Describe Captain Anthony

Captain Aaron Anthony was Douglass' first master, as well as the clerk and superintendent on Colonel Lloyd's farm. He wasn't enormously rich, but he wasn't hurting financially. Anthony is described as allowing his overeers to treat his slaves however they saw fit for the most part, thus, he was a party to the cruel treatment and punishments the slaves received.

He was not considered a rich slaveholder. He owned two or three farms, and about thirty slaves. His farms and slaves were under the care of an overseer. The overseer's name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut and slash the women's heads so horribly, that even master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave.