CECILY JONES


two, tree or four wives" (Wright 87). How, she mused, were the blacks to
acquire sexual morality when daily they witnessed the depravity of their
masters?
 White women also suffered from their husbands' sexual relations with
 black and coloured women. They were injured by the knowledge of their
 husband's mulatto mistresses and offspring, and white family life was
 disrupted as wives and children were forced to endure the constant evidence
 of white male's penchants for black and mulatto women. Discord reigned in
 white households as husbands neglected and mistreated their wives in favour
 of mulatto mistresses, and at times, jealousies over these illicit relationships
 could end in tragedy. Nugent's journal records one such murder. Slavery
 therefore retarded the development of strong family structures among both
 black and white populations.
 It would be difficult to argue that Mrs. Nugent recognized any common
ground between herself and enslaved women. She recognized flaws in the
institution, but stopped far short of offering a sustained criticism of slavery
itself. To do so would have required a critical questioning of the basis of the
justification of slavery, and Maria Nugent, though asserting her belief in the
humanity of Africans, nevertheless perceived them as a species of inferior
beings. Christianity represented the surest route to African salvation and
ultimately, contentment with their lot. Imparting the word of God was a task
she undertook seriously, insisting that her own domestics be taught religion,
daily teaching them their catechisms, providing them with Christian tracts,
and organising their baptisms.
 Maria Nugent often described Africans as "childlike," and "happy" yet
paradoxically her Jamaican sojourn was constantly overshadowed by fear
of these childlike peoples. When in 1802 news reached Jamaica of a black
uprising in St. Domingo in which 320 white people had been massacred, Mrs.
Nugent had to revise her opinion of these 'children.' While professing the
loyalty of her own slaves, there was ample evidence all around her that the
enslaved of Jamaica were not immune from revolutionary fervour, and might
be tempted to emulate their Haitian counterparts. Rumours of real or actual
conspiracies constantly circulated throughout Jamaica, leaving Mrs. Nugent
in a persistent state of worry for her family, and one that would not abate
until the summer of 1805, when the threat of an imminent uprising persuaded
George Nugent of the necessity of his family's departure from Jamaica.
 Seven years separated the publications of Lady Nugent's Jamaica Journal
and Mary Prince's autobiographical narrative of her experiences of slavery.
Mary Prince's testimony, however, was not that of a free, elite white woman,
but that of an enslaved African woman. This first person testimony represents
a rare female voice, but the History's value exceeds it's rarity; within anti-
slavery discourse, the History acquired immense propaganda worth, as for
the first-time, an enslaved woman's own voice exposed British audiences to
the reality of the indignities, humiliations, and brutalities suffered by the