Kato Justus’s Reviews > The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave Narrative > Status Update

Nothing could touch his hard heart—neither sighs, nor tears, nor prayers, nor streaming blood; he was deaf to our cries, careless of our sufferings. Mr. D—— often stripped me naked, hung me up by the wrists, and beat me with the cow-skin, with his own hand, till my body was raw with gashes. Yet there was nothing remarkable in this; for it might serve as a sample of the common usage of slaves on that horrible island.

“Oh, the trials! the trials! they make the salt water come into my eyes when I think of the days in which I was afflicted—the times that are gone; when I mourned and grieved with a young heart for those whom I loved.”

    “By our sufferings, since ye brought us
      To the man-degrading mart,—
    All sustain'd by patience, taught us
      Only by a broken heart,—
    Deem our nation brutes no longer,
      Till some reason ye shall find
    Worthier of regard, and stronger
      Than the colour of our kind.”
—WILLIAM COWPER