![]() ![]() The quote above is from Nightingale’s Sanitary Statistics of Native Colonial Schools and Hospitals, published in 1863, a report commissioned by the Colonial Office of the British government. By her own accounts, Nightingale considered Indigenous peoples to be inferior, and the British state to be a “civilizing” force. She was steadfast in her belief of the supremacy of white Christian culture. Thanks to digitization efforts, her writings are now accessible, and it’s easy to find sources that reveal Nightingale’s racism. This racist statement by Florence Nightingale is one of many. Anything else, she believed, “would be simply preserving their barbarism for the sake of preserving their lives.” 1 Florence Nightingale in 1870. ![]() Although some of her contemporaries recognized the brutality of the colonial system, Nightingale believed imposing British culture to be necessary. She believed Indigenous lives were a small price to pay for the expansion of the British Empire. She counseled many key political figures and her writings on the subject show that she was a staunch supporter of British colonialism, even with the knowledge of the death and destruction left in its wake. What is rarely discussed in nursing history is Nightingale’s racism and her political role in the genocide of Indigenous people under British rule. This history allows us to better discuss the consequences of her legacy in nursing. Here, I make explicit Nightingale’s role in British colonial violence by analyzing some of her writings on the British colonies. There are nurse historians doing incredible and diverse work, but in general, nursing, both as a profession and as an academic discipline, promotes a view of Nightingale based in a culture of white supremacy rather than historical facts. This, unfortunately, doesn’t mean nurses understand who Nightingale was. Even worse, nursing history revolves largely around a single white nurse: Florence Nightingale. Nursing historiography is centered on whiteness. ![]()
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