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Chapter 10 - Mary Prince in Bermuda and the Caribbean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2025

By
Shelby Johnson
Edited by
Nicole N. Aljoe
Nicole N. Aljoe
Affiliation:
Northeastern University, Boston
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Summary

The History of Mary Prince is a geographically layered narrative: The text transcribes Prince’s experiences of enslavement in the Caribbean from her birth in 1788 in Brackish Pond, Bermuda, to her harrowing labor on the salt industries on Grand Turk to her efforts to purchase her freedom in Antigua in the 1820s to her journey to London in 1828, where she continued her campaign for emancipation. Yet this chapter turns to The History to meditate on the methods we use for recovering Black geographies that may remain oblique in colonial archives. It argues that contemporary Black poets offer insights into Prince’s movements that may only exist as palimpsests within The History by speculating on her knowledge of Caribbean resistance movements, such as the Haitian Revolution and the Sunday Market Revolt in Antigua. By assembling this diachronic reading method, the chapter resists the impulse to achieve conclusive answers about Prince’s geographical relations but instead unfolds alternative possibilities for locating her in Black spaces.

Keywords

Mary PrinceBlack placemakingHaitian RevolutionSunday Market RevoltCaribbean geography
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Mary Prince , pp. 166 - 183
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

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