Since we didn’t really talk about it in class yesterday, I thought I would write the blog this week on Mary Seacole’s The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. One of the first things that jumped out at me while reading this piece was Seacole’s obvious negative attitude towards Americans. Although she never comes out and says it outright that she does not like Americans, there are certain descriptions she gives, words she uses, and stories she tells that make it pretty obvious in the end. In the only four pages of text from this story that we have in our course pack, she gives no less than nine references to Americans which shows this. The examples I found are as follows, although I’m certain there are more:
“The Americans love show dearly” (44)
“You can scarcely conceive the pleasure and comfort an American feels in a clean chin” (45)
“The floor soon bore evidences of the great national American habit of expectoration” (45)
“It was only the ‘cutest Yankee who stood any fair chance of outwitting me” (45)
“Everybody familiar with the Americans knows their fondness for titles” (45)
“Terribly bullied by the Americans were the boatmen and muleteers, who were reviled, shot, and stabbed by these free and independent filibusters, who would fain whop all creation abroad as they do their slaves at home. Whenever any Englishmen were present, and in a position to interfere with success, this bullying was checked” (46)
“[I] found a poor boatman moaning piteously and…begging me to help him. At first I was afraid to open the door…but at last I admitted him, and found that the poor wretch’s ears had been split by some hasty citizen of the United States” (46)
“Against the negroes…the Yankees had a strong prejudice” (46)
“[There was] an angry crowd of brother Americans,…all of them indignant that a nigger should presume to judge one of their countrymen…The Americans seemed astonished at the audacity of the black man, who dared thus to beard them, to offer any resistance; but I believe that the prisoner was allowed ultimately to escape” (47)
When each of these comments are gathered together, Seacole paints a very unflattering image of what Americans are: Disgusting (they spit on the floor), high maintenance (they must have a shave to be happy), haughty (they must be addressed with exactly the right title), stupid (only the very rare American would be able to outsmart her), violent (they attacked others without provocation and in extreme ways), and prejudiced (they support slavery and believe they’re better than all “negroes”). Not only this, but she sees how Americans are privileged despite the negative traits she sees, as the prisoner was “allowed” to escape even after getting in trouble, and she generalizes making it seem like all Americans are exactly the same in these obscene ways.
If she uses the word American almost like a swear word, casting Americans as the bad guys, the British are cast as the heroes. It was the British who would step in to save the poor souls being bullied by the big bad Americans. It was almost hard reading this sometimes since as readers in Washington, we are reading this from the American perspective and it almost feels like a personal attack at times. However, while I think she shouldn’t generalize so much because obviously not all American’s are the same, there is good historical reasoning as to why she would have this attitude and I completely understand why she would have this view. As we discussed in class, Mary Seacole treated a large majority of British soldiers which gives her that initial bias towards the British. What I think is most important though is looking at the time period when this was written. Published in 1857, slavery had been well established in the U.S. for many years and in a few short years after this publication, the civil war would be fought. Seacole obviously did not approve of slavery and had relationships of mutual respect with people of color, which would explain why the disapproval towards Americans is so obvious in her tone. Especially when Americans could get away with such barbaric behavior. I can’t say I blame her at all for this attitude when I am likewise disgusted by slavery. Living in that time would only have amplified my feelings of disgust towards people who enslave others and treat them as less than human. I would be interested to see how many similar references there are in the rest of her work.
–Quadrupeds
The Quadrupeds: English 372 Blog 