In an 1831 article for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, he reads the narrative as anti-colonial propaganda aimed at destroying the characters of the Woods, and at misrepresenting the slave-owning planter class (whom he calls the “colonists”). James Macqueen, editor of The Glasgow Courier, in particular, questioned the accuracy of the text and Prince’s morality. Pringle’s supplement also includes his own account of Prince’s character and his reading of The History, as well as an additional slave narrative of Louis Asa-Asa, together with letters of authenticity from Pringle’s wife, Margaret Pringle, and the abolitionist Joseph Philips.Īs historians Moira Ferguson and Sara Salih both note in their respective works, the initial publication of Mary Prince’s story drew angry responses from the British pro-slavery press, which led eventually two court cases.

had given Prince in London, declaring that, as she was then free in England, she should either leave the Woods, or return to Antigua. The supplement contains a copy of the note John A. As the editor, Pringle attached footnotes, his own preface, and a supplement to the text. The text was first published in 1831 and ran to three editions soon after. While in London, she was employed as a domestic servant for Thomas Pringle, the secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, and while living in Pringle’s household, she dictated the History to Susannah Strickland, a guest of the Pringles. This insured her departure from Bermuda, and she was subsequently brought to London in 1828 (Salih Ferguson 1998). Wood Jr., who had been traveling to Antigua. She was eventually able to escape the severe and inhumane treatment of her owners by petitioning to be purchased by John A. Prince recounts several acts of resistance to her enslavement, that were often met with increasing cruelty. Prince also focuses on the distinct power dynamics in the different labor environments of Bermuda, Turk’s Island, and Antigua, as well as the often abusive dynamics within the homes of the white plantation owners she was living with. In The History, Prince records the harsh realities of everyday life for an enslaved woman in great detail. In The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave Related by Herself, Prince recounts her life as a slave in Bermuda and later in Antigua her narrative ends with an account of her life as a domestic servant in London. Mary Prince was born into slavery in 1788 in Devonshire Parish, Bermuda. The History of Mary Prince (1831): A Scholarly Introduction

The history of mary price