Catherine Smikle-Watt, matriarch of  our Sewell family was born in Davyton, in the parish of Manchester in Jamaica on May 6, 1850. Her father was Pa Smikle and her mother Mammie. Smikle an Ashanti young woman captured from a small village in Ghana and brought to the island as a slave at the age of 13. Pa Smikle (Christian name unknown), fell in love with her married her and then bought her freedom from her masters so that their children when born would be free individuals.

This period of time in which she is born, is one of economic chaos and social upheaval. Seventeen years prior to her birth, Britain, the sovereign ruler of the island , by the Slave Emancipation Act of 1833 enacted by the British Parliament, had abolished slavery and slave trade in the island and other colonies of the British Commonwealth. This led to a rapid deterioration of the island’s real estate and farm productivity. Estates that produced sugar, coffee and banana were abandoned leaving a devastating impact of economic crisis on the island and its society.

A renown historian of the era argued in his book “Jamaica in 1850” that the problems faced by the island was one due largely to the incompetence of its absent white land-owners and an outdated colonial system. He highlighted the resilience of these former slaves who had become successful small scale landowners and entrepeneurs despite the challenges they faced.

There are no records that document her birth because that there was no designated standards for capturing such data.  It was not until  1875 that with the help of the British the Jamaica Registrar Department was  initiated and a systematic  process developed for documenting each birth, death and marriage that took place on the island. A geneaologist of the Smikle-Phillips family, Danielle Phillips, acknowledged and documented the fact that she found Catherine’s name among five others listed on the deed to property her parents later bought.

Since no other records exist the first information available on Catherine was her marriage on March 6, 1872 to Henry Watt of Belaire, Manchester. They were married in the Davyton Union Chapel by Rev. George Bailey. Their attendants, who served as witnesses were James Russell and Louisa Ann Francis.

Her first child, Rosa Ann Watt, was born on October 1, 1871. The other children Jestina (1877), Elizabeth (1878), Catharine Adina (1880), Female child (1882), Female child (1883), George (1886), Henry Joseph (1886), John (1893) and Eustine (1893) were all born while the family lived at Belaire. They later relocated to Banana Ground, Manchester where they bought a much larger property.

Catherine’s husband, Henry Watt died in 1913 shortly after they relocated and  seven years later she died 0n June 23, 1920.