author
Mary Prince
d. 1833
Born into slavery in Bermuda, she turned her own life story into one of the most powerful early accounts of enslavement in the British Atlantic. Her 1831 narrative helped bring the realities of slavery to readers in Britain at a crucial moment in the abolition movement.
1 Audiobook
The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave
by Mary Prince
About the author
Mary Prince was a Bermudian writer and formerly enslaved woman, born around 1788, whose life story became a landmark in literary and abolitionist history. She is widely known as the first Black woman to publish an autobiography describing her experience of slavery in Britain.
After being sold multiple times in Bermuda, Turks Island, and Antigua, she eventually reached England with the family that claimed ownership over her. There, she found support among abolitionists and told her story, which was published in 1831 as The History of Mary Prince. The book gave many readers a vivid, personal account of forced labor, violence, and family separation under slavery.
Little is known for certain about her final years, and she is generally described as having died after 1833 rather than in 1833 exactly. Even so, her voice endures through her narrative, which remains an important work of Black history, Caribbean history, and the long fight against slavery.