Advertise With Us
About Us
Listen
Watch

Login

/

Subscribe

Home

News

Carnival

Business

Sports

E-Paper

Features

Opinion

Traffic Cameras

Life

Classifieds

Death Notices

Community

Real Estate

About Us

Contact Us

Home
News
Carnival
Sports
E-paper
Business
Classifieds
Other
Death Notices
Traffic Cameras
Covid-19
Features
Opinion
Games
Subscriptions
Real Estate

Back In Times

Rosetta Smith, Lady Governor of Trinidad

by

#meta[ag-author]
20130309

An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

It is no se­cret that the im­mense­ly di­verse eth­nic pot­pour­ri of Trinidad's his­to­ry has pro­duced the most beau­ti­ful women in the world. Al­most every white man of sub­stance had his coloured mis­tress in days of yore. The fa­bled at­trac­tion of the mu­lat­to woman had its ef­fect on the fear­some Sir Thomas Pic­ton, who ruled with an iron hand as the first British gov­er­nor from 1797-1803. Pic­ton sent forth pimps to search out a mis­tress.

They came across Roset­ta Smith, a free coloured belle who was mar­ried and who lust­ed af­ter pow­er and wealth. She was per­suad­ed to leave her hus­band to share the bed of the most pow­er­ful man in the colony.

As is the para­dox of most tyrants, Pic­ton was com­plete­ly bazodee over Roset­ta. In or­der to give her a per­son­al in­come, he played Trinidad's na­tion­al game of bobol and award­ed her the lu­cra­tive fire­wood-sup­ply con­tract for the en­camped British reg­i­ment.

With this, Roset­ta was able to ac­quire a res­i­dence, which she trans­formed in­to a high-class bor­del­lo where the most in­flu­en­tial men of the colony (se­nior mil­i­tary of­fi­cers, rich planters, mer­chants etc) would seek plea­sures. This was of­ten to be their bane, how­ev­er, since Roset­ta bribed every one of her fe­male "friends" to ex­tract per­son­al se­crets from the rav­ished men on their per­son­al as­sets as well as their opin­ions of Gov­er­nor Pic­ton.

Roset­ta be­came the La­dy Gov­er­nor in all but name. She would vis­it well-to-do pris­on­ers in the gaol which stood near Ma­rine Square and elic­it bribes from them to have their sen­tences light­ened. She would whisk mag­nif­i­cent­ly in­to all the stores and make off with what­ev­er mer­chan­dise tick­led her fan­cy–no charge, of course, for the Gov­er­nor's "La­dy."

One Scots­man dared to protest, send­ing Roset­ta in a huff to her man, who had the mer­chant dragged be­fore him to be in­car­cer­at­ed, say­ing:"You are a pret­ty fel­low, a damned in­so­lent Ja­co­bite ras­cal. I'll make an ex­am­ple of you to show the ras­cals I gov­ern that I will be obeyed."

Twice a week, Roset­ta held a lev­ee at her per­son­al cham­bers where syco­phants and pe­ti­tion­ers for favour flocked thick­ly. There were those whose sense of ho­n­our did not al­low them to grov­el to Roset­ta, and among these were the Wid­ow Grif­fith and her two young daugh­ters. Roset­ta made them an "of­fer" to buy their house on Queen Street, and when the wid­ow re­fused, the res­i­dence was bar­ri­cad­ed by sol­diers, thus con­fin­ing the oc­cu­pants to house ar­rest.

They were even de­prived of food and wa­ter, be­ing sur­rep­ti­tious­ly aid­ed by a gen­tle­man neigh­bour who smug­gled in small pro­vi­sions through a back win­dow un­til the sol­diers dis­cov­ered his guile and en­camped in the back­yard too.

Af­ter two days of com­plete siege, Mrs Grif­fith sold the house to Roset­ta for a mere pit­tance. Pic­ton was re­called to Eng­land in 1803 and Roset­ta mar­ried a re­spectable coloured man and raised the two chil­dren she had by the Gov­er­nor. She died in rel­a­tive ob­scu­ri­ty, but her de­scen­dants still ex­ist in Trinidad in sev­er­al present-day fam­i­lies.


Click HERE to Login

Want FREE access to all our content? Sign up HERE!

Tagged in:

Responses

Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Trending

Acting CoP suspends officer in traffic warden viral video
Nine Vindra Naipaul-Coolman murder accused to receive $20M from State
Cop captured in social media row with Traffic Warden suspended
Harewood-Christopher in pole position for CoP job
State must pay $20m for failed Naipaul-Coolman case
President sends Erla Christopher's name to Parliament for CoP nominee debate
Highest-ranking name for new Police Commissioner delivered to President
Griffith silent on Kamla’s call for unity: PDP, Duke, some ex-UNC MPs not interested
Piarco records the lowest temperature in January in 10 years
US resident held with ammo in Piarco airport
Today's
Guardian
View
Subscribe

Publications

Hungry Ghosts

Hungry Ghosts

Hungry Ghosts

Hungry Ghosts

Pain, power and poison...a review of Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

20230126132207
2022 TS Eliot Prize winner Anthony Joseph as he reads from his winning collection of poems Sonnets for Albert at the award ceremony in London on January 16.

2022 TS Eliot Prize winner Anthony Joseph as he reads from his winning collection of poems Sonnets for Albert at the award ceremony in London on January 16.

Adrian Pope

2022 TS Eliot Prize winner Anthony Joseph as he reads from his winning collection of poems Sonnets for Albert at the award ceremony in London on January 16.

2022 TS Eliot Prize winner Anthony Joseph as he reads from his winning collection of poems Sonnets for Albert at the award ceremony in London on January 16.

Adrian Pope

2022 TS Eliot poetry prize winner memorialises 'charismatic' father

20230126141654

Numbness in your feet?

20230123072450

Your walking gear matters!

20230116101944
Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

News

Business

Sports

Life

Opinion

Tobago Today

Classifieds

Death Notices

Subscriptions

Real Estate

Categories

News
Business
Sports
Features
Opinion
Traffic Cameras
Death Notices

INFORMATION

About Us
Contact Us
Advertise With Us
Privacy Policy
Subscriptions
Terms of Services

Digital Media

The Big Board Company.
Real Estate
Classifieds

TELEVISION

CNC3 Television

RADIO

951 Remix
Sangeet 106.1 FM
Sky 99.5FM
Slam 100.5 FM
Vibe CT 105 FM
Mix 90.1 FM (Guyana)
Freedom 106.5 FM

About Us

Guardian Media is the premier provider of multimedia solutions and authoritative insight on news, politics, business, finance, sports, and current affairs. Our brand portfolio includes CNC3, Guardian, TBC Radio Network and The Big Board Company.

Contact us

Send us an e-mail here or call us at +1-(868)-225-4465

Follow us