After leaving Barbados Tituba  John Indianand the Parris family settled for the winter in Boston, it was a very trying time for the family, Mr. Parris wasn’t earning an income only John Indian was bringing in a meager few dollars, stealing scraps of food and bringing them home under his coat, they were literally starving, and Mrs. Parris was getting even more ill. At one point she almost died if it wasn’t for the healing hands of Tituba.

Eventually Mr. Parris got a church to pastor in Salem, they moved there, and Tituba witnessed a hanging of an old lady that brought back memories of her own mother’s death. She connects with the spiritual world once more and started to practice her witchcraft again, inadvertently she is leaking information to the outside through Betsey who tells her friends about Tituba’s stories about the devil and her ability to cure the sick. She became alarmed when Mary Walcott started to inquire about her abilities and asked her if she was a witch, I can already see the implication this association is going to create for Tituba.

from pages 41 to the end of the narrative what really interest me was how dramatic everything was from the brutal beating Mary received and the unsafe work condition that all the slaves went through, but in my opinion i find that being dramatic throughout the novel was a necessity to show the reader how important slavery was, because many people throw the word slavery around as if it means nothing or its just something they brush off they shoulder and in reality it is a horrible history that we all share, i find that the novel give very good details that paints a very important image in our head because when people hear the word slavery they think of beating and attending to someone needs but the book being so dramatic it give us a clear insight that slavery was so much more than that from the slaves being dehumanize, treating like animals and all the pain and suffering they went through, so slavery should not be taken lightly because its a time in history that will never be forgotten.

Mary talks about a fellow slave name Louis. She states how he is very samrt and can read and write very well. Two things had caught my eye when i was reading the towards the end of this novel.

Page 263 , line 4-6  (in the eBook version) Mary says “poor Luis, when he offered the choice of going back to Africa, replied, “Me no father, no mother now; me stay with you.” The stood out to me because why would  want to go back to where he been most of his life. He just really happy about staying out there. ” Me think what a good thing I came England! Here, I know what God is, and read my Bible; in my country they have no God, no bible” he says. This also stood out to me because probably back in Africa he was not aloud to thing or read about God. I think when he was in Africa, they masters must of took them believing in God.

As I Continued to read “The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave” from pages 41 to the end I began to get eager that perhaps Mary would make her way to finally becoming a free women. I though this because I didn’t want to believe that every single part of Mary life has had to been this depressingly tragic. However, my feelings easily began to change after I continued to read how possessive Mr. Woods was over Mary Prince. Yes, I understand that slavery did in fact give the slave owners a sense of power, and ownership because the ‘blacks’ were seem as property, rather than anything else. However, throughout reading the text all of the other slaves Mary has mentioned were easily tossed from slave owner, to slave owner. However for Mr. Woods he just wouldn’t let Mary go. This obsession over Mary that Mr. Woods felt truly angered me, as did much of the text of course. It seemed as if he liked Mary to keep her around, but at the end of the day she would get mistreated, mentally and physically abused? The way I felt Mr. Woods suppressed Mary was just astonishing and tragic to read about.

What caught my attention in this passage was the effort that Mr. Wood is putting in not to grant Mary her freedom, on page 43, reason #6 “He alleges that she was before marriage, licentious, and even depraved in her conduct, unfaithful to her husband afterwards” Mary Prince, here is where  I am reading between the lines that  Mr. Wood was having sex with Mary, he was condemning her as being promiscuous and being someone of low moral character because he knew what he was doing with her behind closed doors, but his actions were contradicting all the negative he was portraying Mary to be.

Mary was the one that took full care of his house when he and his wife was out of the country, she was the one that took care of the duties in his house, she took care of his kids, and most important he had the opportunity to sell her on five occasions and refused, even when he got offers that were more than her value, he choose to sell other slaves because she was giving him more than face value for his money, she was his most valuable slave because of the intangibles she brought to him, she wasn’t licentious, she was in survival mode in my opinion.

The history of Louis is similar to Mary’s experienced. Louis was captured by the Adinyes when they found him on a tree and he was taken as slave. The Adinyes sold all the slaves they got. Louis was sold over six times before he was sold again and taken to England. Louis was very happy to be in England because he found God. He wished to go back and see his friends again but he doesn’t want to go back to his country because he was scared to be taken a slave again which is the same reason Mary can’t go back to her country because if she returns she loses her freedom and the Wood’s family will punish her for causing them so much problem in England. Mary wishes to return to her husband but as long as Mr. Wood don’t give her freedom she can’t return which is very frustrating because they have done so much damage to Mary and they still won’t let her be free in her country.

Despite Mary Prince’s long service with the Wood’s family; Mr. Wood refuses bitterly to sell her to anyone else or to grant her the opportunity to be a free person.

I find it interesting when Mary was in England and is put out in the streets. She was smart enough to have made contact with a chapter of the Moravian church of which she had become a member in Antigua.

The part of Mary’s situation that stood out the most to me is how Mr. Wood fabricated stories condemning her good character. When the missionaries of England seeking her freedom, Mr. Wood would have high profile persons in Antigua write letters to paint a very negative and demeaning picture of Mary. However, one Mr. Joseph Phillips who seems to have been a high profile character and friend of Mr. Wood had himself been persecuted by Mr. Wood and his entourage (pp. 47-2, through pg. 48).

Mr. Phillips commented on Mr. Wood character while correcting the tarnish of Mary’s. Is it coincidence that Mr. Phillips would speak so kindly of Mary’s character or is he a fair humanitarian? This is my question which was answered later in the text as more abstracts (pg.50) were exposed about his character. I believe he was trying to be different from his colleagues, and true to humanity, hence, he fell on the oppose side of their power and was brought down.

“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 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.

While reading the final pages of the novel, I discover something very significant involving the court of explaining Mary Prince’s moral values and passions. The reason it is very significant because most of the witnesses revealed their true statements about Mary’s personality and worthiness. For example, Mrs. Forsyth proclaimed that Mary had been a very helpful servant for her about the last six months. In addition, Mary had also been taking care the house of the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society while he and his family were gone in Scotland for three months. The most interesting fact I am happy about Reverent J. Curtain firmly believes that Mary Prince was always dress appropriate and had faith in her. After the testimonies reveal their honest relationships with Mary Prince, the court believes the truth of her story was extraordinary persuasive. Overall, I like how most of the individuals described their relationships with Mary Prince with analysis and description.