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‘Let’s get the facts right about Mary Seacole’
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MISUNDERSTOOD?: Mary Seacole
I have two wishes for 2010 and the first is that we all join forces to raise sufficient money for a memorial of Mary Seacole on the site donated by St Thomas’ hospital in London.
It will be a 10 foot bronze statue, lit at night and visible from across Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. My second is that journalists writing about Seacole should at least check what she actually said about black people.
I have to refute Tony Sewell’s assertion that ‘there is no evidence that Mary Seacole had any sympathy for the plight of the black masses’ (Voice, December 7). Reading her 1857 autobiography, the ‘Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands’, yes she did use the ‘N’ word, twice in speaking to Americans. Whilst this understandably causes shockwaves when read today, she did not use the word in a derogatory way. In her autobiography Seacole also describes how racist American women negatively used the word against her in demanding that she get off a boat about to sail to Jamaica. Otherwise in her book Seacole uses the words ‘black’, ‘creole’, ‘negro’ or ‘coloured’.
If people took the trouble to read all 19 chapters they would realise that Seacole, of Jamaican and Scottish parentage, had great empathy and affinity for black people.
My suspicion is that some people just echo what others have written, having never read her book or merely dipped into it. In the opening pages she remarks that: ‘I have often heard the term ‘lazy Creole’ applied to my country people; but I am sure I do not know what it is to be indolent.’ This is not however typical of the type of observations she makes about black people as shown by the following examples:
Chapter 2: ‘..my experience of travel had not failed to teach me that Americans (even from the Northern States) are always uncomfortable in the company of coloured people, and very often show this feeling in stronger ways than by sour looks and rude words. I think, if I have a little prejudice against our cousins across the Atlantic – and I do confess to a little – it is not unreasonable. I have a few shades of deeper brown upon my skin which shows me related – and I am proud of the relationship – to those poor mortals whom you once held enslaved, and whose bodies America still owns. And having this bond, and knowing what slavery is; having seen with my eyes and heard with my ears proof positive enough of its horrors – let others affect to doubt them if they will – is it surprising that I should be somewhat impatient of the airs of superiority which many Americans have endeavoured to assume over me?’
Chapter 6: An American in Panama was applauded after foolishly suggesting in toasting Seacole’s single-handed management of a cholera outbreak that: “… if we could bleach her by any means we would —, and thus make her as acceptable in any company as she deserves to be." Seacole recalled her anger ‘burning, as I was, to tell them my mind on the subject of my colour. Indeed, if my brother had not checked me, I should have given them my thoughts somewhat too freely’. Instead, and here using the ‘n’ word, replied: “….But, I must say, that I don't altogether appreciate your friend's kind wishes with respect to my complexion. If it had been as dark as any ‘n*****s’, I should have been just as happy and as useful, and as much respected by those whose respect I value; ….
Sir William Howard Russell, the eminent Crimean war correspondent for The Times wrote in 1857: ‘I trust that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some of her illustrious dead’. The way she overcame discrimination, together with her nursing expertise in Jamaica, Panama and the Crimea is why we all need to support the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal.
* Voice readers can donate to the appeal online at: www.maryseacoleappeal.org.uk or to discuss organizing a fundraising event with the charity by emailing contact@maryseacoleappeal.org.uk
* Professor Elizabeth Anionwu CBE FRCN, is the Emeritus Professor of Nursing at Thames Valley University. She is also vice-chairperson of the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal
Published: 11 January 2010
Issue: 1405
