Recasting Mrs Seacole

In the second half of the 20th century, Mary Seacole was cast as a saint, almost in true Catholic fashion. (In fact, I wrote one of the original fanzines!) The truth is, she was a complex human being, like each one of us. Most significantly, she was a product of the British colonial system, operating in a world that deliberately restricted and controlled options for women and which defined ‘White’ so narrowly it excluded Irish people. 

Despite the hype, while the Jamaican migrant was inevitably more successful than the common huckster class, she was an amateur businesswoman by comparison with the celebrated contemporary African-American, illiterate, self-liberated, female entrepreneurs. Furthermore, even taking account of the rabid discrimination she faced for not being 'pure White', and her perceived lack of formal European training, Seacole could be more accurately described as a medical practitioner. She was part of an historical cadre of accomplished, locally trained women by women that included Native Americans, Kalinagos, and first generation Africans living in the circum Caribbean and mainland American continent. 

From political, social and environmental necessity, these doctresses created and maintained robust healthcare systems and practices in their communities, with resources that were deliberately and severely limited by the  "Great Controllers" or Buckras (and their allies), who dismissed the women's efforts as rudimentary. (Familiar?)

In fact, the treatments provided by doctresses were more sustainable and efficacious than anything the male, White migrants could supply (whether schooled in Europe or not). The evidence is irrefutable: tens of millions of us survived over centuries because of the former's care and curing, delivered often under the most gruelling prison camp conditions on earth and in history, or under extremes of poverty. That is testament enough to the superiority of their skill sets.  [And don't forget, by Seacole's time - she labelled her version 'Creole medical art' (Alexander & Dewjee, p59) - any and all Whites around us who had money, trusted and paid privately - one way or another - for traditional medical care]. 

Not surprisingly, Mary was rightly proud of her mixed heritage - three white grandparents, one white parent and possibly a mother whose African ancestry was complimented by European / Jewish antecedents. Just before her Crimean adventure she identified herself as a 'motherly yellow woman' (Alexander & Dewjee, p124). In addition, some of Mary's siblings may have had different Jewish fathers, while hers was White Scottish. [John Bigelow, wrote in Jamaica in 1850 (London, 1851): 'the proportion of Jews of all colours is fearfully great. I had never seen a black Jew before, and I was astonished to find how little the expression of the Israelite profile was affected by colour. My imagination could never have combined the sharp and cunning features of Isaac with the thick lipped, careless, unthinking countenance of Cudjo; but nature has done it perfectly, if that can be called a combination in which the negro furnishes the colour and the Jew all the rest of the expression. What will be the ultimate consequence of this corruption of the African blood, is a question which the wise men of Jamaica are already beginning to scratch their heads' (p15).]

In this toxic, racialised pool of nineteenth century colonial oppression and ethnic and religious mixing and conflict, it is hardly surprising that, by her own admission, Seacole called people who looked like me "niggers", could barely find a good word to say about nationalities other than the British, nor religions that were not Christian. True to the prevailing British anti-Catholic attitudes of the day, she even called out Central American Catholics, despite having converted to Catholicism herself. But, although she lived in accordance with the main societal contradictions, maintained routine allegiance to Empire and apparently accepted “Whiteness” as superior, (not uncommon for individuals groomed from an early age to laud the 'Mother Country'), she extended her humanitarian and charitable works to all peoples and creeds wherever she was stationed in the world.

For that alone, she is an undisputed NSE (non specific ethnicity) icon. 

“What Did Mary Seacole Ever Do For Us As Black People?”. Dotun Adebayo questions whether the pioneering nurse deserves the title of 'greatest black Briton'. 05/07/2015 https://archive.voice-online.co.uk/article/what-did-mary-seacole-ever-do-us-black-people

“The new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.... increased the number of entries for women... . But the historian and broadcaster Dr Starkey was dismissive of the new emphasis on women.... ‘This is typical of a certain type of political correctness that's becoming a part of all our lives," he said. "They have greatly lowered the bar. It is a very conscious attempt to move away from the traditional three Ss of Leslie Stephen: the soldier, the statesman and the scholar...

We saw it with the re-invention of Mary Seacole, the Crimean War nurse, as opposed to Florence Nightingale....’”

“Should Linda McCartney join Elizabeth I in the revered bible of late, great Britons?” (2004). The Independent (29 August). https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/should-linda-mccartney-join-elizabeth-i-in-the-revered-bible-of-late-great-britons-5544565.html