Plans for the creation of a statue to honour one of Bermuda's National Heroes, Mary Prince, are currently in the works at the Ministry of Labour, Community Affairs and Sports.
Mary Prince is famous for her slave narrative The History of Mary Prince (1831), which was the first account of the life of a black woman to be published in the United Kingdom. This first-hand description of enslavement, released at a time when slavery was still legal in Bermuda and British Caribbean colonies, had a galvanising effect on the anti-slavery movement.
“It is so important that we find a fitting way to honour Mary Prince - or ‘Mary James’, and ‘Molly Wood’ as she was also known,” said the Minister of Labour, Community Affairs and Sports the Hon. Lovitta Foggo JP MP. "As Mary Prince’s autobiographical narrative was instrumental in the abolition of slavery, not only in Bermuda but throughout the entire British Empire, this government is of the view that a statue be built in her honour. Obviously, due to the time in which she was living, there are no photographs of Mary Prince, but there are, of course, other ways to determine what she might have looked like – first-hand accounts from her contemporaries, for example."
Overseas researcher Dr. Margot Maddison-MacFadyen was recently given a grant by the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs to conduct research on Mary Prince, to learn more about her latter days. Her research will also help to determine where the statue will be placed, as the desire is to have it be somewhere of historical significance to Mary’s life.
“One possible location being considered, along with several others, is the cave in which Mary hid after she escaped from her slave-owner,” said Minister Foggo. “Recent research has revealed the exact location of this cave, which is on private land, and we will be excited to share the location with the public in due course following discussions with the landowner. The Department of Community and Cultural Affairs has already begun research on the possible 'look' of a statue, in honour of Mary Prince.
“We would also like to be able to place physical markers at various other points of significance related to her life so that people can really make a more tangible connection with Mary Prince.”
Dr. Maddison-MacFadyen recently visited nine local schools to present her research on Mary Prince.
Dr. Maddison-MacFadyen graduated in May 2017 with a PhD from the Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her dissertation is titled “Reclaiming Histories of Enslavement from the Maritime Atlantic and a Curriculum: The History of Mary Prince.” Her current Bermuda-based postdoctoral research project is titled "Mind the Onion Seed" because both Mary Prince and Mary Elsie Tucker (on whom her research is partly focused) recollect working for Bermuda slave-owners as cultivators, growing onions.