Final answer:
Frederick Douglass became a field hand when he went to live with Mr. Covey, a time filled with severe treatment that he later recounted in his influential autobiography.
Step-by-step explanation:
When Frederick Douglass went to live with Mr. Covey, he became for the first time in his life a field hand. This event marked a significant change in Douglass's life as an enslaved person. Mr. Covey was known for his brutal methods as a slave breaker and had a high reputation for breaking young slaves. This was a period of intense hardship for Douglass, filled with overwork and mistreatment, which is vividly detailed in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.
Despite the severe challenges faced at the hands of Mr. Covey, Douglass's eventual escape from slavery and his ascendancy as a prominent abolitionist leader and orator highlights a transformation from a life of forced labor to one of impactful activism. His narrative became a powerful tool in the fight against slavery and remains a seminal work in African American literature and history.