The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian SlavePrince, Mary
History
The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave
Prince, Mary
Fugitive slaves -- West Indies -- Biography; Prince, Mary; Slavery -- West Indies
They came to us about eleven o'clock one day, and directly they came they
set our house on fire. All of us had run away. We kept together, and went
into the woods, and stopped there two days. The Adinyes then went away,
and we returned home and found every thing burnt. We tried to build a
little shed, and were beginning to get comfortable again. We found
several of our neighbours lying about wounded; they had been shot. I saw
the bodies of four or five little children whom they had killed with blows
on the head. They had carried away their fathers and mothers, but the
children were too small for slaves, so they killed them. They had killed
several others, but these were all that I saw. I saw them lying in the
street like dead dogs.
In about a week after we got back, the Adinyes returned, and burnt all the
sheds and houses they had left standing. We all ran away again; we went to
the woods as we had done before.--They followed us the next day. We went
farther into the woods, and staid there about four days and nights; we
were half starved; we only got a few potatoes. My uncle Otou was with us.
At the end of this time, the Adinyes found us. We ran away. They called my
uncle to go to them; but he refused, and they shot him immediately: they
killed him. The rest of us ran on, and they did not get at us till the
next day. I ran up into a tree: they followed me and brought me down. They
tied my feet. I do not know if they found my father and mother, and
brothers and sisters: they had run faster than me, and were half a mile
farther when I got up into the tree: I have never seen them since.--There
was a man who ran up into the tree with me: I believe they shot him, for I
never saw him again.
They carried away about twenty besides me. They carried us to the sea.
They did not beat us: they only killed one man, who was very ill and too
weak to carry his load: they made all of us carry chickens and meat for
our food; but this poor man could not carry his load, and they ran him
through the body with a sword.--He was a neighbour of ours. When we got to
the sea they sold all of us, but not to the same person. They sold us for
money; and I was sold six times over, sometimes for money, sometimes for
cloth, and sometimes for a gun. I was about thirteen years old. It was
about half a year from the time I was taken, before I saw the white
people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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