Rachel Pringle, Barbados, 1796
Shows Pringle at the age of about 36 sitting in front of her hotel/tavern/house of prostitution in Bridgetown, capital of Barbados. The white man on left, presumably a planter has elephantiasis, a manifestation of filariasis, a common disease in West Africa during the era of the slave trade. In Barbados the disease mainly afflicted blacks but was also found among the island's white population. (For details on the disease, see Jerome Handler, Diseases and Medical Disabilities of Enslaved Barbadians [Journal of Caribbean History, vol. 40 (2006): 20-22.) Rachel Pringle was born a slave around 1753, the daughter of an African woman and her master, a Scottish schoolmaster. In the 1770s, she became the first free woman of color to own a hotel-tavern (and house of prostitution) in Barbados. When she died in 1792, at the age of 38, she was relatively wealthy. See Jerome S. Handler, Joseph Rachell and Rachael Pringle-Polgreen: Petty Entrepreneurs, in D.G. Sweet and G. B. Nash, eds., Struggle and Survival in Colonial America (Univ. of California Press, 1981), pp. 376-391. (Slide of engraving, courtesy of the late Neville Connell, Director of the Barbados Museum.)
Image Title
Rachel Pringle, Barbados, 1796
RegID
SI-OB-524
Date
1796
Title
Rachel Pringle, Barbados, 1796
Source
Illustration by Thomas Rowlandson, published separately by William Holland (London, 1796). Engraving held by the Barbados Museum.
Language
English
Item sets
Portraits & Illustrations of Individuals
Spatial Coverage
Caribbean--Barbados
Researchers
Handler, Jerome; Tuite, Michael; Randall Ericson; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
18-Mar-16
Identifier
NW0184