Why Haven’t We Heard of Mary Prince?

When we think of slavery, our minds often wander to the vast horrors of the transatlantic trade or the grotesque machinery of Southern plantations in America. We picture it as a collective trauma: global, sprawling, and impersonal. Which, of course, it was; but within that scale lie individual voices. One of the most powerful belongs to Mary Prince.

In 1831, Mary Prince (a Bermudian woman born into slavery) published The History of Mary Prince, the first known autobiographical account by a Black woman in Britain. In it, she details her life as both an enslaved woman and a so-called “free woman” in Britain. Her memoir transformed how many Britons viewed slavery and played a significant role in supporting the abolitionist movement.

Mary Prince did not write the book herself; rather, she dictated her story. It’s important to acknowledge this. At a time when access to education and intellectual recognition was systematically denied to Black people (especially Black women), her words were transcribed by a scribe. Though not written in her own hand, the experiences, the pain, and the resistance expressed in the memoir are entirely hers.

Oral history is one of the oldest and most valued forms of knowledge, especially in non-Western cultures. Indigenous Australians, for example, preserve spiritual stories and land knowledge through oral traditions. Yet in the West, historical legitimacy is often tied to written records. This framing excludes the voices of those who were denied the tools of literacy. It can delegitimise non-English texts and the lived experiences of people who were never allowed to read or write. Mary Prince’s memoir stands in opposition to that silencing: despite the words being filtered through another’s pen, her story is her own.

Her memoir offers an intersectional lens: class, gender, and race all converge in her experience. Torn from her mother as a child, shuffled across the Caribbean, abused by multiple enslavers, she eventually married Daniel James, a free Black man. Brought to London by the Woods in 1828, she fled their household and later found support from Thomas Pringle, secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, who helped publish her account.

What’s often missing from typical narratives about Black Britons in the past is the notion of agency. Prince’s memoir is an act of resistance. Even the choice to publish under her own name, Mary, rather than the slave name “Molly”, pushes back against the erasure of identity. As a primary source, the memoir is a rare first-hand account of slavery from the perspective of someone who lived through it; rather than the usual second-hand accounts by those in power.

At the time, Britain was profiting from colonialism while suppressing the voices of those it exploited. Mary Prince’s memoir represents a turning point: a moment where a voice previously excluded from historical record forced itself into public consciousness. Her story allowed readers then, and now, to see the humanity, the suffering, and the strength of those whom society sought to forget.

Memoirs are written with hindsight; and with it comes reflection. In Mary Prince’s case, this hindsight carries the weight of truth. Her words continue to offer a path for deeper understanding.

So why haven’t we heard of Mary Prince?

The honest answer is: I don’t know. Her story is powerful and vital. It baffles me that she isn’t taught more widely. Perhaps it’s because her story makes people uncomfortable. Maybe it’s easier to forget, to avoid blame, to shield children—and even adults—from the weight of truth.

But if Mary Prince could speak her truth through illness, trauma, and resistance, then surely we can read it, remember it, and pass it on.

Why haven’t we heard of Mary Prince?
 Well … now you have.

-Michelle Munyanyi
Intern, Curatorial
Girl Museum