Mary English

Mary English

Mary Courthope English (22 March 1789 – 30 September 1846), also commonly remembered as Mary Ballard, Mary Greenup and the Belle of Bogota, was an Anglo-Colombian adventurer, landowner, trade representative, farmer and businesswoman in Colombia.Her personality and connections gave her financial and political agency in Colombia and Britain. She was at the heart of British relations with newly formed Colombia in its first decade of independence in the 1820s, and a leading social and cultural figure 1822–1826 in the Colombian capital, where she became known as the Belle of Bogotá. Her letters provide intersectional social and economic perspectives on the early history of Colombia. Between 1828 and 1846 she successfully ran a cacao plantation, even though she was, as a woman, legally unable to do so at the time.

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