I’ve always heard about all the mistreatment that slaves endured, but not quite like this before.
While reading about Hetty and old Daniel I was in shock. I felt especially sorry for old Daniel.
to hear how he was beaten even though he was considered disabled made me feel so sad. The narrator
described the maggots in his is un-healed skin drew a gruesome image in my head. The slave owners or ‘masters’
as the narrator would call them had no empathy or compassion for the slaves. I tried to imagine myself
being punished like they were and then expected to do the labor assigned to them, but couldn’t. I wanted all the
‘masters’ to be as nice to the slaves as she was to the narrator. Also another part that stuck out to me was when
the brothers and sister of the narrator were being sold. Again, I tried to paint a picture as if it were an auction for humans. So far I’m enjoying this book because of course I would hear about the mistreatment but this narrator is doing a swell job of painting a picture in my head of how hard life was for the slaves.

EdelleRamsayy

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.

The event that stood out and was significant to me personally was the last two paragraphs on pages 6 and the first two on pages 7, it was touching, and I felt the emotions and the pains of Mary’s mom, having to dress your own kids to be sold! Not knowing if you would ever see them again. I am a father and I could put myself in her position, which had to be the most heart wrenching pain next to the death of a child for a parent.
I am a descendant of slaves so slavery would always be a part of my history, reading this evokes thoughts and emotions and highlights the pain and suffering our forefathers went through. So we should treasure the sacrifices that was made to bring us to this point today and never take want we have for granted, we have it easy in comparison but we didn’t get it easy.
Some slaves were strong and some broke and it’s comes as no surprise that eventually Mary Prince’s mother broke, obviously it was too much for her to cope with both the mental and physical abuse, she lost her freedom, her kids and finally her mind, I knew that slavery was horrible, but what she described was a whole other devil to me.

The moment in this text that I find interesting is when Mary Prince explains at the bottom of page 19 how she went back to Bermuda and was told that there is now a place that the slaves have built from boughs and leaves where they can now gather for prayers. The text had not mentioned that the slaves were allowed to pray or had gone as far as to designate a place to meet.For them prayer and gathering might had been their way to tolerate all the ill-treatment that they were facing and it was also a sense of hope for them.

Now I find this passage significant because one might argue and say that they were under slavery so they did not have the freedom to pray and gather in the manner that they wanted to. An example that adds to the meaning of this text is in today’s society where we don’t have this kind of cruelty and bondage going on yet there are people that still cannot express their beliefs and spirituality with complete freedom. For instance, just as though the “white people” pulled down the place the slaves built, today there are people of different races and background that go into others place of worship and torment them by burning down the building, defacing it or committing mass homicides.

One of the excerpts from Mary Prince which was most significant was when Mary Prince was a little girl. When she was a little girl she was faced with the hardships of being a slave in the 1800s. When she was a little girl her mom and her sisters were being sold off to other white people. The person who bought her was a captain who bought her for her granddaughter. This was significant because this showed how cruel and unjust the world was. It showed how cruel a person can be in terms of treating people. According to Mary the years spent as a pet to Betsey were the best years of her life. Betsey referred to her as “little nigger” and treated Mary like a dog. When Mary was sold off and separated from Miss Betsey she was devastated, because she knew that it was the best she was ever gonna get treated.