The true account of a young slave girl's life of torture and degradation galvanized Britain's abolitionist movement when it was first published in 1831.
Now, more than 200 years after she was born into a Bermudian slave family, Mary Prince's unique contribution to ending slavery is being recognized with a plaque in her honor.
The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, her autobiographical story of savage beatings, servitude and being left for dead, created a sensation when it was released.
Unrelenting in its brutality, it was the first published account of slavery by a black woman.
"To strip me naked, to hang me up by the wrists and lay my flesh open with the cow skin, was an ordinary punishment for even a slight offence," she wrote of her routine whippings at the age of 12 by her mistress in Bermuda.
"And there was scarcely any punishment more dreadful than the blows received on my face and head from her hard heavy fist," she said.
The beatings left her entire body scarred.
Source: BBC News
Comments