BIO
Mary Prince was the first black woman to have an autobiographical work published in Britain. Born into slavery in 1788 on the Caribbean island of Bermuda, she and her parents served different families until 1806, when she sold to a salt-pond owner on the island of Grand Turk. She later returned to Bermuda and, in 1815, she came to serve John Adams Wood of Antigua to perform domestic duties for his family. Prince soon began to suffer from rheumatism, but still managed to earn money by doing laundry and selling provisions to ships. She joined the Moravian Church and was baptised in 1817. In 1826, she married Daniel James, a former slave and carpenter, much to the disapproval of her owners who took Prince with them when they travelled to Britain 1828.
Whilst residing in London, Prince ran away from her owners with the help of the Moravian Church and abolitionist Thomas Pringle, who served as Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society. Pringle was unable to persuade Woods to manumit or sell Prince, but did enable the publication of Prince’s autobiographical work The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831). This narrative, which was written down by Susanna Strickland, traces the lived experiences of the black woman as she attempted to rebel and escape the hostile context of slavery and racism. Although the reliability of Prince’s account was questioned, it played an important role in the ongoing political effort to end slavery after the abolishment of the slave trade in 1807. It fed anti-slavery sentiment in Britain and contributed to the eventual passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. Prince remained in England until that year, but it remains unclear whether she was still alive when the Act took effect in 1834.
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