Table Of ContentJournal of Ethnobiology 167-185 Fall/Winter 2003
23(2):
KNOWLEDGE
AFRICAN TRADITIONAL PLANT THE
IN
CIRCUM-CARIBBEAN REGION
CARNEY
JUDITH
A.
Department Geography, University Los
of of California,
i
CA
Los Angeles, 90095
—
ABSTRACT.
The African diaspora to the Americas was one of plants as well as
human
people. European slavers provisioned their cargoes with African and other
Old World useful plants, which enabled their enslaved work force and free ma-
roons to establish them in their gardens. Africans were additionally familiar with
many
Asian plants from earlier crop exchanges with the Indian subcontinent.
contemporary Caribbean
Their efforts established these plants in the plant corpus.
The recognition of pantropical genera of value for food, medicine, and in the
appears have played an important
practice of syncretic religions also to role in
among
survival, as they share similar uses black populations in the Caribbean as
which on Old World
well as tropical Africa. This paper, focuses the plants of the
tropics that became established with slavery in the Caribbean, seeks to illuminate
the botanical legacy of Africans in the circum-Caribbean region.
Key words: African diaspora, Caribbean, ethnobotany, slaves, plant introductions.
RESUME.—
La diaspora africaine aux Ameriques ne s'est pas limitee aux person-
nes, elle a egalement affecte les plantes. Les traiteurs d'esclaves ajoutaient a leur
du monde
cargaison humaine des plantes exploitables dAfrique et vieux pour les
ou marrons En
faire cultiver dans leurs jardins par les esclaves les libres. outre
Africains connaissaient beaucoup de plantes dAsie grace a de precedents
les
Grace
echanges de cultures avec sous-continent indien. a leurs efforts, ces plan-
le
occupent maintenant une place importante dans la flore des Caraibes. La
tes
reconnaissance par esclaves de plantes de genres pan-tropicaux ayant des va-
les
un
leurs nutritives, medicinales, et religieuses, semble egalement avoir joue role
important dans la survie des esclaves; les populations noires des Caraibes et
meme
dAfrique plantes de facon. Cette etude, consacree
tropicale utilisent ces la
aux plantes du vieux monde introduites aux Caraibes par l'esclavage,
tropicales
dans
a pour but de mettre en evidence l'heritage botanique des africains la region.
RESUMO—
A
diaspora africana nas Americas constituiu-se de urn processo de
com
dispersao tanto de pessoas quanto de plantas. Juntamente os carregamentos
com
de escravos os exploradores europeus abasteciam suas naus transatlanticas
plantas originarias da Africa e do Velho Mundo; isto permitiu que tanto escravos
em Os
quanto negros libertos as cultivassem suas hortas e pomares. africanos
com
tinham familiaridade, tambem, muitas das especies de plantas e especiarias
A
com
utilizadas no fluxo de trocas comerciais e culturais a India. pertinacia e o
dos povos africanos contribuiriam para a inclusao destas plantas na botanica
ardil
O
contemporanea do Caribe. reconhecimento de especies pantropicais de valor
papel im-
O
do
presente artigo, o qual focaliza as plantas dos tropicos Velho I
ical.
que foram estabelecidas no Caribe pelas populacoes escravas, visa resgat
dos povos africanos a regiao caribenha.
contribuicao historica
INTRODUCTION
One consider
legacy of the Atlantic slave trade is the lingering failure to its
victims as deliberate botanical agents. Yet the African diaspora was one of plants
upon and Old
European African other useful
as well as people. slavers relied
means
World plants to provision their ships, which provided the for the arrival
Americas where they were grown by enslaved Africans
these species in the
of
On
and
and free maroons (Carney 2001b). plantation subsistence fields in their
New
garden World Africans grew African plants valued food, medicine,
for
plots,
cordage, and dyes. They also established plants of Asian origin
religious practices,
had long been used by African Their botanical knowledge addi-
that societies.
known
tionally extended to the recognition of pantropical genera, for healing in
which provided Americas
Africa, similar properties for treating illness in the
(Lowe
et al. 2000:2).
and
The role of African plants the ethnobotanical legacy of enslaved Africans
More
especially evident today in the Caribbean. than forty percent of enslaved
is
Africans over nearly four centuries of transatlantic slavery landed in the circum-
Caribbean higher percentage than anywhere Americas (Curtin
area, a else in the
1969:268). Foods of African origin serve as the culinary touchstone of the region,
The
while native African species figure prominently herbal pharmacopoeias.
in
early extermination of the Caribbean's native populations by epidemics and geno-
many
cide did not result in irrevocable loss of Amerindian botanical acumen, as
endemics found contemporary
neotropical are in folk medical traditions (Brussell
New
World became
Africans Amerindian
1997). the custodians of botanical
knowledge (Laguerre upon
1987:23). Plantation reliance forced migration of en-
slaved Africans delivered a steady infusion of African plant knowledge in the
where two
region, indigenous ethnobotanical systems met and hybridized
through conscious
the efforts of survivors.
Since the abolition of plantation slavery in the early nineteenth century, im-
poverished black majority populations of the Caribbean have relied upon the folk
medical heritage their enslaved, maroon, and free black forebears passed on to
Lack and
them. of access to safe reliable health care by the poor has contributed
to the persistence of folk pharmacopoeias and the use of plants to treat illness
The many
(Laguerre
1987). materia medica of rural Caribbean people continues to
upon gum
rely the roots, leaves, bark, and
fruits, resins of diverse plants for
healing. This alternative medicinal system especially valued contemporary
is in
The
Cuba.
collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1989 placed the country's econ-
faltering
omy
in ever-deeper crisis, resulting in scarcity and rising costs of imported drugs.
As
a the government began promoting
result, green medicine
(medicina verde) for
the treatment of non-life threatening ailments through network
a
of alternative
pharmacopoeias
(Carney
fieldwork 1999). In dispensing herbs and roots to pre-
pare decoctions long recognized
for their healing properties, Cuba's medicina verde
JOURNAL OF ETHNOBIOLOGY
New
pharmacies drawing upon
are medical World
a tradition that Africans de-
veloped during
the era of plantation
slavery.
Because
of its tangled cultural antecedents, the role of African plants and the
New
agency World
of Africans in the development of Caribbean botanical
re-
sources remains understated (Lowe The
the
in literature et 2000). objective of
al.
draw
this article is to attention to this heritage by focusing on the ethnobotanical
knowledge accompanied
that the African diaspora to the circum-Caribbean
re-
While
gion. the essence of the African botanical legacy the experimentation and
is
plant adoptions that accompanied forced migration, this focus on the
article's
New
African plants and ethnobotanical knowledge of World Africans underscores
magnitude
the of their contribution.
Divided into three parts, the discussion begins with European perceptions
of
African plant knowledge during the era of transatlantic slavery. The discussion
provides the context for illustrating the botanical knowledge of the Africans they
The
enslaved. next section identifies this plant heritage in the circum-Caribbean
region. Included are plants native to tropical West Africa as well as Old World
New
whose
species presence in the Americas likely resulted from the efforts of
World
Africans. 1 Plant genera of pantropical distribution serving identical pur-
poses in Africa and the Caribbean are also noted, because suggests a broader
it
knowledge
pattern of African botanical throughout a region that can be termed
The draws
the Black Atlantic (Gilroy 1993). third section attention to specific
New
and World
plants, their use in the African diaspora, the role of Africans in
their establishment.
owe
Most plant species used for food and medicine their broader distribution
human One
to introduction by beings (Carney and Voeks 2003; Voeks 1997). no-
known
example by people Columbian
table historical of plant dispersal as the
is
which monumental
Exchange, refers to the diffusion of plant species that followed
European maritime expansion from the fifteenth century (Alpern 1992; Crosby
While on Columbian Exchange emphasizes
1972). the literature the the revolu-
tionary role of Amerindian and Asian crop introductions by Europeans on other
New
and
societies, there attention to African botanical transfers the role of
is little
World Africans in establishing the continent's native plants elsewhere (Carney
2001a, 2001b). The emergence of three centers of plant domestication in sub-Sa-
haran Africa (two of them in tropical West Africa) added more than 115 endemic
species to global food supplies, while laying the foundation for an ongoing pro-
experimentation and crop exchanges with Old World (Har-
cess of other societies
NRC
and maroons
lan 1975; 1996). Enslaved Africans free continued this process
in the Caribbean.
African plants entered the Americas repeatedly over the 350-year period of
which bondage
the Atlantic slave trade, delivered at least ten million persons into
(Curtin Arriving aboard slave ships as food and medicines, the plants were
1969).
New
grown by World Africans on plantation provision dooryard gardens,
fields,
more
and subsistence plots. In this manner, than fifty species native to Africa
No. 2
Vol.
23,
An
became circum-Caribbean botanical resources. additional fourteen spe-
part of
grown were
of Asian origin but in Africa since antiquity, also established.
cies,
reviewed elsewhere (Car-
While the role of African crops in Atlantic history is
ney 2001b; Grime 1979), there as yet no systematic overview of the medicinal
is
pharmacopoeias
species of African origin that are widely used in Caribbean folk
compendia medicines
McClure However, the dozens of of herbal
(but see 1982).
now published for the Caribbean and tropical West Africa offer a point of de-
valued by Black Atlantic
parture the study of African plant cures traditionally
for
populations.
Along with China and India, west-central Africa represents one of the world's
most developed ethnomedical traditions. European slavers repeatedly noted the
with and ethnic
of Africans in effecting cures plants the expertise of specific
skills
—
—
who
groups such as the Fulani, Yoruba, Dahomean, and Ashanti were regard-
Olmos and
ed as especially skilled with herbal medicines (Mouser 2002:85; Par-
avisini-Gebert 2001:xviii-xix). Whites resident along the West African coast oc-
and (Mouser 2002:53-
casionally resorted to African healers to treat illness fevers
Svalesen 2000:70-71,
54, 66, 85; 75).
But paranoia also accompanied European perceptions of African plant skills.
Resident European slave traders appear to have lived in constant fear of being
who
made
poisoned by mainland the
their hosts. Jean Barbot, a slaving trip to
common
Guinea coast between 1678 and 1679, claimed that "poisoning so
is
among much
the blacks and they are so skilful at that there is risk to whites"
it
who
Samuel Gamble,
(Hair et al. 1992: 1,129). captained a slave ship ca. 1793,
added merchants West had having
that living in Africa adopted the practice of
and
servants taste food never eating alone (Mouser 2002:67). Slaving illegally off
the coast of Guinea in the 1820s and 1830s, Theodore Canot warned that the
Mandingo were especially adept food poisoning (Cowley Taking an
at 1928:83).
was
African "wife" thought keep Europeans Guinea Coast
to residing along the
man
from being poisoned, for a died mysteriously she could be charged with
if
his death (Svalesen 2000:97). Despite such fears, captains of Portuguese slave ships
often hired African healers as nurses and surgeons and
the captives to
to treat
Middle
act as spies across the Passage (Miller 1988:409).
The
dual perception of African botanical was similarly present in plan-
skills
Enslaved medical
tation societies. practitioners—variously referred to as "root
doctors," "conjurers," nurses, and midwives— upon pharmacopoeias
of
relied
and and
herbs
roots occasionally, spirit possession, to treat medical problems of
and
physical psychological
origins (Laguerre
1987; Pollitzer 1999; Savitt 1978).
Writing in the 1780s, Nicholas Bourgeois noted "the marvelous cures" found on
Domingue
the island of Saint (Haiti), observing that "the negroes are almost the
who
know how
only ones to use them." He added that the "negroes and ne-
who
gresses practice medicine brought from own
their treatments coun-
their
. . .
and "were more we ."
tries" ingenious than [Europeans] in procuring health
. .
most
even "the dangerous
[plant] poisons can be transformed most
into the sa-
when
remedies
lubrious prepared by hand"
a skilled (Schiebinger forthcoming).
New
But ethnomedical knowledge
the World
of Africans continued arouse the
to
who
suspicion of whites, feared being poisoned by bondage
those they held
in
(Aptheker
1970:192, 197-198, 241-242; Genovese
1972:224-225, James
363; 1963:
JOURNAL OF ETHNOBIOLOGY
viewed
16-17). Planters African
traditional religions as exercises in black magic,
They
witchcraft, or sorcery. attributed several attempted slave revolts in the Ca-
ribbean to the use of poisons provided by
practitioners of Afro-syncretic religions
(Rashford The famed maroon
1984:67). eighteenth-century Jamaican
leader,
"Queen
Nanny,"
reputedly used her mastery of medicinal herbs
to soldiers
kill
sent to re-enslave fugitive blacks (Gottleib 2000:49). She was skilled in Nigerian
which was
obeah, widely practiced throughout the English-speaking Caribbean:
During days Obeah was rampant
slavery the practice of in the West
all
Indian Colonies, and laws were passed put down, and combat
to
it its
baneful influence. There were few of the large estates which had not one
men
more Obeah among
or their slaves. They were usually the oldest and
most crafty of the blacks; those whose hoary heads and harsh and
for-
some
bidding aspect, together with in plants of the medicinal and
skill
poisonous and which
species, in the superstitious they brought with
rites,
them from Guinea and Congo, them
qualified for successful impositions
A
weak
on and was
the credulous. great loss of slave property caused by
poisonings through use poisonous and
their their of roots plants un-
known wood
found every
to science, in tropical (Stark 1893:165).
making
In the practice of "black magic" a criminal offense by 1760 (Lowe
et
al.
and
2000:3; Schiebinger forthcoming), the English French plantation economies
in
the Caribbean recognized the potential of such practices for organizing resistance
to enslavement. But the botanical knowledge of enslaved Africans was also sus-
now known
pect. that African floras contain a multitude of drug plants and
It is
(AEN Many
Ayensu
alkaloid poisons Oliver-Bever belong
2000; 1978; 1986). to
pantropical genera with similar properties that were also endemic to the Carib-
Whether was
real or imagined, whites' fear of poisoning such that they often
New
turned to World Africans for treatment of suspected cases. At times, this
could lead to freedom, such as occurred with the "Negro Caesar," mentioned in
the South Carolina Gazette Caesar's manumission in 1750 resulted from his
(1750).
reputed antidote poisoning and developing an herbal remedy
for for for rattle-
snake bite. This avenue to freedom in the U.S. South, however, was seldom offered
women.
to enslaved Their in botanical remedies remained so valued that
skills
were
they retained as plantation nurses (Fett 2002:64).
Thus, in spite of their worries about plants being used for poisons, sorcery,
or resistance, plantation owners continued to rely upon the ethnomedical knowl-
New
edge World
of Africans to treat the illnesses of their enslaved workers. In
their use of plants, African practices differed dramatically from those then favored
by European slavers and plantation owners. Herbal treatments were often pre-
med-
pared from than white
living plants, rather the dried concoctions favored in
formed component
icine (Pollitzer 1999:99). Vitamin-rich greens a central of the
New
diet of World Africans, and roots and herbs made into infusions ("bush
teas") remain to this day central to the traditional cures of the Caribbean (Ayensu
1981; Dean 1995). Tropical West Africa's rich tradition of using bush or herbal
teas and greens for both food and medicine was undoubtedly the source of their
West
continuing importance the African diaspora. In Africa, the leaves of at
in
and some
150 species of plants are used as food, with 30 cultivated 100
least
gathered (Irvine 1952:32-34). These herbal cures stood in sharp contrast to the
and
cupping, purging, leeching
invasive treatments of venesection, blistering,
practiced by Europeans of the plantation slavery era. While such techniques have
largely vanished, African herbal remedies endure to this day in the Caribbean
healing system.
folk
from
The survival of an African ethnomedical tradition results in part its
New
capacity to deliver both physical cures as well as psychological solace to
World Africans. Plants native to the Old World tropics and Africa played a direct
whose
role in healing diseases origins are attributed to a spiritual origin (Rash-
New
World
day memorializes ethnomedical
ford 1984). Jamaica to this the skills of
Africans. "[Mjost of the herbs, barks, and roots" used in folk medicine "originally
down
bore African names, which suggests the handing of traditions from one
named
generation to the next" (Barrrett 1976:68). Plants associated with obeah are
and known "duppy" world
"John" or "Jumbie" as plants, for their linkage to the
"Duppy
of spirits. These include the African native, Cotton" (Calotropis procera
Crow
Bead" Old World
(Ait.) Ait. "John (Abrus precatorius) of tropical origin,
f.),
"Duppy
the pantropical edible spinach Calalu" (Amaranthus spinosus), and the silk
where
cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra), "duppies" live roots (Perkins 1969; Rash-
at its
ford
1984).
known
Species in Africa figured in the pharmacopoeias that presumably in-
duced trances or death-like states that mirrored the social death of slavery, epit-
omized by "zombie" One component Mucuna
the in Haiti. notable botanical
is
While
pruriens (Davis 1983). of Asian origin, prominence in the "zombie" de-
its
coction suggests prior botanical familiarity with the plant in Africa. Besides Hai-
tian voodou, African plants also figure importantly in the liturgical practices of
other syncretic religions such as Brazilian candomble, Cuban and
santeria,
Ja-
maica myal, derived from Nigerian obeah (Brandon Lowe Olmos
1993; 2000;
et
al.
and
Paravisini-Gebert 2001:xviii; Voeks 1997). Plants of African origin used in
candomble
Brazilian include Garcinia kola, Aframomum melegueta, and Cola acumi-
known
while Newbouldia
nata, laevis in Brazil only by Nigerian Yoruba lexeme,
is
its
akoko (Voeks 1997:29-31,
45).
AFRICAN TRADITIONAL PLANT KNOWLEDGE
often forgotten that the vanishing Amerindian
It is population of the Carib-
bean was replaced with forced African migrants who
originated in tropical so-
Research how New
cieties. attention has yet to elucidate World Africans— ma-
the
population
jority in plantation societies—drew upon knowledge
their of tropical
botanical resources
for food, healing, and
cultural identity, survival. Slaves land-
ing on Caribbean shores, however, would have many
recognized
of the plants
Some
they encountered. specimens
floated across Atlantic currents independently
human
of agency; birds
likely dispersed The
others. inherent dispersal
capabilities
maritime and
of
air currents,
for instance, are believed responsible
for the intro-
duction of the African gourd
bottle and
{Lagenaria siceraria) Raphia taedigera to the
and
Neotropics
Ceiba pentandra of the Americas
to Africa (Burkill 1985:281, 591;
Otedoh 2 Other
1977). genera share a Caribbean and West
tropical African
bio-
JOURNAL OF ETHNOBIOLOGY
geographical
distribution
(e.g., Acacia, Dacroydes, Dorstenia, Quassia, Strychnos), in-
dicative of their pantropical origin (Thorne 1972). The anthropologist Brent Berlin
observes world
(1992) that folk societies across the recognize taxa with desirable
properties at the level of genus, even they do not always distinguish among
if
species. That foundation in tropical botanical knowledge provided Africans
forc-
ibly relocated to the Caribbean the knowledge shaping Afro-Caribbean
critical for
New
The plants used by World Africans that reveal an African legacy are
One
identified in Table hundred and twenty-five genera and species are
1. in-
cluded, representing fifty-two botanical families. Nineteen genera from
fifteen
occur both and America and
families in Africa Latin are believed to share a
common
Gondwana
West
origin in prior to continental separation (Gentry 1993:
The draws upon more
512). table the species of than three dozen sources
lists to
indicate whether the plant was used
nutritionally, medically, or culturally
(e.g.,
religious practices, construction, dyeing, as well as geographical
fiber), origin.
Of the 91 species listed, 52 are native to Africa. The remaining 39 include
some plants of Old World (chiefly Asian) origin that were already present in
Africa prior to transatlantic slavery, thereby illuminating the significance of Af-
knowledge
rican for their establishment in the Americas.
One
cultivated medicinal of Caribbean origin, Spondias mombin, also appears
on the for centrality in African medicinal plant use and uncertainty as
list its to
whether also indigenous to West Africa (Burkill 1985:92). Nearly two dozen
it is
plants listed in Table belong to genera of pantropical distribution; however, they
1
New
World
too bring attention to the role of Africans, since the genera are used
for identical medicinal purposes in the Antilles and tropical West Africa. Over
human
the 350-year period of plantation slavery, the population flow across the
Atlantic went chiefly from Africa to the Caribbean. Amerindians independently
If
knew
the medicinal value of these taxa, the persistence of such plants to this day
New
in the Caribbean pharmacopoeia ultimately depended upon transmission by
World Amerindian population ceased most Caribbean
Africans, as the to exist in
plantation societies by the eighteenth century (Crosby 1972; Watts 1987).
To clarify African agency and ethnobotanical knowledge, plant species en-
New
demic to the World, and probably originally used by Amerindians, have
mostly been excluded from the Neotropical plants naturally dispersed (by
table.
wind, ocean currents, or birds) to Africa in antiquity and widely used by Africans
Some
prior to the Atlantic slave trade, however, are included. African plants float-
own
ed across the Atlantic on their and were already established in the Caribbean
most
before the arrival of enslaved Africans. But of the plants listed in Table 1
depended upon deliberate introduction and the arrival of those familiar with their
properties.
NEW
WORLD AGENTS
AFRICANS AS ACTIVE FLORISTIC
and
Carried aboard slave ships, African plants contributed to survival, health,
economy in the Caribbean. The journey across the Middle Passage introduced
African grasses possibly for bedding but
inutica),
ia
certainly as fodder for cattle (Parry 1955; Parsons 1972). James Barbot's slaving
No.
Vol. 2
23,
Amaranthaceae
Amaryllidaceae
Crinum zeylankum
(L.) L.
Anacardiaceae
mombin 32
Spondias
L. 15, 16, 17,
, 2, 7, 8,
Annonaceae
Annona
glabra L.
Monodora Blanco
myristica
serpentina Benth.
Rauivolfia (L.)
i
Ambrosia
spp.
Artemisia spp.
Hassk.
Eclipta alba (L.) 32
22,
2, 5, 8,
,
Don
Emilia coccinea (Sims) G.
8
5, 7,
.
Senerio spp.
Vernonia spp.
32
:' 5, 7, 8, 19, 20, 22,
Begoniaceae
Begonia spp.
15
8,
i,
1
JOURNAL OF ETHNOBIOLOGY
Fall/Winter 2003
Brassicaceae
Brassica (H. West) Rupr.
integrifolia
Brassica spp.
Burseraceae
Dacryodes spp.
Cannabaceae
Cannabis
sativa L.
Maytenus
spp.
Clusiaceae
Garcinia Heckel
kola
Combretaceae
Conocarpus
erectus L.
Oken
Bryophyllum pinnatum
(L.
f.)
Kuntze
Kalanchoe (Medik.)
Integra
Cucurbitaceae
Matsum.
(Thunb.)
Citrullus lanatus
35
5, 8,
5, 8, 12,
1—
TABLE
(continued)
Euphorbiaceae
Acalypha
spp.
Akhomea
spp.
Croton lobatus L.
Croton spp.
Euphorbia
hirta L.
E. hyssopifolia L.
E. thymifolia L.
E. tirucalli L.
22
7, 15,
5,
5, 7, 8, 15, 17, 18,
>,
36
9, 22, 30, 32, 35,
incanum
D. (Sw.) LXT.
DC.
fnyZorwm
D. (L.)
Indigofera spp.
U
unguiculata Walp.
(L.)
Flacourtiaceae
Oncoba
spp.
22
5, 8, 16, 18, 19,
1, 5, 7, 8, 15, 18, 21, 32,
32
1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 15, 22,
1,4,5,8,18,22,32
21
5, 7, 8,
