Mary Prince Analysis- Intro to Black Diaspora Ii

Intro to Black Diaspora II

February 12, 2013

In The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave Related by Herself, young Mary Prince gave her first-person account of the inhumane nature of slavery and its impacts on human dignity. A native to Brackish Pond, Bermuda, Prince was born in 1788, the daughter of slaves living on two different plantations. Mary Prince’s experience with slavery began at the tender age of twelve when she was hired out as a nurse to a neighboring household. Prince narrated her story to ensure the "good people in England might hear from a slave what a slave had felt and suffered" (Prince, p.1) and enlighten the English people about the dehumanizing nature of slavery. Mary Prince’s miraculous story focuses on how slavery stripped families apart, as well as her courageous attempts to fight for her God given rights and redeem her personal freedom. Her account of the atrocities of slavery eventually culminated in its abolishment, although she never achieved her goal to be a free person in the eyes of the law.

One might superficially understand many of the actions the black Caribbean slave woman took in resistance to slavery as personal and individualistic, but the implications of her actions for future generations of both slave and freed men and women alike were of immense dimensions. The slave narrative of Mary Prince is a resounding example of enslaved Caribbean women’s continued struggle against the institution of slavery because of its widespread effect on degrading human life. Even when she had escaped the restrictive bonds of slavery in England, Prince was adamant about the wrongfulness of the institution of slavery. Prince’s owners took her to England under the impression that she would be freed, but their true intentions were to hold her in captivity and not allow her to purchase her freedom from them. Prince was caught in between a rock and a hard place because she knew no one in England, had no shelter, and no means of supporting...