This edition also includes a substantial supplement by Thomas Pringle, the original editor, as well as another brief slave account: “The Narrative of Asa-Asa, a Captured African.”Įssential reading for students of African-American studies, Mary Prince’s classic account of determination and endurance aids in filling the many gaps in black women’s history. Published in 1831, it appeared well after the. Her straightforward, often poetic account of immense anguish, separation from her husband, and struggle for freedom inflamed public opinion during a period when stormy debates on abolition were common in both the United States and England. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself is a particularly slippery narrative. The first black woman to break the bonds of slavery in the British colonies and publish a record of her experiences, Prince vividly recalls her life in the West Indies, her rebellion against physical and psychological degradation, and her eventual escape in 1828 in England. Subjected to bodily and sexual abuse by subsequent masters, she was bought and sold several times before she was ultimately freed. It is unknown whether she died in Britain or was able to return, free, to Antigua.Born in Bermuda to a house slave in 1788, Mary Prince suffered the first of many soul-shattering experiences in her life when she was separated from her parents and siblings at the age of twelve. Unfortunately, the remainder of Mary Prince's life is a mystery. She told her life story to abolitionist sympathisers, and it was published in 1831 as 'The History of Mary Prince' - attracting a large readership just as the anti-slavery movement was mounting a powerful and ultimately successful campaign for the emancipation of all Africans enslaved by the British. In 1829, she unsuccessfully petitioned parliament for her freedom, so she could return to her husband in Antigua without finding herself once again enslaved. Slavery was still legal in the West Indies, but no longer in Britain itself, so once in London, Prince left the Woods and went to the Anti-Slavery Society. In 1828, she was brought from Antigua to England by her then owners, Mr and Mrs John Wood. This work caused sun blisters on exposed parts of the body and painful boils and sores on the legs. She directs the FAMM Litigation Project and advocates for reform of federal sentencing and corrections law and policy. For years she was forced to work up to her waist all day in salt ponds, manufacturing salt. She was treated cruelly by a series of masters on several West Indian islands, enduring extreme hardship and sexual abuse. She was born into enslavement on Bermuda around 1788, and sold away from her family at the age of ten.
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