African Slaves Folk Herbal Medicines and Remedies

Every oral tradition is as extensive as its community. In the case of the many thousands of black African slaves imported from the seventeenth century onward into North America, these traditions were drawn from all over West Africa, and never represented a single tradition. Since emancipation of the slaves, all the fragmentary communities have become gradually absorbed into the wider patchwork of North American traditions, yet there still remain many distinctive features, and indeed today's folk medicine is indebted to African slaves for some of its remedies. At least one slave owed his freedom to imparting a remedy for gravel and stone to a white man.

As displaced people with no rights and no wealth, slaves must have been even more self-dependent than their forbears in times of illness. Although to their owners black slaves represented a valuable investment, which it was in their interest to keep well and working, plantation owners soon found that the remedies known to the slaves were at least as good as anything they could offer themselves.

Faced with a completely unfamiliar flora, it must have been a daunting task indeed for slaves to find their own remedies. Food items such as yams, okra, and kola imported to feed them cheaply were probably among the few familiar items, and it is not surprising, therefore, to find that some of their folk medical remedies were based on these. Pods of Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus), boiled, formed a nutritious broth for invalids, and kola nuts (Cola acuminata) were used to treat stomach pain. Experimentation with the local flora led to use of a large number of native plant species, too. Pneumonia, to which the slaves of South Carolina were apparently particularly susceptible, was treated with snakeroot (Aristolochia serpentaria). Ringworm was treated with a wash prepared from the so-called ringworm bush (Cassia alata). The seeds of avocado (Persea americana) were ground to treat diarrhea, dysentery, and whitlows. Not only was the flora unfamiliar, but some of the diseases that afflicted the slaves were unfamiliar too. There were parasitic worms different from those in Africa.

Barton in his early nineteenth-century journal recorded the use of persimmon fruit (Diospyros virginiana) among the black African slaves. Plantation owners sometimes dosed slave children with a plant called cowitch (Macuna pruriens), which, according to Bancroft in the eighteenth century, was remarkably successful in expelling worms. The disease known as yaws was especially prevalent among black slaves, and it seems that their own remedies for it were fairly effective. The roots of the lime (Citrus aurantifolia) were used in treating this condition, as described in an eighteenthcentury account by Du Pratz. An infusion of holly berries (Ilex obcordata) was successfully used as a wash for treating the sores of yaws. Lime was also used to treat scurvy and sores on the feet. The fruit of papaya (Carica papaya) was used to treat sores and stomach ache. Cayenne pepper was used to treat a condition described as "cachexia," characterized by weight loss, fall in body temperature, and, if untreated, death. Snake bite was treated with various plants, including so-called rattlesnake's master (Aralia spinosa), while it was claimed that "inoculation" with boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) could actually render a snake bite harmless. Barton records the cure of a black slave suffering from consumption. It consisted of the root of Indian turnip (Arisaema triphyllum) boiled in milk.

Pregnancy among slaves represented another child born into slavery; this was of benefit to the slave owner, but women would often go to extreme lengths to avoid pregnancy and childbirth under these circumstances. It is ironic that the very plant, cotton (Gossypium herbaceum), for which their freedom had been sacrificed was in some cases able to afford relief from unwanted pregnancy (especially unwanted where this was a result of rape by the plantation owner, anxious to see his human investment multiply).

A decoction of the roots of the cotton plant was found to be an effective abortifacient, taken during the first two months of pregnancy. The planters, in their turn, tried to prevent the effects of this plant by forcibly administering black haw (Viburnum prunifolium) to their female slaves. Apart from the empirical folk remedies they used, slaves have also bequeathed a legacy of their fundamentally different approach to illness, which was seen by them as caused by a loss of balance between forces for good and evil. Some illnesses were regarded as natural, others as having supernatural causes. For the latter category, it was necessary to have recourse to magical healing, administered usually by a respected voodoo healer.

Indeed, these unnatural illnesses were often thought to be caused by an enemy, and they could be cured only by someone with magical powers. Some plants were directly associated with spiritual healing and magical powers. Among them the cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra) was regarded as consecrated to spirits. It was never cut down; religious ceremonies were often held under it. The overlook bean, or horse bean (Canavalia ensiformis), was regarded as a watchman and was planted around valuable crops to protect them from plunder. Remnants of these folk beliefs, mixed and modified by religious and Western medical systems, still persist among black Africans today . The extent to which there was an exchange of information between Native Americans and the black slaves is difficult to establish, but there are examples of remedies used in common. The Indian turnip (Arisaema triphyllum), for example, was used by the Cherokee as well as by slaves to treat consumption, and papaya fruit were used to treat cuts by the Hawaii, in much the same way as the slaves used them.

The snakeroot (Aristolochia serpentaria) was used among numerous Native American tribes to treat snake bite. One healer who today combines the heritage of Native American, European, and African folk medicine is John Lee of Moncure, in the North Carolina Piedmont. He is of mixed Lumbee, Cherokee, African, Irish, and English descent. He combines empirical treatment with herbs with spiritual divination. He was born with a caul, a fact that has probably enhanced his reputation as a healer.