A Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince

A Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince

Why She Wrote It

·         The second edition of the narrative was written with the help of her friends.

·         There may be many reasons for why she felt it was necessary for her to share her story, with some motivations being more questionable than others.

·         Firstly, she may have written it for purely selfless reasons:

ð  “My object is not a vain desire to appear before the public; but by the sale, I hope to obtain the means to supply my necessities”.

-          P.8

·         She may have written it as a way of promoting a certain set of beliefs such as improving the welfare of ex-slave women and children; she was also active in abolitionist circles and appeared at the fifth national women’s rights convention in 1854 so this could also have been a motivation for her. Moreover she dipped in and out of the concept of the ideal of true womanhood so it could be construed that this narrative acted as a propaganda tool to promote such morals.

               Picture 1: Fifth National Women's Rights Convention, Philadelphia, 1854

·         Nancy Prince could have written the narrative as a way of putting across her religious beliefs in order to not only promote such tenets but as a way of racial uplifting.

ð  There are definitely tones of preaching that run throughout the narrative:

ð  “He made man in his own image in the image of God, created he him, male and female, that they should have dominion over the fish of the seas, the foul of the air and the beast of the field”.

-          P.48

ð  Narrative as a model of how to act appropriately

·         Another motivation could have been that it was purely a memoir in order to immortalise her turbulent life that she led and to show that despite her social standing in America, she was able to travel to places as obscure as Russia and Jamaica.

ð  When she travels to Russia, there is a definite shift in tone from autobiography to a travel diary.

ð  She manages to recount tales that seem poignant in terms of the issue of slavery and how in Russia, she noticed a lack of colour prejudice by being allowed entry into the Queen’s court.

ð  She compares the plight of African slaves with Russian serfs and how there was not a lot of difference between their struggles.

·         However it can be said that there could have been more to why Nancy Prince felt she need to print her story.

·         After returning from Jamaica, she fell ill and became financially unstable despite her many ventures.

ð  “thrown upon her own resources to make a living”

·         It can be argued that the reason for publishing the book was as a means of making money for herself and not just for the sake of the schools she was setting up.

·         Sadly, Sandra Gunning discusses how despite this, Nancy Prince “never seemed able to rise above her poverty”.

·         Moreover, Joycelyn Moody further emphasises such view by commenting that “perhaps the strongest motivation after religious proselytizing itself...was to earn money for survival”. – p. X (preface)

·         Whatever motivation for writing the narrative, it is fair to say that Nancy Prince was able to manipulate and create a certain image for herself that went beyond the boundaries of just preaching for a moral cause.

Where Nancy Prince Got Her Information

Nancy Prince's narrative is scattered with little back stories of events, or information about events that occurred while she was not here. However, for some of these accounts it must be asked where she got her information, as she may have got a skewed account of what had happened. Also, she was writing the narrative sometimes many years after the event, and so it should also be asked whether she is accurately remembering what happened, or even if they are her own memories.

• First Hand Accounts
  • For example: Flood in St Petersburg, dated 9/10/1824 (pg 26)
    • But no records of flood of this magnitude in St Petersburg on this date. There is however, records of a flood that had the same number of casualties and the same high tide, but this flood was in November 1824. However, aside from the date the description of the flood matches other contemporary accounts. It is most likely that these are the same floods, but Price got the date wrong.
    • This would suggest that this is Price's own first hand account, as she separately recalled the event, but got the date wrong, rather than recalling somebody else's account with the right date.
  • It allows the reader to be more confident about her other first hand accounts, and their accuracy.

Picture 2. November 7, 1824 on the square at the Bolshoi Theatre, FY Alekseev

• Second Hand Accounts
  • For example: Russian Interregnum of 1825
    • As the wife of a member of court, it is very likely that Price's account of what happened is slightly biased.
    • What Prince writes can not be taken at face value for what happened, as she has no personal first hand account of what happened, apart from the aftermath of the massacre (pg 31-33), so she is relating second hand what she has been told by other people.
  • Similarly, other events, such as the unrest she discovered had happened in Kingston while she had returned to America, the reasons for which she did not experience first hand (pg 57), that are related second hand must be read in the mind set that they might be biased.

• Interview accounts
  • While not always there for the events she writes about, Prince does include some interviews from those who were.
  • For example: Prince writes about an old woman who described previous storms
    • “Not so bad now as in the time of the slavery; then God spoke very loud to Bucker, (the white people,) to let us go. Thank God, ever since that they give us up, we go pray, and we have it not so bad like as before” (pg 66-67).
    • Prince uses direct quotes like these to show that she is not just writing from her mind, but also using the voices of others.
  • These interviews must be read with the same consideration as above, because they are memories, but also second hand accounts by the time Prince relates them.

Religion in the Narrative

Nancy Prince, like Henson frequently refers to her religious beliefs and alludes to the Bible in her narrative.  Whilst Henson used biblical allusions to increase his image, Prince uses them to critique the moral short-comings of white Christians and offers sharp insight into the religious differences between black women in different parts of the African diaspora.

Prince’s Christian Faith

• Prince’s narrative suggests that she conquers her worldly worries by the grace of the Holy Spirit and describes the aftermath of every trouble she encounters with some reference to the goodness of God. See pages 12, 21, 22, 28, 45, 56 and 83.
• On p.83 Prince quotes the first two verses of William Cowper’s hymn God Moves in a Mysterious Way 

 Video 1. God Moves in a Mysterious Way

• Nancy, in her religious faith, seems to regard herself as superior to black persons from outside of the US. Even  in her lowly status as a poor black woman Nancy represented American Protestantism which, as De Jong states, had by “the late eighteenth century entered an aggressively evangelical phase [such that] it became a Christian imperative to include, not exclude “heathen”
• In taking this attitude, Prince’s narrative employs the same tone of colonial arrogance similar to her contemporary Anglo-American missionaries.
• Prince even states that it is God that broke the chains of slavery which was aided by Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce.

Prince’s Missionary Work

• Prince keenly anticipates her missionary work in Jamacia and on p.43 paraphrases John 4:35 and writes: “a field of usefulness [is] spread out before me” which appears in full as “Lift up your eyes and look upon the fields; for they are white already to harvest”
• In alluding to this verse, Prince excludes the reference to the whiteness of the gospel’s visual image.
• Paraphrasing a recognisable Biblical verse in this way allows Prince to alter the perception of her religious mission, removing it from the one of her racist white Christian colleagues, and ‘transforming it into an affirmation of African selfhood and salvation’ (Paul Simpson-Housely, Mapping the Sacred: Religion, Geography and Post Colonial Literatures)
• During Nancy Prince’s time in The West Indies her embittered attitude towards Christianity becomes evident as she condemns her missionary colleagues.
• Nancy appears to reject other white Christians for the values they create when mixing with the African diaspora
• When Nancy arrives in The West Indies she lodges with the "class-leader" until she is offended by her teaching methods.  When Nancy is threatened with the loss of pay should she not comply she states: "I spoke to her of the necessity of being born of the spirit of God before we become members of the church of Christ, and I told her I was sorry to see the people blinded in such a way" (p.46)
• Nancy then goes to the minister and tells him she will no longer "be guided by poor foolish women" and that the moral conduct of the church members had been neglected (p.46)
• Prince’s narrative seems to renounce false piety and uses church leaders to illustrate the of the Anglo-American Christian sinfulness
• It is interesting to note that from this point Prince’s narrative seems to turn more into travel literature and less like a spiritual biography
• This choice possibly shows that Nancy prefers the secular form over the sacred.  In this vein, Prince could divorce herself from the white clergymen of the period and the American Missionary Association which she believed had issues of sexism, classism, colonialism and racism.
• Yet Prince returns to the Bible in the final pages of her narrative and reinstates her faith in Christ. Prince shows that although she has issue with the way white Christians teach their religion, she does not doubt the grace of God.

Gender in the Narrative

·         The narrative of Nancy Prince offers an insight into her struggle with the concept of gender differentiation and notion of the true tenets of womanhood

·         The key tenets of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity are denounced but at times upheld by her due to her desire to come across as a respectable woman but also one that is strong and independent.

·         Nancy Prince seems determined to eliminate the notion of sentimentalism from her writing and that she “declares her determination to establish a unique discursive otherness, a rhetorical condition of African-American womanness without pathos or lamentation”.p.174 (Paul Simpson-Hausley)

·         It can be said that although she wants to encourage the role of women in society at that time, she seems to show distain and almost dislike towards their behaviour.

·         In terms of women’s rights groups, she was largely frustrated by their inefficiency and lack of committal to the cause.

·         There is also an attempt to discourage contemporary views at that time of African American women being highly sexually charged and sinful. Seen with figures such as the Hottentot Venus, Prince made a conscious attempt to oppose “the multiplicity of negative stereotypes and myths circulating about African American women, particularly freeborn”. – p.77 (Joycelyn Moody)

 Picture 3. Example of staged photograph of C19th African American Women

·         It could be argued that she feels a sense of superiority towards other African American women who she deems as foolish or not conducting themselves properly

ð  This can be seen with her relationships with her mother and sister, with the pivotal moment being when she rescued her sister from a brothel in Boston in 1816.

ð  “Silvia...figures as a damsel in distress, the seduction novel’s deluded maiden, and the narrator herself at seventeen, as a valiant and virtuous rescuer”. – p.87 (Joycelyn Moody)

·         Francis Smith Foster makes an important reference to the fact that Prince doesn’t just alienate herself from “sentimental” women but seems to prefer taking the masculine role and that “the most admirable quality in a woman is not frailty but fearlessness”. – p.87 (Joycelyn Moody)

·         Nancy Prince’s narrative also demonstrates an explosion of gender dynamics taking place in different parts of society such as in the church. This is demonstrated when she visits Jamaica and gets into an argument with a female class-leader from the local church. She responds to being reproached for her outspokenness with “I told the minister that I did not come there to be guided by a poor foolish woman”. – p.51

Nancy’s Attitude Throughout her Narrative

Helping Others


Throughout her narrative Nancy focussed mainly on helping others. Right at the start of her narrative we can see her helping her family:


“With the sale of these fruits, my brother and myself nearly supported my mother and her children, that summer.” (p. 8)

• After the death of her step-father, Nancy and her brother worked all they could to support their family. Not only this but Nancy went onto help other people throughout her life. When she moved back to America, Nancy became determined to help people.

“I am indebted to God for his great goodness in guiding my youthful steps; my mind was directed to my fellow brethren whose circumstances were similar to my own.” (p. 41)

• From this we can see that Nancy wanted to help women who were in similar situations to herself. In addition, Nancy not only wanted to help women but she also wanted to help the younger generation.

“I hoped that I might aid, in some small degree, to raise up and encourage the emancipated inhabitants, and teach the young children to read and work” (p. 45)

• Therefore, these extracts from the narrative show how much Nancy devoted her life to help others around her.

Picture 4. Map of Jamaica

Changes in Intelligence


At the start of the narrative, Nancy did not hide the fact that she was “young and inexperienced” (p. 13). Even when she moved to St Petersburg with her husband, she talks of not being able to speak to language.


“My situation was the more painful, being alone, and not being able to speak” (p. 27)

• It seems as though Nancy was intimidated by foreign country. Although, not long after she began to adapt to life in St Petersburg.

“The common language is a mixture of Sclavonian and Polish. The nobility make use of the modern Greek, French and English. I learned the languages in six months” (p. 38)

• We can see how quickly Nancy learned a number of languages in a short period of time. Nancy wants the reader to see that she was intelligent.

Changes in Attitude


When Nancy went to Jamaica, we saw a different side to her as she was not afraid to hide her opinion.


“I spoke to her of the necessity of being born of the spirit of God before we become members of the church of Christ, and told her I was sorry to see the people blinded in such a way.” (p. 46)


“I soon found I was to be dismissed, unless I would yield obedience to this class-leader.” (p. 46)

• After Nancy spoke her mind, we can see it had consequences for her as she was to be dismissed. This outspoken Nancy was something that we had not seen in the narrative before.
• Whilst in Jamaica, Nancy began to see how untruthful the people were and she decided she did not want to help them any longer. When talking of the people she stated:

"It is not surprising that this people are full of deceit and lies, this is the fruits of slavery, it makes master and slaves knaves.” (p. 62)

• Although, Nancy was determined to help people when she returned to Jamaica after raising the money she did not want to help them as she saw how untruthful they were.

• At the start of the narrative we can see Nancy as a kind girl who was determined to help everyone. However, as the narrative progresses we can see that Nancy becomes more intelligent and aware of the world around her. In addition, she becomes more outspoken and is not afraid to speak her mind.

Bibliography

Picture 1:  http://txcdk1.unt.edu/TCRR/bitstream/handle/2188/716/11_african_am_women_and_wom_rights.htm?sequence=4

Picture 2: http://www.hist-sights.ru/gallery/art/album-17860/piter-16.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0AgENR1FhM&feature=player_embedded

Picture 3: http://b-womeninamericanhistory19.blogspot.com/2009/05/19th-century-photo-archives-african.html

Picture 4: http://mapoftheunitedstates.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/jamaica-map.jpg

Simpson-Housely, Paul Mapping the Sacred: Religion, Geography and Post Colonial Literatures (Editions Rodopi B V: Amsterdam, 2001)

Gunning, Sarah; “Nancy Prince and the Politics of Mobility, Home and Diasporic (Mis) Identification”; American Quarterly 53.1; (2001); 32-69 

Moody, Joycelyn; Sentimental Confessions: Spiritual Narratives of Nineteenth Century African American Women; University of Georgia Press; 2003