Douglass and Overseers: The Good, the Bad, and the Creepily Cruel

            Douglass describes quite a few different slave drivers.  There are two masters he talks about, Captain Anthony and Colonel Lloyd.  Captain Anthony was not a nice master; he was cruel and inhumane.  He took pleasure in whipping his slaves, in particular an Aunt of Douglass that he remembers.  Captain Anthony’s overseer is Mr. Plummer.  He is described as “a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster.”  He, too, loved to whip the slaves, and always carried a cowskin and heavy cudgel.  Colonel Lloyd’s plantation went through a few different overseers.  The first described is Mr. Severe, aptly named.  “He seemed to take pleasure in manifesting his fiendish barbarity.”  He died soon after Douglass was sold to Colonel Lloyd, and he was replaced by Mr. Hopkins, who Douglass said was “less cruel, less profane, and made less noise, than Mr. Severe.”  After Mr. Hopkins was Mr. Austin Gore, who was the worst described.  “He was cruel enough to inflict the severest punishment, artful enough to descend to the lowest trickery, and obdurate enough to be insensible to the voice of a reproving conscience.  He was, of all the overseers, the most dreaded by slaves.”

            Douglass shows different ranges of overseers, from Mr. Hopkins, who was the least severe, to Mr. Austin Gore, who was the cruelest.  He never says why he shows this range of overseers, but it could be that he wanted people to know that not everybody was disgustingly cruel to the slaves.  Mr. Hopkins did whip the slaves, but he took no pleasure in it.  It also, when putting the experiences with Mr. Hopkins next to the experiences of Mr. Austin Gore and Mr. Severe, really reveals just how horrible the actions of the two latter overseers were.  It shows the range of people in general from that time period, and helps the readers understand what it was like to be a slave for these ever-changing overseers.