Nancy Gardner Prince
editNancy Gardner Prince (September 15, 1799 – c. 1859) was an African-American abolitionist and writer born free in Newburyport, Massachusetts. She is most most notably known for writing about her travels in Russia and Jamaica during the nineteenth century in her published autobiography titled A Narrative of The Life And Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince in 1850[1].
Early life
editNancy Gardner Prince was daughter to Tobias Wornton, a slave taken captive from Africa by Captain Winthrop Sargent. Her father was Thomas Gardner, a seaman from who was from Nantucket who died when she was an infant, leaving her in the care of her mother.[2] In her early years, Prince traveled to various towns including Gloucester,Essex, Salem, New England and Boston for work and also at times to aid her siblings in times of need.[3]
Marriage
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Nancy Gardner met Mr. Nero Prince in Massachusetts on September 1st, 1823 when he arrived from Russia and was later married to him on February 15th, 1824. Nero Prince[4] was the second grand master of Prince Hall Grand Lodge, elected in 1808. He set sail for Imperial Russia in 1810 where he became a member of the Imperial Court and Czar Alexander I.[5]
Russia
editIn April of 1824, Nancy travelled to St Petersburg, Russia with her husband and she accounts many customs and events that she had to attend with her husband in Russia. In her time in Russia she experienced funerals, holiday celebrations, religious practices, and coronations.In her time in Russia, she also witnessed first hand the Flood of 1824, The St. Petersburg cholera outbreak, and the Decembrist Revolution.[6]
Jamaica
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Prince went on two missionary trips to Jamaica in 1840 due to the fact that the nations black people had recently been freed in 1838 with the support of abolitionists W. L Garrison and Lucretia Mott. In her time in Jamaica, she worked in Kingston working alongside church officials and raising funds for a free labor school for Jamaican girls.[7]
Later life and death
editIn her years after Russia, she opened an orphanage for black children and a sewing shop in Boston however it shut down three months later due to lack of funds. She also aided in the Anti-Slavery Society established by W. L. Garrison where she attended meetings. She also worked for emancipation and the against the Fugitive Slave Act and attended a Women's Rights Convention. [8] The date of her death is uncertain.
Implications
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Princes' arguably most notable work,A Narrative of The Life And Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince, accounts her travels and personal life. In the book Prince critiques the state of the times through the lenses of an African American Woman at the time. [9] Prince does this by adapting to the cultural and historical customs of the places she visits and comparing them to her lived experiences in her early life in America as a Black Woman.[10] Due to this contribution to African American Literature, Nancy Gardner Prince's documentations is noted as the precedent example of combining the traditions of the travel narrative, autobiography and the slave narrative into a unified body of work.[11]
References
edit- ^ "Nancy Prince, Abolitionist, and Writer born". African American Registry. Retrieved 2022-05-03.
- ^ "The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Narrative of Life and Travels, by Nancy Prince". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2022-04-26.
- ^ Tarver, Australia (2005), "Prince, Nancy Gardner", Black Women in America, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780195156775.001.0001/acref-9780195156775-e-0349, ISBN 978-0-19-515677-5, retrieved 2022-05-03
- ^ Cheun, Wookjin. "Library Research Guides: African Americans in Russia: Tzarist Russia". guides.libraries.indiana.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-03.
- ^ Manaev, Georgy (2020-03-08). "How black people first came to Russia". Russia Beyond. Retrieved 2022-05-03.
- ^ Tarver, Australia (2005), "Prince, Nancy Gardner", Black Women in America, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780195156775.001.0001/acref-9780195156775-e-0349, ISBN 978-0-19-515677-5, retrieved 2022-05-03
- ^ "The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Narrative of Life and Travels, by Nancy Prince". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2022-04-26.
- ^ Karttunen, Frances. "Nancy Gardner Prince, daughter of a Black Nantucket whaler". Nantucket Historical Association. Retrieved 2022-05-04.
- ^ Gunning, Sandra (2001). "Nancy Prince and the Politics of Mobility, Home and Diasporic (Mis)Identification". American Quarterly. 53 (1): 32–69. ISSN 0003-0678.
- ^ Foster, Amber (2013). "Nancy Prince's Utopias: Reimagining the African American Utopian Tradition". Utopian Studies. 24 (2): 329–348. ISSN 2154-9648.
- ^ Braxton, Joanne M (1989). Black women writing autobiography: a tradition within a tradition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. OCLC 1028866480.
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