October is Black History Month, so every day during October I will be posting up an introduction to an historical person of colour with a place in the history of the United Kingdom.

Mary Prince was born into slavery in Bermuda in 1788. As an infant, she and her mother and younger siblings were sold, and later resold to cruel and abusive owners. At the age of eighteen Mary was transported as a slave to the Turks and Caicos islands where for four years she was forced to work long days in the corrosive salt ponds. She was sold again twice, initially back to Bermuda and then to an owner in Antigua, where she joined the Moravian Church and learned to read.

Mary married a freed slave in 1826, but her harsh treatment at the hands of her owner worsened after this. In 1828 she was taken by her owner and his family to London, where she took shelter with the Moravian Church in Hatton Garden and began working with Thomas Pringle, an abolitionist and secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society.

Mary petitioned Parliament for her freedom in 1829, but unsuccessfully. Transporting slaves out of England had been made illegal in 1772, but slavery itself was still legal in Antigua, meaning Mary could not return to her husband without the risk of being re-enslaved. Mary stayed in London, where she was employed by Pringle.

Pringle encouraged Mary to write her harsh life story, and her autobiography The History of Mary Prince was printed in 1831. This was the first account published in Great Britain of a black woman’s life, and caused a considerable stir, selling out three printings in its first year.

Mary remained in England until at least 1833, the year in which slavery was abolished, but it is unclear whether she ever returned to her husband in Antigua as she had wished.

More about Mary Prince at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Prince