The History of Mary Prince

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The History of Mary Prince

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Title: The History of Mary Prince A West Indian Slave
Author: Mary Prince
Release Date: February 24, 2006 [EBook #17851]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE HISTORY OF MARY PRINCE, A WEST INDIAN SLAVE.
RELATED BY HERSELF.
WITH A SUPPLEMENT BY THE EDITOR.

To which is added,
THE NARRATIVE OF ASA-ASA,
A CAPTURED AFRICAN.

"By our sufferings, since ye brought us To the man-degrading mart,-- All sustain'd by patience, taught us Only by a broken heart,-- Deem our nation brutes no longer, Till some reason ye shall find Worthier of regard, and stronger Than the colour of our kind." COWPER.

LONDON: PUBLISHED BY F. WESTLEY AND A. H. DAVIS, STATIONERS' HALL COURT; AND BY WAUGH & INNES, EDINBURGH.
1831.

PREFACE.
The idea of writing Mary Prince's history was first suggested by herself. She wished it to be done, she said, that good people in England might hear from a slave what a slave had felt and suffered; and a letter of her late master's, which will be found in the Supplement, induced me to accede to her wish without farther delay. The more immediate object of the publication will afterwards appear.
The narrative was taken down from Mary's own lips by a lady who happened to be at the time residing in my family as a visitor. It was written out fully, with all the narrator's repetitions and prolixities, and afterwards pruned into its present shape; retaining, as far as was practicable, Mary's exact expressions and peculiar phraseology. No fact of importance has been omitted, and not a single circumstance or sentiment has been added. It is essentially her own, without any material alteration farther than was requisite to exclude redundancies and gross grammatical errors, so as to render it clearly intelligible.
After it had been thus written out, I went over the whole, carefully examining her on every fact and circumstance detailed; and in all that relates to her residence in Antigua I had the advantage of being assisted in this scrutiny by Mr. Joseph Phillips, who was a resident in that colony during the same period, and had known her there.
The names of all the persons mentioned by the narrator have been printed in full, except those of Capt. I---- and his wife, and that of Mr. D----, to whom conduct of peculiar atrocity is ascribed. These three individuals are now gone to answer at a far more awful tribunal than that of public opinion, for the deeds of which their former bondwoman accuses them; and to hold them up more openly to human reprobation could no longer affect themselves, while it might deeply lacerate the feelings of their surviving and perhaps innocent relatives, without any commensurate public advantage.
Without detaining the reader with remarks on other points which will be adverted to more conveniently in the Supplement, I shall here merely notice farther, that the Anti-Slavery Society have no concern whatever with this publication, nor are they in any degree responsible for the statements it contains. I have published the tract, not as their Secretary, but in my private capacity; and any profits that may arise from the sale will be exclusively appropriated to the benefit of Mary Prince herself.
THO. PRINGLE.
7, Solly Terrace, Claremont Square,
January 25, 1831.
P. S. Since writing the above, I have been furnished by my friend Mr. George Stephen, with the interesting narrative of Asa-Asa, a captured African, now under his protection; and have printed it as a suitable appendix to this little history.
T. P.

THE HISTORY OF MARY PRINCE, A WEST INDIAN SLAVE.
(Related by herself.)
I was born at Brackish-Pond, in Bermuda, on a farm belonging to Mr. Charles Myners. My mother was a household slave; and my father, whose name was Prince, was a sawyer belonging to Mr. Trimmingham, a ship-builder at Crow-Lane. When I was an infant, old Mr. Myners died, and there was a division of the slaves and other property among the family. I was bought along with my mother by old Captain Darrel, and given to his grandchild, little Miss Betsey Williams. Captain Williams, Mr. Darrel's son-in-law, was master of a vessel which traded to several places in America and the West Indies, and he was seldom at home long together.
Mrs. Williams was a kind-hearted good woman, and she treated all her slaves well. She had only one daughter, Miss Betsey, for whom I was purchased, and who was about my own