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Mary Prince

Mary Prince was born about 1788 as a slave in Brackish Pond, Devonshire. She was
sold to several abusive owners, including the Wood family of Antigua.
In Antigua in December 1826, she married Daniel James, a freed slave who worked
as a carpenter and cooper. However, she was viciously beaten by her master for this act.
In 1828, she travelled to England with her owners, where she was able to run away
and gain her freedom because slavery in England was illegal even though it was
still allowed in the rest of the British Empire. However, she couldn’t return to her
husband in Antigua.
Prince campaigned against slavery with the Anti-Slavery Society and took employment
with Thomas Pringle, an abolitionist writer and a secretary to the Anti-Slavery
Society. She became the first black woman to present an anti-slavery petition to
Parliament and her story, The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, was the
first slave narrative written by a black woman.

The book was crucial to the success of the abolitionist movement, making people
in Britain aware that even though the slave trade had been made illegal, the horrors
of slavery had not ended. First person narratives like Mary Prince’s helped people
understand the horrors of slavery.

Her description of her treatment in Bermuda where she was viciously beaten at
School Lands Cottages in Pembroke, and in the Turks and Caicos Islands where
she raked salt, show that although slavery in Bermuda was different from on the The title page from The History of Mary Prince:
plantations in the West Indies, it was often inhumain and cruel. A West Indian Slave, published in 1831.

ASSESSMENT
INDICATOR
Imagine you are a part of the
abolitionist movement. Write
a letter to Parliament to help
your cause and end slavery.

School Lands Cottage, Pembroke
This was formerly the home of Captain John Ingham and his family, and is located on St
John’s Road in Pembroke. Mary Prince’s narrative describes how she was bought at auction
in Hamilton by Captain Ingham and was later beaten terribly by him. Afterwards, she hid
“under the steps of the piazza in front of the house”. The residence is now owned by the
Bermuda National Trust and is on a 99-year lease. The entrance to the property features a
plaque commemorating Mary Prince’s time there and her contribution to ending slavery.

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