Mary Seacole lived more than 150 years ago and had an adventurous life travelling across many lands to run businesses and help people in need. By the time Mary was 12 years old, she was helping her mother for real. And in 1853, when Mary was much older, she used her skills to treat a lot of people suffering from a nasty disease called cholera. Migration to Gorgona – Farewell Dinners and Speeches – A Building Speculation – Life in Gorgona – Sympathy with American Slaves – Dr. Casey in Trouble – Floods and Fires – Yankee Independence and Freedom One night I heard a great noise outside my window, and on rising found a poor boatman moaning piteously, and in a strange jumble of many languages begging me to help him. At first I was afraid to open the door, on account of the noisy mob which soon joined him, for villainy was very shrewd at Cruces; but at last I admitted him, and found that the poor wretch's ears had been cruelly split by some hasty citizen of the United States. I stitched them up as well as I could, and silenced his cries. And at any time, if you happened to be near the river when a crowd were arriving or departing, your ears would be regaled with a choice chorus of threats, of which ear-splitting, eye-gouging, cow-hiding, and the application of revolvers were the mildest. Against the negroes, of whom there were many in the Isthmus, and who almost invariably filled the municipal offices, and took the lead in every way, the Yankees had a strong prejudice; but it was wonderful to see how freedom and equality elevate men, and the same negro who perhaps in Tennessee would have cowered like a beaten child or dog beneath an American's uplifted hand, would face him boldly here, and by equal courage and superior physical strength cow his old oppressor.

STRUGGLES FOR LIFE – THE CHOLERA IN JAMAICA – I LEAVE KINGSTON FOR THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA – CHAGRES, NAVY BAY, AND GATUS – LIFE IN PANAMA – UP THE RIVER CHAGRES TO GORGONA AND CRUCES. Seacole died of a stroke on May 14, 1881. She was 76 years old. A rich woman at the time of her death, she left much of her money to her sister in Jamaica. Mary Jane Seacole ( née Grant; [1] [2] [3] 23 November 1805– 14 May 1881) was a British nurse and businesswoman.Greg Jenner, "Michael Gove Is Wrong: Mary Seacole Belongs on the School Curriculum", Huffington Post, 7 January 2013

National Geographic Society. "Mary Seacole." National Geographic Society, National Geographic, 15 October 2012.

Activity 1 – Sort the events of Mary Seacole's life

When Britain sent soldiers to war in Crimea, disease was more dangerous than the enemy. Thousands of soldiers died from it.

It’s interesting to me that the most prejudice that Mary Seacole mentions having ever faced was from Americans. She never actually went to America herself. When she had the hotel in Panama there were East Coast Americans travelling through to get to the goldfields in the West. The picture that Barbara paints of the southern states of America makes you understand what Mary was facing. Then nurses from the Caribbean who had moved to the UK started visiting Mary's grave in London. People rediscovered Mary's story. After much campaigning in 2016 a statue of Mary was unveiled at a hospital in London.In June 1852, Panama suffered a massive cholera outbreak. The epidemic killed so many people that work on the Panama railroad—a precursor to the Panama Canal—stopped. Seacole suffered briefly from the illness before returning to health. Four crowds generally passed through Cruces every month. In these were to be found passengers to and from Chili, Peru, and Lima, as well as California and America. The distance from Cruces to Panama was not great – only twenty miles, in fact; but the journey, from the want of roads and the roughness of the country, was a most fatiguing one. In some parts – as I found when I made the journey, in company with my brother – it was almost impassable; and for more than half the distance, three miles an hour was considered splendid progress. The great majority of the travellers were rough, rude men, of dirty, quarrelsome habits; the others were more civilized and more dangerous. And it was not long before I grew very tired of life in Cruces, although I made money rapidly, and pressed my brother to return to Kingston. Poor fellow! it would have been well for him had he done so; for he stayed only to find a grave on the Isthmus of Panama. As a female, and a widow, I may be well excused giving the precise date of this important event,” she writes in her book, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. “But I do not mind confessing that the century and myself were both young together, and that we have grown side-by-side into age and consequence.” Mary returned to Kingston in 1853, but she didn’t stay long. On hearing news of British soldiers going off to Russia to fight in the bloody battles of the Crimean War, she wanted to help.

I long to join the British Army before Sebastopol – My Wanderings about London for that purpose – How I failed – Establishment of the Firm of "Day and Martin" – I Embark for Turkey During 1843 and 1844, Seacole suffered a series of personal disasters. She and her family lost much of the boarding house in a fire in Kingston on 29 August 1843. [26] Blundell Hall burned down, and was replaced by New Blundell Hall, which was described as "better than before". [26] Then her husband died in October 1844, followed by her mother. [26] After a period of grief, in which Seacole says she did not stir for days, [11] she composed herself, "turned a bold front to fortune", [26] and assumed the management of her mother's hotel. She put her rapid recovery down to her hot Creole blood, blunting the "sharp edge of [her] grief" sooner than Europeans who she thought "nurse their woe secretly in their hearts". [11] Campaign for Seacole statue". The Times. London. 22 March 2006. Archived from the original on 5 May 2013 . Retrieved 30 March 2008. A keen student from early childhood, Mary practised medicine on her doll, dogs and cats, and on herself. She writes in her autobiography:

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Rawlinson, Kevin (7 February 2013). "Another Gove U-turn: Mary Seacole will remain on the Curriculum". The Independent. London.