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Mary Seacole was a Jamaican nurse and medicine woman for British soldiers during the Crimean War, which was fought between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish. Seacole was born Mary Jane Grant in Kingston in 1805. Her father was a Scottish white man and her mother was a free black Jamaican woman.  Seacole learned medicine from her mother, who cared for the sick in her boarding house. In 1836, Grant married Edwin Horatio Seacole. The couple traveled to the Bahamas and the Eastern Caribbean where Seacole was educated on medicines to treat various illnesses. Unfortunately, Horatio Seacole passed away after only eight years of marriage.

In 1854, Seacole asked to help the British soldiers on the front line in four separate requests, but was refused because of her race. Instead, she set up a store in a hotel to sell supplies and remedies. She also helped to treat the soldiers at the local hospital and even walked the battlefield with the soldiers that she sometimes referred to as her “sons.” The men often referred to her a “Florence” in reference to Florence Nightingale. Seacole was known for the best cholera and dysentery medicine, which were likely Creole remedies learned from her mother’s instruction.

Little Known Black History Fact: Mary Seacole  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com

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