Prince, Nancy, A Black woman's odyssey through Russia and Jamaica: the narrative of Nancy Prince. introduction by Ronald G. Walters, Pub. New York : M. Wiener Pub., 1990

A Black Woman's Odyssey Through Russia and Jamaica is a narrative based on a black American woman named Nancy Garner Prince.  The self-published book, appearing for the first time in 1850, is significant because of the unique circumstances that make her autobiography; Prince is a free black American woman before the outbreak of the civil war. Her accounts are chronicles leading the reader through her family and childhood struggles, trips to foreign Russia, Jamaica and the U.S. within an 18-year time span.

Prince’s journey begins on September 15th 1799, her birth date, in Newburyport, Massachusetts. She marries her husband, Nero Prince, [pg16] in 1824 and leaves for Russia for him to serve the tsar, where she lives for 9 years. Her experiences include the flooding of St. Petersburg in 1824, the succession crises, Decembrist revolt, and the death of Tsar Alexander I. In 1840 she moves to Jamaica after the British Parliament passes the Emancipation Act in 1835. During her travels to Jamaica she survives a near capture by pirates and a shipwreck. Once she arrives she witnesses the turmoil end of slavery.

After a few months, Prince returns to America in the fall of 1842 where she engages actively in achieving schools, asylums and programs of spiritual instructions for, mostly, children.

Prince’s narrative gives perspectives on events that are relatively uncommon for a woman of her status during that time. Consequently, she is given the liberty of analyzing her own oppression based on race and gender, yet she does not fully condemn the social circumstances, but concentrates her writings on self-discover and self-fulfillment. The book depicts the history of Russia and the current society well. The book is intended to spur inspiration and address difference in race behavior in countries. Good for readers interested in foreign history, society and race relations.

(AB 2006)