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Chapter 4 - Mary Prince and Black Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2025

By
Olivia Robotham Carpenter
Edited by
Nicole N. Aljoe
Nicole N. Aljoe
Affiliation:
Northeastern University, Boston
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Summary

This chapter considers how we might situate Mary Prince in the history of Black British life in the early nineteenth century. It examines how Prince’s narrative fits into a wider tradition of Black British writing, paying special attention to how her story compares to the writings of other Black Britons from the same period and to Prince’s unique insights as the first Black British woman to share her story of starting a new life in London. Considering the narrative’s status as a highly edited and controlled text, created by Prince alongside Thomas Pringle and Susanna Strickland, this chapter also analyzes the ways Prince might have been limited in what she could say about her experiences as a Black British immigrant, especially with respect to her potential connections to other Black Britons. Therefore, the chapter purposely puts pressure on the narrative’s tendency to depict Prince in isolation from other Black people during her time in London, inviting readers to reconsider how we might imagine Prince’s relationship to a wider Black British community.

Keywords

Black BritainimmigrationBlack British writersMary Prince’s readership
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Mary Prince , pp. 69 - 85
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Works Cited

Bewell, Alan. “‘The Stranger and the Exile Who Is in Our Land within Our Gates’: Mary Prince as a Black British Immigrant.” Modern Philology, vol. 118, no. 2, 2020, pp. 234–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself: The Classic Slave Narratives. Edited by Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., Signet Classics, 2012.Google Scholar
Gerzina, Gretchen. Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History. John Murray Press, 2022.Google Scholar
Hanley, Ryan. Beyond Slavery and Abolition: Black British Writing, c. 1770–1830. Cambridge University Press, 2019.Google Scholar
London Anti-Slavery Society Collection, Bodleian Library, MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 18 / C1.Google Scholar
Mapping Black London, 2023, https://mappingblacklondon.org/.Google Scholar
Olusoga, David. Black and British: A Forgotten History. Macmillan, 2016.Google Scholar
Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince. Edited by Salih, Sara, Penguin Classics, 2004.Google Scholar
Pringle, Thomas. African Sketches. Edward Moxon, 1834 (British Library 010097.e.63).Google Scholar
Seacole, Mary. Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. Dover, 2019.Google Scholar
Shum, Matthew. Improvisations of Empire: Thomas Pringle in Scotland, the Cape Colony, and London, 1789–1834. Anthem Press, 2020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warner, Ashton. Negro Slavery Described by a Negro: Being the Narrative of A. W. with an Appendix Containing the Testimony of Four Christian Ministers, on the System of Slavery as It Now Exists. By S. Strickland-Moodie. Samuel Maunder, 1831, 65 (BL Gen. Ref. 522.a.37).Google Scholar

Further Reading

Carretta, Vincent. Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century. University of Kentucky Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Carretta, Vincent, and Gould, Philip, editors. Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic. University of Kentucky Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Gerzina, Gretchen. Black Victorians/Black Victoriana. Rutgers University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Gerzina, Gretchen. Britain’s Black Past. Liverpool University Press, 2020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucy Bird, Eleanor. “Susanna Moodie’s Last Letter about Mary Prince.” Notes and Queries, vol. 66, no. 2, 2019, pp. 285–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinto, Samantha. “On the Skin: Mary Prince and the Narration of Black Feeling in the Early Nineteenth Century.” Early American Literature, vol. 56, no. 2, 2021, pp. 499–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shields, Juliet. Mary Prince, Slavery, and Print Culture in the Anglophone Atlantic World. Cambridge University Press, 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinanan, Kerry. “The ‘Slave’ as Cultural Artifact: The Case of Mary Prince.” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, vol. 49, no. 1, 2020, pp. 69–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinanan, Kerry. “Mary Prince’s Back and Her Critique of Anti-slavery Sympathy.” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 61, no. 1, 2022, pp. 67–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walvin, James. Making the Black Atlantic: Britain and the African Diaspora. Bloomsbury, 2016.Google Scholar

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