Mary Prince

first edition cover

Mary Prince (c. 1788) was a Bermudian woman, born into slavery in Brackish Pond, now known as Devonshire Marsh, in Devonshire Parish, Bermuda. Her autobiography, 'The History of Mary Prince',(1831) was the first account of the life of a black woman to be published in the United Kingdom. A first-hand description of the brutalities of enslavement, released at a time when slavery was still legal in British Caribbean colonies, it had a galvanizing effect on the anti-slavery movement.

Biography

Prince's parents were both slaves: her father (whose only given name was Prince) was a sawyer owned by David Trimmingham, and her mother a house-servant of Charles Myners. When Myners died in 1788, Mary Prince and her mother were sold as household servants to Captain Darrell, who gave Prince to his little granddaughter, Betsey Williams. When she was 12, Prince was sold for £38 sterling ^[1] (2009: £2,040) to Captain John Ingham, of Spanish Point, but never took easily to the indignities of her enslavement and she was often flogged. As a punishment, Prince was sold to another Bermudian, probably Robert Darrell, who sent her in 1806 to Grand Turk, which Bermudians had used seasonally for a century for the extraction of salt from the ocean. Salt was a pillar of the Bermudian economy, but could not easily be produced in Bermuda, where the only natural resource were the Bermuda cedars used for building ships. The industry was a cruel one, however, with the salt-rakers forced to endure exposure not only to the sun and heat, but also to the salt in the pans, which ate away at their uncovered legs.

Mary returned to Bermuda in 1810, but was sold to John Adams Wood in 1818 for $300, and sent to Antigua to be a domestic slave. She joined the Moravian Church and, in December 1826, she married Daniel James, a former slave who had bought his freedom and worked as a carpenter and cooper. For this impudence, she was severely beaten by her master.

In 1828 Wood and his family travelled to London, taking Prince with them as a servant. Although slavery was illegal in Britain by this date and Prince was technically free to leave Wood's household, she had no means to support herself alone in England. Also, unless Wood formally gave her her freedom, she could not return to her husband in Antigua without being re-enslaved. She remained with the Wood household until they threw her out. She then took shelter with the Moravian church in Hatton Garden. Within a few weeks, she had taken employment with Thomas Pringle, an abolitionist writer, and Secretary to the Anti-Slavery Society. Prince arranged for her narrative to be copied down by Susanna Strickland and it was published in 1831 as The History of Mary Prince. The publication caused a stir and led to two libel cases, at both of which Prince was called to testify.

Prince's life after her book was published is not known, nor is it clear whether she was ever able to return to the Caribbean as she wished. In 1829 Wood had refused either to manumit her or even allow her to be bought out of his control.^[2] His refusal meant that as long as slavery remained legal in Antigua, Prince could not return there to her husband and friends without reverting to slave status and putting herself again in Wood's power. She is known to have remained in England until at least 1833.^[3] 1833 was also the year that Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, intended to achieve a two-staged abolition of West Indian slavery by 1840. In fact, because of popular protests in the West Indies the abolition was legally completed two years early in 1838. If Prince was still alive and in sufficient health, she may then have returned as a free woman to her homeland.

The Book and its Aftermath

Although when Prince's book was published slavery was no longer recognized as legal in Britain itself, it had not been ended in the colonies. There was still considerable uncertainty about the political and economic repercussions that might arise if Britain imposed an end to slavery throughout the empire. As a personal account the book contributed to the debate in a manner different from reasoned analysis or statistical arguments. Its tone was direct and authentic and its simple but vivid prose^[4] contrasted with the more laboured literary style of the day. An example is Prince's description of first being sold away from her mother at a young age:

'It was night when I reached my new home. The house was large, and built at the bottom of a very high hill; but I could not see much of it that night. I saw too much of it afterwards. The stones and the timber were the best things in it; they were not so hard as the hearts of the owners.'^[5]

Prince moreover spoke of slavery with the authority of personal experience, something her political opponents could never match.^[6]

As her book had an immediate effect on public opinion^[7] it soon became the subject of controversy, and its accuracy was strongly challenged in Blackwood's Magazine^[8] by James MacQueen, a defender of white West Indian interests and vigorous critic of the anti-slavery movement. He depicted Prince as a woman of low morals who had been merely the 'despicable tool' of the anti-slavery clique, who had incited her to malign her generous and indulgent owners. He also insinuated there must be something wrong with the Pringle family if it could accept such a morally-degraded person into its household.^[9] Pringle thereupon sued and received damages of £5.^[10] In return John Wood also sued Pringle for libel^[11], claiming the book generally misrepresented his character, and after winning his case was awarded £25 in damages.^[12]

References

See also

• Ottobah Cugoano
• Olaudah Equiano
• Somersett's Case

Bibliography

• The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave at Project Gutenberg
• The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, F. Westley and A.H. Daviseckley (editor). 1831. Online HTML edition from the New York Public Library.
• The History of Mary Prince, there are many printed editions available both in print and out of print.

External links

• The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave. Related by Herself. With a Supplement by the Editor. London: Published by F. Westley and A. H. Davis, 1831.
• Spartacus Net: Mary Prince.
• 100 Great Black Britons: Mary Prince.
• University of California, Santa Barbara: The History of Mary Prince.
• Coker College, Hartsville, SC, USA: Mary Prince Course.
• Turks & Caicos Museum: A Slave Account by Mary Prince.