#speakingforself

[learningaliving]

Commonplace Entry 7: Mary Prince Part 2

Said Mary Prince in her history related by herself to her good friend, "They tie up slaves like hogs--moor them up like cattle, and they lick them, so as hogs or cattle, or horses never were flogged;--and yet the come home and say, and make some good people believe, that slaves don't want to get out of slavery. But they put a cloak about the truth. It is not so. All slaves want to be free--to be free is very sweet" (121).

Nothing could be more direct than Prince's claim that all slaves want to be free. Prince leaves no room for questioning with her readership and audience when she speaks as an enslaved person for other slaves. She desires it to be undeniably clear that the need and want for liberation is completely natural for all humans. She later calls those who claim otherwise "ignorant or lying persons" (121). Prince gets to the heart of the matter in the question of human value.

Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince Herself, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 10th Edition, Volume D, The Romantic Period, New York, London, W.W. Norton Company, 2018, pp. 121.

[learningaliving]

Commonplace Entry 6: From the History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, Part 1

Mary Prince

First African woman to publish her memoirs of slavery. Born Bermuda.  The daughter of slaves, she was first sold aged 10 for £20. Eventually

Mary Prince, a Bermuda native, and an enslaved woman by the English, shared her story as evidence of the inhumanity of slave conditions and the need for abolition. Said Prince after working all day in salt ponds, with boils and blisters opening down to the bone, "We then shoveled up the salt in large heaps and went down to the sea where we washed the pickle from our limbs..." (121)

The cruel irony of this situation cannot be ignored. Sea water is inherently of high salt content. It begs the reader to question how sea water may be a relief for salted legs. Prince's powerful testimony to the realities of the labor required of her is undeniably the sort of testimony that could move the unfeeling heart toward compassion. Fluency and literacy in English was in large part a path towards abolition because it provided Prince a platform to share her first- person experiences. This along with Equiano's writings, helped the English public and government begin to understand the harrowing realities for enslaved people and begged for a resolution to the questions about human equality.

Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince Herself, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 10th Edition, Volume D, The Romantic Period, New York, London, W.W. Norton Company, 2018, pp. 121.