Mrs Seacole
Oct. 14th, 2021 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, by Mary Seacole
This had been on my to-read list for a while; without wishing to be too woke about it, Black History Month was perhaps a nudge. This edition starts with a somewhat awkward introduction by Sarah Salih, which draws attention to Seacole's writing about race - both her own and that of other people. The commentary is not without merit - Seacole describes herself as Creole, of "Scotch" (Scottish) / Jamaican heritage, has no time for slavery or the established racial prejudices of Americans in the early to mid nineteenth century, and is surprised by the less overt variant present in Britain; yet she also writes about black servants of her own in fairly dismissive terms - but I didn't feel it added much to what one would read in the main text itself.
The book is a highly selective autobiography, giving little detail of her childhood or short-lived marriage, but focusing instead on her work in providing basic medical care in Jamaica, mostly to the British garrison there, and then for some time in Panama, where she operated a hotel. She emerges as having the strong character necessary to pursue such a profession in the years of the Californian gold rush, when the most practical route from east to west was across central America. On hearing of the Crimean war, she ventured first to England, but was too late to apply for the initial tranche of nurses to be sent; furthermore, she sensed that, despite bearing testimonials from British soldiers in the Caribbean, "had there been a vacancy, I should not have been chosen to fill it."
But being outside the establishment did not put Seacole off, and with a relation of her late husband, she conspired to travel to the Crimea and set up the "British Hotel", where she would sell provisions, meals, and provide medical care to soldiers. Her meeting with Florence Nightingale in Scutari is documented only briefly; whilst respectful, it is difficult not to interpret it as tense; Nightingale's subsequent disapproving comments about Seacole's establishment carry to me a sense of naivety as much as anything else.
Seacole tells her story with good nature and humanity, and never with any bitterness, being phlegmatic about her financial losses (leading to bankruptcy) at the end of the war. It feels as though there is an element of playing to the gallery in her entertaining memoir, but the core is genuine.
This had been on my to-read list for a while; without wishing to be too woke about it, Black History Month was perhaps a nudge. This edition starts with a somewhat awkward introduction by Sarah Salih, which draws attention to Seacole's writing about race - both her own and that of other people. The commentary is not without merit - Seacole describes herself as Creole, of "Scotch" (Scottish) / Jamaican heritage, has no time for slavery or the established racial prejudices of Americans in the early to mid nineteenth century, and is surprised by the less overt variant present in Britain; yet she also writes about black servants of her own in fairly dismissive terms - but I didn't feel it added much to what one would read in the main text itself.
The book is a highly selective autobiography, giving little detail of her childhood or short-lived marriage, but focusing instead on her work in providing basic medical care in Jamaica, mostly to the British garrison there, and then for some time in Panama, where she operated a hotel. She emerges as having the strong character necessary to pursue such a profession in the years of the Californian gold rush, when the most practical route from east to west was across central America. On hearing of the Crimean war, she ventured first to England, but was too late to apply for the initial tranche of nurses to be sent; furthermore, she sensed that, despite bearing testimonials from British soldiers in the Caribbean, "had there been a vacancy, I should not have been chosen to fill it."
But being outside the establishment did not put Seacole off, and with a relation of her late husband, she conspired to travel to the Crimea and set up the "British Hotel", where she would sell provisions, meals, and provide medical care to soldiers. Her meeting with Florence Nightingale in Scutari is documented only briefly; whilst respectful, it is difficult not to interpret it as tense; Nightingale's subsequent disapproving comments about Seacole's establishment carry to me a sense of naivety as much as anything else.
Seacole tells her story with good nature and humanity, and never with any bitterness, being phlegmatic about her financial losses (leading to bankruptcy) at the end of the war. It feels as though there is an element of playing to the gallery in her entertaining memoir, but the core is genuine.