Book Review: a Century in Captivity: the Life and Trials of Prince Mortimer, a Connecticut Slave - Denis R. Caron. University of New Hampshire Press 2006. 188 Pp
| Publication year | 2021 |
| Pages | 201 |
79 CBJ 201. BOOK REVIEW: A Century in Captivity: The Life and Trials of Prince Mortimer, a Connecticut Slave - Denis R. Caron. University of New Hampshire Press 2006. 188 pp
Volume 79, No. 3
Denis R. Caron, who has made a major contribution to Connecticut legal scholarship with his treatise on foreclosures,(fn1) has branched out into history with his A Century in Captivity. The book is not only the biography of an inmate of early American prisons, it brims with discussion of a variety of topics relevant to the study of law in the 19th century.
The story of Prince Mortimer is the intended theme of the book. Mortimer was brought to Middletown, Connecticut, as a slave in the 1700s. He eventually worked as a spinner in his master's rope-making factory. He also served in the Revolutionary War. It was quite common for slaves in Connecticut to be freed from bondage because of war service, but this did not happen in Mortimer's case. Nor did his master, a wealthy Middletown citizen, Philip Mortimer, free Prince Mortimer in his will, but he did grant Prince Mortimer his freedom in a deathbed codicil. The codicil was overturned by George Starr, the husband of the main legatee, in a will contest brought in 1795. In 1811, it was thought that Prince Mortimer attempted to poison Starr with arsenic. He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison at Connecticut's infamous Newgate Prison.
What makes the story unique is that Prince Mortimer was said to be 87 at the time of his conviction. He died in prison in 1834, making him 110 years old. Caron cannot verify Mortimer's age, but an old text of 1844 asserts that he was ancient, and Caron states that he cannot find any evidence to alter the figures. Moreover Mortimer was inflicted with a disease not known in the Western world today, yaws. The disease was an infection that Mortimer likely contracted on the slave ship that brought him to this country; it had a devastating effect on its sufferers, causing swelling and other disfigurement to the face. Caron speculates: Was it the old cure for yaws - arsenic - that was the true reason that
Mortimer had poison in his possession?
Caron had just a few documents to work with when telling Mortimer's...
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