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Record: 1
Title: Preface.
Source: Century in Captivity, 2006, preceding p1
Document Type: Article
Subjects: PREFACES & forewords
SLAVERY
Abstract: A preface for the book "A Century in Captivity: The Life and Trials of
Prince Mortimer, a Connecticut Slave" is presented.
ISBN: 9781584655404
Lexile: 1230
FullTextWordCount: 1060
Accession Number: 38910213
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Cut and Paste: <A
href="http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.wesleyan.edu/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=khh&AN=38910213&site=eds-live">Preface.</A>
Database: History Reference Center

Preface
I first learned of Prince Mortimer in Richard Phelps's Newgate of Connecticut: Its Origin and Early History,
a classic account of Connecticut's famous Newgate Prison, a colonial copper mine converted in 1773 into
the country's first state prison and later used as a dungeon to confine Tories during the revolution. Writing
in 1844, Phelps gave a brief account of the life of this Connecticut slave:

Prince Mortimer, a prisoner, lived to a very advanced age. He died at the prison in Wethersfield, in 1834,
supposed to be 110 years old; he commonly went by the name of Guinea, which was probably given to
him on account of his native country. His complexion did not in the least belie his name, for surely he was
the personification of "darkness visible." His life was a tale of misfortunes, and his fate won the
commiseration of all who knew him. He was captured on the coast of Guinea by a slaver when a boy;
was transported in a filthy slave-ship to Connecticut, then a slave colony, and was sold to one of the
Mortimer family in Middletown. He was a servant to different officers in the Revolutionary War; had been
sent on errands by George Washington, and said he had "straddled many a cannon when fired by the
Americans at the British troops." For the alleged crime of poisoning his master he was doomed to
Newgate prison, in 1811, for life. He appeared a harmless, clever old man, and as his age and infirmities
rendered him a burden to the keepers, they frequently tried to induce him to quit the prison. Once he took
his departure, and after rambling around in search of some one he formerly knew, like the aged prisoner
released from the Bastille, he returned to the gates of the prison, and begged to be re-admitted to his
dungeon home, and in prison ended his unhappy years.

Frankly, this passage did not make any particular impression on me at this first reading; the appeal of
Prince's story struck me only after I reflected over the dates that Phelps mentions: Prince died in 1834, at
the stated age of 110. (Some have questioned the accuracy of that figure, but I have found nothing that
disproves it or even suggests a lesser age.) Since he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1811, that
meant, of course, that Prince's life as a prisoner began when he was 87. That also meant that Prince
spent the next 23 years as an inmate, most of them within the stone-walled enclosures of Newgate,
reputedly then the worst prison in America.

It was at that point that I became irretrievably drawn into the story of Prince Mortimer, prompting me to
embark on a five-year course of investigation to learn more about his life. Prince had spent eight decades
as a slave before going to prison. What had he done during all that time? Who was this master that
Prince despised so much, and what could have prompted him to engage in such an ill-conceived criminal
act? How could such a sick, elderly man survive in prison for so long a time, especially in such a
notorious place as Newgate?

These were the questions that I needed to explore, but I soon learned how naive I was in believing that
the answers were readily available to anyone with a modicum of research ability. As it turned out, the
Phelps passage constitutes the only secondary-source reference to Prince Mortimer to be found
anywhere. But for this passage, in the 17 decades since Prince's death no one has deemed fit to write
another word about him.

For eleven long and arduous decades, however, Prince Mortimer lived. Certainly there had to be some
evidence of that fact, but where to look? Perhaps there were newspaper reports of his trial, or perhaps
his death? Nothing. Connecticut's newspapers in 1834 were content to print column after column relating
minute details of the most recent agricultural fair, but the death of a man at the age of 110 was apparently
not worthy of their attention. The same held true for Prince's trial and conviction.

I suppose this should not have come as a surprise, since throughout his life Prince Mortimer subsisted in
the lowest echelons of society, first as a slave and then as a prisoner. Short of inciting a rebellion, no one
from either of those stations would be likely to catch the attention of many others--certainly not the press.
Ultimately, I would come to discover that the sum and substance of every shred of available direct
information on the life of Prince Mortimer would not fill a single page.

That would prove to be enough, however, to provide me with clues to the people and events that shaped
the life of Prince Mortimer, and this book is the result of that inquiry. I am reluctant to refer to this story as
a biography; usually that term is reserved for a work that explores the achievements of a person of some
renown. Despite the obvious fact that Prince does not even begin to qualify under that definition, there
remains something compelling about his life, something that certainly drew me to learn more, and
something that I hope will prompt readers to do likewise through this book.

There may be some who will question the value of a study based on so little empirical information. To
those persons, I would note two points. First, although little is known about the particulars of Prince's life
in prison, a considerable amount has been written about the difficult conditions he and other inmates
endured in that environment. To learn about those conditions is to learn about Prince Mortimer, because
the essence of his story is suffering and endurance. Second, Prince's story does not derive its meaning
from a series of defining events; quite to the contrary, its meaning lies in their absence. This is a story of
perseverance, of a man who lived on in the face of a neverending series of indistinguishable days, each
one filled with yet another dose of yesterday's privations and suffering. Viewed from that perspective, A
Century in Captivity stands for the proposition that even the lowliest of men can lead lives that are worthy
of note and from which all men can derive meaningful lessons.

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