Mary Prince

Mary Prince (c. 1788-after 1833) was born in Devonshire Parish, Bermuda, to an enslaved family of African descent. While she was later living in London, her autobiography, The History of Mary Prince (1831), was the first account of the life of a black woman to be published in the United Kingdom.

Belonging to the genre of slave narratives, this first-hand description of the brutalities of enslavement, released at a time when slavery was still legal in Bermuda and British Caribbean colonies, had a galvanising effect on the anti-slavery movement. It went through three printings in the first year. Prince had her account transcribed while living and working in England at the home of Thomas Pringle. a founder of the Anti-Slavery Society. She had gone to London with her master and his family in 1828 from Antigua.

Early life and education

Mary Prince was born into slavery in Brackish Pond, now known as Devonshire Marsh, Devonshire Parish, Bermuda. Her father (whose only given name was Prince) was a sawyer owned by David Trimmingham, and her mother a house-servant held by Charles Myners. She had three younger brothers and two sisters, Hannah and Dinah. When Myners died in 1788, Mary Prince, her mother and siblings were sold as household servants to Captain Darrell. He gave Mary and her mother to his daughter, with the slave girl becoming the companion servant of his young granddaughter, Betsey Williams.

Mary Prince (nanny)

Mary Prince was a woman convicted of murder, and the nanny for Amy Carter, the daughter of Jimmy Carter and Rosalyn Carter. She became Amy's nanny in 1971, when Jimmy Carter was governor and she was a prisoner assigned to the governor's mansion. She had been convicted of murdering another woman's boyfriend in 1970. In 1975, when Jimmy Carter's time as governor ended, she was sent back to prison; however, she was able to travel to Washington for Carter's inauguration. With a letter from the White House to Georgia prison officials, Prince was reprieved and was able to work at the White House. Jimmy Carter was designated as her parole officer, and she lived in the White House for the four years of his presidency.

She is discussed in the book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, by Kate Andersen Brower, published by Harper in 2015. Jimmy Carter's book Sharing Good Times is dedicated to her.

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