Strong Willingness and Intelligence of Mary Prince - Essay Example

Mary finally manages to free herself not by buying herself out (as was the normal way for slaves), but with industry and persistence. Hence, her strong willingness and intelligence proved to be her best alley in life.

Mary’s life is filled with struggle and sorrow with a small sprinkling of hope and joy in between. But, her initial years were tranquil and uneventful. The day her sisters and she were sold out proves to be the most tragic incident of her life. This is a black day marked by her mother’s sorrowful words as she dresses her kids in coarse clothes, 'See, I am shrouding my poor children; what a task for a mother!' (Page 3). It was the end of the tranquil days and advent into hardships and sufferings. The rest that included beatings, stripping, and physical and sexual assaults were just continuous black phases suffered most of her life. Hence, her first sale at a tender young age was a landmark day in her life and marks the most sorrowful occasion of her entire existence.

Mary was not an isolated slave who suffered ill-treatment at the hands of her owners. Abuse of the slaves was sadly a very common occurrence as was evident from Mary’s account of other slaves such as the little slave children, Cyrus and Jack. Both these kids were subjected to the most brutal punishments right from a very young age for almost no reason. Hetty, whom Mary called Aunt in affection also, went to an early grave because of her master’s severe physical punishments during the offset of pregnancy. Hetty was the most efficient person in the household and apparently took the entire responsibility of the house upon herself. But, one small slip and no one spared a single bout of mercy to her spanking her so much that she had early labor and died after some time.

Colonialism and Imperialism robbed Mary of her childhood. It took her away from her family at a very young age and later also alienated her from her husband whom she loved a lot. It degraded her mentally and physically as she was subjected to the most inhuman conditions. She was just property and not entitled to any human rights. The constant assault on her physique always left her aching all over. It may also be one of the causes of her near blindness in her later life. Hence, we see that Mary’s story awakes us to the ugly realities of Colonialism and its consequences on the sufferers.