“Expressing a desire to be furnished with some description of the marks of former ill-usage on Mary Prince person.” Mrs. Townsend, is saying I want to see the evidence of the continuous, brutal, devastated treatment that Mary Prince experience. I asked myself, how hard can it be to convince someone  who knows about slavery, of the broken, mutilated and battered state Mary’s body was in. However, what is not being addressed is the graphic episodes of the physical beating that was inflicted on her. Also what is not being addressed is the aftermath of the shame, pain, humiliation, manipulation and powerlessness Mary endurd as a slave.

Still there is much that is not being said and we have to read between the lines. Also, there is a silent voice crying out that is not being heard. A silence voice that if it could be heard that  in mourning for her lost of her innocence that was stolen. Crying for the freedom that her money could not buy, for the husband that she was beaten mercyfully for getting to. For the lost of her mother, brother, sister, and father, For the lost of a life. And yet, the main question is can I see the evidence of her beating.

The significant part of the text that stand out for me in the reading was found on page 3, at the end of paragraph 2. When Mary walk into the room, her mother said “Here come my poor picaninnies, one of the poor slave-brood who are to be sold tomorrow.” Despite the agony to keep her children safe, as a mother she could not do so because, she was not a free woman neither her children.

I pick this segment of the text because as a mother I could relate to the anguish Mary’s mother is experiencing in that moment. I have taken care of my son all his life and at the age of seventeen he told me, ” mom I am my own man now and you have to learn to stop telling me what to do or how to run my life.” Although my son was not being sold into slavery and I would see him continually, those words still hurt me to the core of my soul.

The realization of me loosing control of my son care and Mary’s mother also loosing the care of her daughter, is the moment that add my experience to the meaning of the text.