author
Mary Prince
d. 1833
Born into slavery in Bermuda, she became the first Black woman to publish an account of her life in bondage in Britain. Her powerful 1831 narrative helped expose the cruelty of slavery to a wide reading public.
1 Audiobook
The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave
by Mary Prince
About the author
Mary Prince was born in Bermuda around 1788 into an enslaved family of African descent. Over the course of her life she was sold multiple times and endured harsh treatment in Bermuda, Turks Island, and Antigua before reaching England.
In London, she told her story to Susanna Strickland, with support from the abolitionist Thomas Pringle. The result was The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831), widely recognized as the first published account of a Black woman’s life in slavery in Britain.
Her book became an important testimony in the fight against slavery because it gave readers a direct, personal view of violence, family separation, and survival under enslavement. Details of her final years are uncertain, and sources commonly describe her as having died after 1833.