Book Review: The Secret Cures of Slaves

Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth – Century Atlantic World 
by Londa Schiebinger

Review by Lucretia Jones
January 2021

This book is an in-depth historical study of questionable medical experimentation and ethics during the transatlantic enslavement of Africans. The author examines the years of 1760 to the mid-1800s and details the relationships between enslaved Africans, Amerindians, and European colonialists and medical practitioners. The increasing popularity of science is discussed amidst the overt and subtle backdrop of a treacherous period in human history with effects that stretch into our present day. 
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I appreciate the compilation of journal entries and medical papers written by physicians of the time. I especially enjoyed the quotations gleaned from direct contact with enslaved Africans. I found myself amused when presented with colonial doctors’ awe and simultaneous befuddlement at the efficacy of various cures employed by Amerindians and enslaved Africans. One such cure being a remedy for tetanus made by an enslaved healer on the former Governor of Cayenne’s plantation, a combination of plants kept hidden and therefore untested through scientific method. There is another instance of an “Indian woman” whose remedy for snakebites was “always” successful, her cure also undocumented. 

While understandable and necessary in the retelling of such atrocities, I found the author’s matter of fact tone a bit chilling and disconcerting. Be advised, this book is focused more on an academic look at a period in our collective history rather than moral commentary. I admit a personal bias; I like my plant books with pictures and drawings of plants. You won’t find that here. Instead, a few maps detailing the routes of human trafficking and barriers to shared information await you. The title is a clever misnomer. We aren’t being let in on any secrets here; rather we are witnesses to the chagrin and racialism of colonial doctors. 

Overall, while not what I expected, or perhaps naively hoped for, I will most likely find myself returning to this book for historical reference. If you’re looking for a compendium of folk remedies, I advise you to look elsewhere for insight from those more intimately involved with enslaved Africans and their descendants. Those wielding violent power over another group of human beings close themselves off from knowledge of the very cures implied in the title of this book. The story telling in Secret Cures is extensive enough that it allows us to assemble a narrative and successfully frame our sense of the era. If any conclusions are to be drawn by Ms. Schiebinger’s book, one might be the necessity of and complexity inherent in cross cultural oral tradition.

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Lucretia is a wise woman herbalist, artisan, mother, companion, community garden member, and owner of House of Lukaya, an online source for herbal remedies and handicrafts. In 2015, Lucretia established the DC chapter of Herbalists Without Borders, and recently published the House of Lukaya Guide to Nourishing Herbal Infusions. As a community herbalist, she offers guidance using the Seven Medicines model, as well as field walks, tincture tastings, and home remedy workshops. https://www.houseoflukaya.com/

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