The Reinvention of Household Medicine by Enslaved Africans in Suriname

Enslaved Africans in Suriname faced not only a harsh environment and brutal conditions, but the challenge of sourcing therapeutically useful plants in an unfamiliar land. How did they discover medicinal herbs in the New World? Literature suggests that slave medicine was already well developed in eighteenth-century Suriname, while herbaria prove that Old World plants were present since 1687. Current vernacular plant names reveal European, Amerindian and African influence. Ethnobotanical research among present-day Afro-Surinamers and related West African groups demonstrates that although most plants used by Afro-Surinamers are Neotropical, preparation methods and applications are still very African. This illustrates the durability and persistence of household medicine despite the disruption during the Middle Passage. Afro-Surinamers have reinvented their household medicine by using familiar Old World plants, selecting New World plants that were related to African ones, incorporating knowledge of other ethnic groups and deploying trial and error.
Source: Social History of Medicine - Category: History of Medicine Authors: Tags: Medicine in the Household Source Type: research