Rachel Pringle Polgreen and the Royal Navy Hotel

This hand coloured painting of Rachel Pringle Polgreen was published after her death. In addition, the painter, Thomas Rowlandson was a known satirist who exaggerated the features of his subjects. It is unlikely that Rachel Pringle Polgreen resembled this image, however it is the only image of this woman that exists.

Rowlandson, Thomas. Rachel Pringle Polgreen. Photograph. BlackPast. 1796. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/polgreen-rachel-pringle-1753-1791.

The story of Rachel Pringle Polgreen is one that is as intriguing in its tragedy as it is in its success. Born to an enslaved African mother and her white owner, being a black woman born in the 1700s not only disadvantaged Rachel on the terms of being black but also due to her womanhood. Throughout her life she suffered a particular brand of misogynoir that dominated every aspect of her life which she eventually and effectively navigated and wielded for her own benefit.

Though Rachel Pringle Polgreen, was born in 1753 to two parents, it was her father who is remembered in history, this was of course partly due to the nature of her mother’s enslavement and the constant erasure of black bodies in history, but it was also partly due to her father’s legacy, not only in her story but also his own. William Lauder, a Scottish classical scholar, had found himself humiliated and his reputation mired because he, jealous of his own personal failures and seeking public opinion, published a series of essays attempting to disparage the poet John Milton by claiming that his poem, Paradise Lost was nothing more than than a patchwork of stolen quotations from earlier latin poems. He did so by creating his own latin lines and garbling others which he then used as proof. However, his forgery of these lines was quickly found out and after being forced to confess and apologise in public he fled to Barbados in 1750 (Encyclopedia Britannica n.d.).

There is a belief started during slavery that mulatto, coloured or ‘red women’ are inherently lewd, promiscuous and sexual (Brathwaite 1971), a belief that still proliferates today. This perceived reputation as well as their desirability due to their proximity to whiteness served to increase the sexual assault and rape against women of fairer complexion by white men. It was here where William Lauder sunk even lower. After fathering Rachel Pringle Polgreen, he attempted to sexually abuse her. When she rebuffed him, he became physically abusive (Nielsen 2017). Perhaps this could be a consequence of his virulent racism that he did not even view her as his own daughter, perhaps it was something even more sinister. Whatever it was, it was so serious that upon the age of 16 Captain Thomas Pringle, a relative of the Lauders offered her a house and her freedom. This did not come without a price however, as it came at the cost of sexual favours.

Rachel Pringle was no fool, playing the hand she was dealt with the deftness of a poker champion, she dropped her father’s name Lauder and adopted the name Pringle (Nielsen 2017). By doing this she tethered herself to a man with significantly more repute than a disgraced poet and failed tavern owner, potentially opening doors previously closed due to her association with him. It would appear she perhaps attempted another genius move afterwards, allegedly faking a pregnancy to establish even more influence over Captain Pringle. However after the end of the scandal he left her and headed for Jamaica. She then took the name of James Polgreen, another prominent Barbadian, however there is no evidence of a relationship between them (Nielsen 2017).

White men in general throughout the Caribbean, British migrants, creole whites and navy/ military officers regularly engaged in sexual relations with black women on the islands (Nielsen 2017) an experience forever documented in the story Shabine by Hazel Simmons-McDonald. In 1780 Rachel opened a tavern on Canary Street called the Royal Navy Hotel. In doing so she made history, becoming the first black woman to open a tavern in Barbados. Essentially a brothel, it provided sexual pleasures to the sailors of the British Royal Navy. Its name comes from an alleged story with then Prince William Henry who along with his 49th Regiment destroyed said hotel in a drunken rage. Rachel Pringle, with the brazenness and intelligence that had served her well so far, sent a bill for the damages the next day. This impressed the Prince, so he not only paid back for his damages but also provided enough money for improvements in its grandeur.

Crichlow, David. Building Where The Royal Navy Hotel Was Held. Photograph. Barbados Pocket Guide. 1978. https://www.barbadospocketguide.com/our-island-barbados/bridgetown/hotels.html

The Royal Navy Hotel prospered.  By the 1790s, Bridgetown’s tax records list Polgreen as the owner of a residence, two smaller houses, five tenements, and two other homes on the island. However her wealth was not without some caveats, her 19 workers were in fact her slaves (Nielsen 2017) and she herself was prone to anger and violence against them (Fuentes 2010). Upon her death on July 21, 1791 she freed 6, bequeathing the others to those that she freed (Nielsen 2017). It is unquestionably wrong to subject women to these sorts of experiences against their will and while it was a common practice it was still unethical.

Indeed there is much to be said about freed coloured people and mulattos valuing their own proximity to whiteness to other themselves from darker skinned black people. One of the most common ways to do this was to own a slave oneself, allowing an owner to both mimic their white counterparts as well as denounce their blackness. That is without mention of the economic incentive, as owning even one slave was viewed as a worthwhile investment by many individuals of middling to high income. In the case of Rachel Polgreen, it is important to note that these factors as well as her own upbringing played perhaps the greatest role in her subjugation of other black women for her own gain. One cannot separate the agency she gained from this and it is important to remember when celebrating her success.

Rachel Pringle Polgreen navigated the obscenely difficult world of colonial Barbados, fighting to overcome not only her race but her gender. Yet she managed in her short 38 years not only to survive but thrive. Rising above her station as an enslaved girl of an abusive father to becoming the first black woman to own a tavern in Barbados.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Braithwaite, Kamau. The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770-1820. Okford: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Fuentes, Marissa J. “Power and Historical Figuring: Rachael Pringle Polgreen's Troubled Archive.” Gender & History 22, no. 3 (November 2010): 564–84.

Nielsen, Euell A. “Rachel Pringle Polgreen (1753-1791) •.” BlackPast, February 25, 2020. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/polgreen-rachel-pringle-1753-1791/.

“Rachel Pringle Polgreen.” Slavery and Remembrance. Accessed March 5, 2022. https://slaveryandremembrance.org/people/person/?id=PP025.

“William Lauder.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Accessed March 7, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Lauder.