Mary Prince

Mary Prince (c. 1 October 1788 – after 1833)[1] was the first black woman to publish an autobiography of her experience as a slave, born in the colony of Bermuda to an enslaved family of African descent.

[4] Her father (whose only given name was Prince) was a sawyer enslaved by David Trimmingham, and her mother a house-servant held by Charles Myners.

[5] When Myners died in 1788, Mary Prince, her mother and siblings were sold as household servants to Captain George Darrell.

When the threats posed by the Spanish and French in the region decreased; however, the enslaved people were put to work in the salt pans.

After this, she left his direct service and was hired out to Cedar Hill for a time, where she earned money for her enslaver by washing clothes.

[11] She worked in his household as a domestic slave, attending the bedchambers, nursing a young child, and washing clothes.

When Adams Wood was travelling, Mary earned money for herself by taking in washing and by selling coffee, yams and other provisions to ships.

[13] In December 1826 at Spring Garden Moravian Church, Prince married Daniel James, a former enslaved man who had bought his freedom by saving money from his work.

According to Mary, her floggings increased after her marriage because Adams Wood and his wife did not want a free black man living on their property.

[2] In 1828, Adams Wood and his family travelled to London, visiting and arranging their son's education, and to bring their daughters home to the islands.

Within a few weeks, she started working occasionally for Thomas Pringle, an abolitionist writer, and Secretary to the Anti-Slavery Society, which offered assistance to black people in need.

[16] His refusal to sell or free her meant that as long as slavery remained legal in Antigua, Prince could not return to her husband and friends without being re-enslaved and submitting to Wood's power.

The 1833 law was intended to achieve a two-staged abolition of West Indian slavery by 1840, allowing the colonies time to transition their economies.

[19] There was considerable uncertainty about the political and economic repercussions that might arise if the British government abolished slavery in its overseas possessions, as the West Indian colonies depended on it for labour to raise their lucrative commodity crop.

[22] It generated controversy, and James MacQueen, the editor of The Glasgow Courier, challenged its accuracy by a lengthy letter in Blackwood's Magazine.

He depicted Prince as a woman of low morals who had been the "despicable tool" of the anti-slavery clique, who had incited her to malign her "generous and indulgent owners."