by Mary Prince · 1831
Memoir · Classics
The first account of the life of a Black woman published in Britain, told by Mary Prince, who was born in Bermuda and enslaved in the West Indies.
Content note: This book is first-hand testimony from the era of slavery. It describes slavery, cruelty and racial violence, and uses language of its time that is offensive today.
A West Indian Slave
RELATED BY HERSELF. WITH A SUPPLEMENT BY THE EDITOR. To which is added,
A CAPTURED AFRICAN.
"By our sufferings, since ye brought us To the man-degrading mart,— All sustain'd by patience, taught us Only by a broken heart,— Deem our nation brutes no longer, Till some reason ye shall find Worthier of regard, and stronger Than the colour of our kind."
Cowper.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY F. WESTLEY AND A. H. DAVIS,
Stationers' Hall Court;
And by WAUGH & INNES, EDINBURGH.
1831.
PREFACE.
The idea of writing Mary Prince's history was first suggested by herself. She wished it to be done, she said, that good people in England might hear from a slave what a slave had felt and suffered; and a letter of her late master's, which will be found in the Supplement, induced me to accede to her wish without farther delay. The more immediate object of the publication will afterwards appear.
The narrative was taken down from Mary's own lips by a lady who happened to be at the time residing in my family as a visitor. 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.
