Nat Turner and cautioned him that if he did not change he too would be killed. Despite the warning, several years later he taught another school which he thoroughly enjoyed. He believed education was the key to their emancipation. At sixteen his repeated insolence caused Frederick to be hired out to Edward Covey, known collectively as "the Negro Breaker." This marked the first time Douglass worked as a field hand and the change from being an urban domestic slave was very hard for him. It was also the first time he was regularly whipped, the sores were kept open all the time by his coarse clothing. After a few long months of being worked to exhaustion and gruesome physical assaults Douglass was broken. "My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye, died out."5 Even after this he still clung to thoughts of freedom and that is what kept him going. More and more Douglass realized the inhumanity of the religion of Christian slave holders. Once after a brutal flogging by Covey, Douglass struggled back to his master, Thomas Auld. He complained to him about Covey’s mistreatment of him, but was only answered with Auld’s contention that he probably deserved it. Frederick anticipated a beating when he returned and Sandy, a well respected wizard-like character, proposed that he take a magic root. Returning on the Sabbath kept him clean for a day but Monday Covey made up for it. Douglass stood firm, determined to win the battle. It was a long and hard fought victory for Frederick. The tyrant had been defeated. Douglass later recalled this moment as the turning point in his life as a slave. It inspired him with the idea to become a free man. He knew he could not resist forever, and the only course left in his mind was his escape to freedom in the North...
