"To BE FREE IS VERY SWEET:" RACIAULSED REPRESENTATIONS OF SLAVERY... 79

enslaved within British colonies. Mary's memoirs represent a direct assault
on the institution of slavery, but above all, the History bears testimony to
how the powerless may, with tenacity, courage and strength, become
instruments of their own freedom.
 In a Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft argues
that patriarchal marriage reduced European women to a state analogous to
that of slavery. Patriarchy established white women's subordination, but
perhaps their self-representation as slaves was to overstate their case.
Enslaved African women certainly recognized the subordination of European
women under male patriarchal rule. They perceived inequalities that
structured gender relations between white women and men, and
acknowledged that patriarchal wrath could descend equally on both black
and white women. Yet few would have accepted that white women's
subordination was tantamount to enslavement. White women enjoyed some
property rights, could be educated, and were afforded the protection of the
law from abusive husbands. No such redress was available to the enslaved
who suffered brutality at the hands of masters and mistresses. Enslaved
women understood too that while many mistresses might be humane in their
treatment of their slaves, ultimately, they still held rights of ownership over
the slave body. Their association with the household sphere meant that
mistresses and enslaved women, especially household domestics, lived
together in close proximity, and sometimes forged intimate relationships
across the racial barriers. Maria Nugent's accounts of her regular levees with
the black and coloured women of King's House reveals close 'friendships'
that could arise between free white and enslaved black women. Yet, while
they recognized their shared gender, enslaved women acutely perceived their
own alienation from dominant models of womanhood, and the privileges
that accrued to white women by virtue of their proximity to, and intimate
and familial relationships with, white males. Enslaved women would gladly
have exchanged their chattel status for the free status enjoyed by their
mistresses. To be sure, white women lacked formal social power, but these
women of African descent knew the true meaning of enslavement. Mary
Prince was well aware of what it really meant to be a slave.
 "I have been a slave myself I know what slaves feel I can tell by myself
what other slaves feel, and by what they have told me. The man that says
slaves be quite happy in slavery that they don't want to be free that man
is either ignorant or a lying person. I never heard a slave say so" (Ferguson
94.). Thus declares Mary Prince to her readers of her History. In asserting
the privilege of experience, Prince undermines Nugent's representation of
colonial slavery as an essentially benevolent, paternalistic institution. Maria
Nugent's observations could enable her to claim herself a knowledgeable
authority on slavery, but Mary Prince's testimony represents a potent
denouncement of slavery from the perspective of one who had herself been
enslaved.