The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave

“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.”

Narratives of enslavement are typically produced through multiple layers of mediation. There were often those who transcribed an oral story (amanuenses); those who revised and oversaw it (editors); and those who published it (the Anti-Slavery Society). Although The History of Mary Prince is no exception to these circumstances, Pringle insists that the narrative remains faithful to Prince’s oral telling of it to further underscore its authenticity.

“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.”

Here, Pringle refers to the choice to omit the full names of enslavers discussed in the book who died prior to publication. This choice reflects a sense of honor and respectability that Pringle must maintain to preserve his credibility in British society. Indeed, the political success of Prince’s narrative relies heavily on Pringle’s credibility as her advocate.

“They were not all bad, I dare say, but slavery hardens white people’s hearts towards the blacks; and many of them were not slow to make their remarks upon us aloud, without regard to our grief—though their light words fell like cayenne on the fresh wounds of our hearts. Oh those white people have small hearts who can only feel for themselves.”

Prince’s narrative often demonstrates poetic devices. For example, she employs a simile, comparing the pain of hearing harsh words from white enslavers to the sting of cayenne pepper on a wounded heart. For her, the heart is an important symbol in this passage, conveying both the physical pain of abused flesh (the anatomical heart) and the emotional pain of an abused person (the metaphorical heart).