The final pages of The History of Mary Prince gives insight on what was going on with Mary’s vs Mr. Wood’s case. The documents not only reveal Wood’s embarrassment and outrage as well as his attacks on Prince’s morals, but they also show the extent to which it became necessary to defend Prince’s character in order to maintain the veracity of her account and the abolitionist message it promotes. What I found interesting was on page 44 when it says “Her husband, he says, has taken another wife; ‘so that on that score, ‘he adds, ‘he does her no injury.’” I believe Mr. Woods was a very jealous man because he wanted Mary to himself. Woods wrote to his friend after Mary left them in England to make up lies about her being with another man. He didn’t want to see Mary happy; every time she was even the slightest bit of happy he had to do something to hurt her. I believe that he was having sex (rape) with Mary (which the book doesn’t discuss) and was very mad that she got married. He thought that Mary didn’t deserve and true freedom or happiness at all. When approached multiple times to sell Mary he would decline and not sell her.

The understanding of why the story was told from Mary’s point of view (first person) was very important and clear now reading through these pages I seen that. The moment that was significant for me was when Mary was trying to consistently buy her freedom from her master which was now at this moment Mr. Wood. When she first went to them I thought she was actually finally going to get a break because she talked about how good Mr. & Mrs. Wood treated her. There was a sign of relief for me because I wanted that so bad for her at this point. But, then she started talking about how they flogged, swore, etc. at her. She got married and the master & mistress got really upset about it. They would not let her buy her freedom or let anyone else buy her. During that time period slaves could purchase there freedom even though slaves really had no freedom at all. Their masters still kept them as peasants and continued to treat them horrible because they knew they had no power or land.

As I was reading The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave pages 1-19 I was very intrigued and anxious to know what was going to happen next. I was very disgusted and completely uncomfortable with what she (Mary) had to go through. The book is told in first person from the slave Mary herself. In the first few pages she tells us how she went through a long period of being owned & sold. Mary also shared many of her emotional experiences and discomforts. Reading this text just made me even more awful with slavery than how I already felt. I feel terrible that she had to go through those things, the text made it more visual. When Mary had been sold again and sent to Turk’s Island she had not seen her mother. She went to that island not knowing if she would ever see her mother again. When she was sold as a little girl her mother cried over her and her sisters that she wouldn’t see again. So, I know many people cannot live a few hours without their mom so I couldn’t imagine how Mary – a ‘slave’ felt. She was in deep emotional pain. When she finally saw her mother again her mother did not remember her. Could you imagine how that must feel as much as she cherished seeing her mother again. She had to go through her pain alone and lost her pride because her mother couldn’t be there to help her or protect her, she said it herself. A mother’s love is unconditional for her children.