1 00:00:01,290 --> 00:00:20,550 So. Good afternoon, everyone. 2 00:00:20,550 --> 00:00:28,130 For those who may not know who Mary Prince was, she is taken to be. 3 00:00:28,130 --> 00:00:38,780 By most followers as the very first female slave narrative that took place in in the Americas, 4 00:00:38,780 --> 00:00:48,670 which includes the Caribbean, South and North America, she was a Bermuda born slave. 5 00:00:48,670 --> 00:00:59,200 Who travelled to the UK about 18 28, and she published her slave narrative in 1831. 6 00:00:59,200 --> 00:01:14,350 So that is the basis for my paper, her slave narratives. You can see the titles, I didn't have to read it. 7 00:01:14,350 --> 00:01:23,020 Recently, I came across a book by Jamaica Kincaid, The Autobiography of my mother, and it really struck me. 8 00:01:23,020 --> 00:01:27,640 There was one line in the book Towards the End in which she says, 9 00:01:27,640 --> 00:01:36,520 This account of my life has been an account of my mother's life, as much as it has been an account of mine. 10 00:01:36,520 --> 00:01:43,720 And this struck me because it just dealt with the subject matter of my paper. 11 00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:52,630 Identifying and speaking about Mary Prince's mother. So I start with what I call the foundation of the mother. 12 00:01:52,630 --> 00:02:00,030 The very first three words of her narrative are I was born. 13 00:02:00,030 --> 00:02:11,990 These first three words of the history of Mary Prince. Tie this account of her life inextricably to her mother, 14 00:02:11,990 --> 00:02:20,180 and with the severance of the umbilical existence, they would continue a developmental connectivity. 15 00:02:20,180 --> 00:02:27,380 She carries on in her own words. I was under her care, her own care, 16 00:02:27,380 --> 00:02:35,930 so her mother basically raised her even though she was in an enslaved situation in a household, in a white household. 17 00:02:35,930 --> 00:02:40,280 So every detail that sets the stage footprint is history. 18 00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:52,850 Giving flesh to its authenticity would have been imparted knowledge from her mother, where she was born, who owned her at birth. 19 00:02:52,850 --> 00:03:03,970 The identity of her father. How she came to be owned by one of her slave owners, Captain Williams, without the mother's presence. 20 00:03:03,970 --> 00:03:11,120 I call it her pre sense of life. Then there would be no history as we know it. 21 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:14,450 As expressed in the opening quote to this paper, 22 00:03:14,450 --> 00:03:23,510 the account of Prince's life is an account of her mother's life, as much as it is an account of her own. 23 00:03:23,510 --> 00:03:32,500 Using original source material not previously cited, we have identified Prince's mother. 24 00:03:32,500 --> 00:03:37,890 These records, on the one hand, change what we know about Prince. 25 00:03:37,890 --> 00:03:43,650 The presumed year of her birth. Will be amended. 26 00:03:43,650 --> 00:03:57,180 Her registered name as a child is revealed, and we see her value in the Bermuda slave system increasing as she ages, on the other hand, 27 00:03:57,180 --> 00:04:12,060 these records establish her mother's details of registration and will demonstrate how the adult female slaves value progressively decreases with age. 28 00:04:12,060 --> 00:04:28,260 In naming Sue, the records reveal more accurately the year of her death, and we are also able to pierce the veil into her own childhood. 29 00:04:28,260 --> 00:04:31,270 The purpose of this paper is twofold. 30 00:04:31,270 --> 00:04:44,450 And first, to name the mother of the Bermudian slave known as Mary Prince, who has remained unnamed since the publication of the history in 1831. 31 00:04:44,450 --> 00:04:56,780 And second, to expose one symptom of the continuing psychological effect of colonialism hour, and when I say our, I'm speaking of Bermuda personally, 32 00:04:56,780 --> 00:05:11,750 our propensity to abdicate responsibility to research, verify and document our own history in deference to the white visiting research expert. 33 00:05:11,750 --> 00:05:19,640 Although Prince names her father in the narrative and adopts his Christian name as her surname, 34 00:05:19,640 --> 00:05:26,810 hence the pen name Mary Prince, she does not name her mother in the narrative. 35 00:05:26,810 --> 00:05:34,010 The historical records identifying Prince's mother have been hiding in plain sight all along, 36 00:05:34,010 --> 00:05:49,510 but because they have been overlooked by visiting scholars. It has been assumed by them and accepted by us that such records do not exist. 37 00:05:49,510 --> 00:05:57,780 Here in lies the evidence. Of our abdication. 38 00:05:57,780 --> 00:06:11,780 We are the record holders. The guardians of the historical documents, if you will, but we only see what we have through the lens of an outsider. 39 00:06:11,780 --> 00:06:16,580 This, I believe, is indicative of mental slavery. 40 00:06:16,580 --> 00:06:26,730 Waiting for the superior other. To legitimise our history. 41 00:06:26,730 --> 00:06:38,310 Princess, history is what I now call overexposed, but yet it's still underexposed in preparation for this paper, 42 00:06:38,310 --> 00:06:48,270 I conducted a random survey of published material and Mary Prince between 1987 and 2000, 43 00:06:48,270 --> 00:06:54,990 the published activity of white and black scholars on the subject was more or less on par. 44 00:06:54,990 --> 00:06:58,770 There were an equal number of books more or less. 45 00:06:58,770 --> 00:07:11,310 And Gillian Whitlock assures us that Mary Prince has not become as vogue as Harriet Jacobs, then from 2001 to 2018, 46 00:07:11,310 --> 00:07:25,050 published activity on Prince is history more than doubled, with white scholars outperforming black scholars three to one. 47 00:07:25,050 --> 00:07:32,580 But despite the increased attention to Prince when it comes to the authentication of the details of the history, 48 00:07:32,580 --> 00:07:42,750 we find that there are only two published scholars from which all the rest draw the assumption of accuracy. 49 00:07:42,750 --> 00:07:48,390 Moira Ferguson in 1987. Is that the front end? 50 00:07:48,390 --> 00:07:56,220 And it was through Miss Ferguson and the same year Henry Louis Gates Jr. also published the narrative. 51 00:07:56,220 --> 00:08:00,450 It had not resurfaced since 1831. 52 00:08:00,450 --> 00:08:11,040 So in 1987 there was this activity and this Ferguson went further than Mr. Gates in that she tried to authenticate the history. 53 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:14,670 She tried to get the details to show the truth of it. 54 00:08:14,670 --> 00:08:31,070 Did the facts match up? And then more recently, we have Margo Madison McFadden, who has published in 2017, both a white female, 55 00:08:31,070 --> 00:08:41,880 not Bermudian researchers fit Ferguson, hailing originally from Scotland and Madison McFadden from Canada. 56 00:08:41,880 --> 00:08:48,690 I argue that it is in this area of thorough historical examination that Prince is still 57 00:08:48,690 --> 00:09:03,720 under exposed and as concerns the details and identity of her mother not exposed at all. 58 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:13,720 Sue has remained lost to us for the past 30 years since the resurrection of the narrative. 59 00:09:13,720 --> 00:09:18,100 So the paper focuses on print this first 12 years of life, 60 00:09:18,100 --> 00:09:29,620 which have been taken to be her birth taken to be in 1788 up until she was 12 years old and she was sold to another owner. 61 00:09:29,620 --> 00:09:36,580 You see that in her own words, she says I had scarcely reached my 12 year when my mistress became too poor to keep so many of us at home, 62 00:09:36,580 --> 00:09:39,580 and she hired me out to Mrs. Prutton. 63 00:09:39,580 --> 00:09:49,080 And then she describes the death of her owner, Mrs. Williams, and that she stayed at Mrs. Prudence for three months after that. 64 00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:55,710 It's generally accepted by scholars that her owners, originally the miners family and Devon. 65 00:09:55,710 --> 00:10:07,490 And then she was subsequently owned by John Williams Jr. and his wife, Sarah. 66 00:10:07,490 --> 00:10:12,530 The Devins Your Parish records from six thousand sixty three to seventeen ninety eight, 67 00:10:12,530 --> 00:10:21,530 the first in a set of five volumes of church vestry books for the DaVinci Church stored in the Bermuda archives. 68 00:10:21,530 --> 00:10:25,460 This volume contains assessments of real and personal property, 69 00:10:25,460 --> 00:10:32,600 which cover the period of Prince's childhood in what they called colloquially brackish pond. 70 00:10:32,600 --> 00:10:44,290 Neither Ferguson nor McFadden cite this volume as a source in any of their respective publications. 71 00:10:44,290 --> 00:10:50,180 So we'll first go to look at the records in this volume. 72 00:10:50,180 --> 00:11:01,130 Of John Williams Jr., who was the owner of Mary Prince during her childhood and after the Myers family, and you see here that. 73 00:11:01,130 --> 00:11:06,980 The Negroes that he owns and this one male. 74 00:11:06,980 --> 00:11:11,360 An adult female, you can tell by the. The value. 75 00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:17,760 Forty five pounds to fifty pounds as an adult. And then you have two children. 76 00:11:17,760 --> 00:11:31,020 Mall £20, Hanna, £15 and an unnamed child at eight pounds. 77 00:11:31,020 --> 00:11:42,770 Mall is Prince's registered name in her childhood during this period, mall or Marley or the amenities of Mary, a pet name or nickname. 78 00:11:42,770 --> 00:11:47,120 And having gone through the names of all the females in the 1790, 79 00:11:47,120 --> 00:11:55,490 female slaves in the 1790 registered their honour marries ceremony moles on commonly. 80 00:11:55,490 --> 00:12:04,460 Following on five years later, 1795. You have John Williams, senior, we're going to look at John Williams Jr. here. 81 00:12:04,460 --> 00:12:08,450 And once again, there's Sue here. Forty five pounds more. 82 00:12:08,450 --> 00:12:14,170 Twenty five, she's increased by five pounds. Hannah Twenty. 83 00:12:14,170 --> 00:12:21,500 And the same thing occurs in 1798. John Williams Jr. 84 00:12:21,500 --> 00:12:28,700 Sue is there, she's increased in value to 50 pounds and more has increased along with Hannah, they're now equal. 85 00:12:28,700 --> 00:12:39,110 And in princess narrative, she states that she was the eldest child and the next sister to her was named Hannah. 86 00:12:39,110 --> 00:12:47,030 This is the only scenario in those records that give that match princess narrative and. 87 00:12:47,030 --> 00:12:53,870 Sue is the only adult female slave owned by John Williams Jr. during that period. 88 00:12:53,870 --> 00:13:01,330 So this is Prince's mother and that is Mary Prince. 89 00:13:01,330 --> 00:13:06,040 Also, the record of her owner's death. 90 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:12,870 Sarah Williams occurred, the burial record is 23rd of April 1798. 91 00:13:12,870 --> 00:13:18,810 And Prince says that three months after that, she was so she was called him to be sold. 92 00:13:18,810 --> 00:13:26,180 So we know that she would have been sold somewhere in the summer of that year. 93 00:13:26,180 --> 00:13:31,640 So what we now come up with then is a revised chronology. 94 00:13:31,640 --> 00:13:36,200 Yes, revised chronology of trends. I'll go through this quickly. 95 00:13:36,200 --> 00:13:45,590 So we've revised her birth years now going to be eighty five because there were two three children in the 1790 record, 96 00:13:45,590 --> 00:13:49,520 which would have put her approximately at five years old. 97 00:13:49,520 --> 00:14:02,950 The narrative changes, and she's actually sold along with her two sisters in the summer of 17, 1998, after her earnest death. 98 00:14:02,950 --> 00:14:12,970 In conclusion, the report cited in this conference paper uncovered the identity of Prince's mother 30 years after Prince's story 99 00:14:12,970 --> 00:14:22,120 first resurfaced in 1987 and allow us to reconstruct a more accurate timeline of Prince's early life in Bermuda. 100 00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:33,160 There are additional records which throw further light on Prince, which didn't have time for today, but one of them would be her mother, 101 00:14:33,160 --> 00:14:41,500 identified as a slave owned by Richard Darrow in her narrative when she actually runs away from her third owner. 102 00:14:41,500 --> 00:14:52,750 She says that she ran to her mother, who was living at Richard Daryl's house and down here you will see a sue who is now age 70 years old. 103 00:14:52,750 --> 00:14:59,410 She's described as black. This is a ditto here. The one above is black. 104 00:14:59,410 --> 00:15:04,210 This is just a blow up, which Darrell, here's Sue here. 105 00:15:04,210 --> 00:15:10,950 And. Her Sue and her sister back. 106 00:15:10,950 --> 00:15:17,880 And finally, being able to identify soon and we go back and look at the miners family in Devin Shear, 107 00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:24,600 we find out at age 70, an 18, 20 21, she would have been born around 1750. 108 00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:28,110 At that time, there was only one miners' family and Devin Shear, 109 00:15:28,110 --> 00:15:35,790 and that was Benjamin Myers and his wife and who may have been owners of Prince's mother. 110 00:15:35,790 --> 00:15:48,390 This inventory was taken in 1780 1757, and you see here under Negroes that are listed as part of this inventory. 111 00:15:48,390 --> 00:15:54,270 There is a girl by the name of some immigrant slave girl. 112 00:15:54,270 --> 00:15:57,300 This very well may be Prince's mother, 113 00:15:57,300 --> 00:16:05,640 and then it gives the possibility that the other two Negro women listed here could very well have been her grandmother. 114 00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:19,590 One of these so last sentence, but you don't need not wait any longer for others to authenticate the Bermuda chapter of Prince's life story. 115 00:16:19,590 --> 00:16:25,350 We have everything we need right here in Bermuda and in our own possession. 116 00:16:25,350 --> 00:16:33,090 We just need to give ourselves permission to look for ourselves and the final flight. 117 00:16:33,090 --> 00:16:40,410 Those of you who may be familiar with Minister Moon as a performer and her piece for women, 118 00:16:40,410 --> 00:16:49,920 I've taken the liberty to construct a fifth woman and so that particular verse would go. 119 00:16:49,920 --> 00:16:56,400 My skin is black. My heart is heavy. My four children sold out from under me. 120 00:16:56,400 --> 00:17:03,030 My daughter was Mary Prince. Our story helped done up slavery since. 121 00:17:03,030 --> 00:17:11,568 What do they call me? My name is Sue.