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Reclaiming Autonomy: Plant Medicine Use Over Time
Reclaiming Autonomy: Plant Medicine Use Over Time
Within our current society medicine as a concept is almost exclusively thought of as doctors, pills, surgery, and experimental treatments. However, throughout history, medicine has looked and been practiced differently to what we are used to today. Within Indigenous communities, healing is conducted by someone with a deep knowledge of plants, who understands the medicinal properties, along with the cultural importance of them. Even though this traditional medicine helped to create the foundation for modern medicine, its contributions have systematically been underrepresented and outright ignored. Nevertheless, the practice of using plant medicine to heal has survived centuries of undervaluation and it is becoming more popular today, especially with new governmental legislation restricting access to medication and medical procedures.
In many different Indigenous populations, plants are a central part of cultural practices, religion, and everyday use. Plants are used for things as simple as making brooms but are also integral for many medicines and cultural ceremonies.1 For example the Cherokee People used Canadian Wildginger (Figure 1) to make tea to cure “coughs, colds, fevers, stomach aches, poor digestion, headaches, heart problems, diarrhea” and it was also used to help with some menstrual problems.2 Another example is that the Apache people would grind Blue Grama (Figure 2) seeds, cornmeal, and water to make food.3 Both of these are just very small examples of how important plants and the earth are to indigenous peoples and their cultural practices. The earth offers medicine that can be used once understood. Given that Native populations oftentimes have spent countless generations residing on their homelands, the knowledge of plant medicine and the ways that the earth offers support to human ailment are intimately connected.
Figure one: Canadian Wildginger. Picture taken by Dan Nydick.
Figure two: Blue Grama. Photo courtesy of the California Native Plant Society.
Figure three: Asafetida is a resin, yellowish-white and sticky, that’s extracted from the lower stem and roots of a rare wild member of the carrot family. Photography by Milanchikov Sergey / Shutterstock. Photo and caption found https://www.newyorker.com/culture/kitchen-notes/asafetida-indias-odorous-taste-of-home.
Medicinal Plant knowledge has been vital throughout human history. Nevertheless, one very specific and impactful moment is the use of medicinal plants by enslaved people in the 19th century. Once the United States of America ended the Trans-Atlanic Slave Trade in 1808, forcing Black women to birth babies became the only way for the reproduction of slavery to continue. 4 This led to an increased pressure for enslaved people to have babies, and oftentimes this reproduction was forced rape. The more labor (Black people), the more money that the enslavers made. Living in this society, the enslaved people were incredibly aware of the value of their reproductive abilities. In order to claim autonomy in this white supremacist society, Black women turned to the use of contraceptive plants and plant medicine. Medicinal herbs and plants, specifically cotton root, were used to prevent pregnancies. Another popular medicinal plant was Asafetida (Figure three). This plant was likely brought over to America by European colonizers and was worn around peoples necks to prevent lung ailments like small pox, influenza, and whooping cough. 5 When ingested, Asafetida kills bacteria and has some contraceptive compounds, but when worn on the neck the fumes can kill bacteria. 6 Georgia Baker, a former enslaved person, recounted this memory of using asafetida as medicine: “dey made us wear little sacks of , assfiddy (asafetida) round our necks to keep off lots of sorts of miseries.” 7 Here Georgia Baker is recounting receiving plants medicinally at the advice of a Black plant specialist within her community. Rachel Adams reinforces this by saying “we wore little sacks of asafetida around our necks to keep off diseases.” 8
Many Black people grew gardens next to their homes in order to take care of themselves effectively. These gardens served a variety of purposes including supplementing their food, income and growing these medicinal plants.9 When the enslaved peoples were forcibly taken from their homes in Africa, they took with them not only generational herbal knowledge, but also seeds and grasses that they were able to plant in their gardens in the United States. 10
Cotton Root was the main plant used by enslaved peoples for reproductive control. In Africa, cotton grew on trees. Despite the differences between American cotton plants, many historians believe that the knowledge of the contraceptive properties of these plants came from Africa and when immersed in cotton fields, many started using it as birth control once again.11 When enslavers became aware that the cotton root was being used to control fertility, they forbade women from chewing on cotton root.12 When women were caught storing cotton root, or chewing on it they were brutally beaten. Additionally, medicinal knowledge was shared between enslaved Black People and the Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous peoples have a detailed important history and relationship with plants and were enslaved alongside of Black people. Sometimes Indigenous communities were safe havens for people escaping enslavement. In both of these situations, medicinal plant knowledge was shared. 13 Through generational knowledge and knowledge shared from indigenous communities, enslaved women also knew about other materials that could be used as abortifacients or have healing properties.14 Abortifacients cause you to miscarry, and a widely used abortifacient was turpentine. 15 However, similarly with cotton root, the enslavers figured out what these women were using turpentine for, so they changed how it was produced, effectively taking away the abortifacient properties. 16 Overall, enslaved Black women were aware of the necessity of their health and reproduction, and took their reproductive autonomy into their own hands by growing their own medicine, birth control, and using abortifacients. This was done in part by the sharing of knowledge from enslaved communities and Indigenous communities, and in part from the generational knowledge that Enslaved Africans brought with them from their homeland.
Figure four: Cotton Root Bark Photo Courtesy of American Herbalists Guide
The knowledge of how to use these plants, the efficacy and practices was vital to peoples survival but, it was also highly restricted. Legislation as early as 1748 was passed in order to prevent enslaved people practicing and administering medicine without approval. 17 Use of plant medicine was punishable by death.18 This illustrates that for many enslaved peoples, their fundamental beliefs were being restricted. This resulted in sacred healing practices being conducted in secret.19 In an interview for the WPA Slave Narrative Project, George Kye recounts that, “Old Master wouldn't let us take herb medicine, and he got all our medicine in Van Buren when we was sick. But I wore a buckeye on my neck just the same.” 20 Even though being caught was something they could be killed for, Black people still chose to use medicinal knowledge that had been passed from generations before. This goes to show that these practices aren’t something that can just be dropped, rather they are vital to who they are and how they function within their communities even in times of extreme distress and violence plant medicine prevailed. In addition to it being outlawed in some states, many enslavers would beat their slaves for practicing their medicine.21 However, in some instances, enslavers and their families were saved due to this medicine.22 Therefore, even in a time with high restrictions, people will always choose who they are and what they believe over potential danger and threats. Since these practices were still going on, the knowledge continuously spread even though it was harder to practice. These early bans on Black and Indigenous peoples' knowledge set the foundation for plant healing knowledge to be consistently undervalued and underrepresented within our society for centuries.
Figure Five: 1903 Magazine Article from MODERN PRISCILLA. https://archive.org/details/KolaPlant1903A
As modern medicine grew in popularity it was construed as the only “acceptable” avenue for medical attention. This was done primarily by white men who had attended ‘formal’ medical schooling and needed people to turn from plant medicine in order to make money. The practice of traditional medicine never disappeared, despite this push for medicalization. Since there are and have always been Indigenous people, the use of their medicinal practices continued. However, since the precedent from the very beginning was that white people were superior, the knowledge (however valuable) from Native People was unvalued and ignored. Despite this, Indigenous people never stopped practicing; it was just continuously overshadowed as modern medicine took over.
This has manifested itself in the lack of credit given to indigenous peoples and their contributions to medicine. In 1897, the chemical salicin was “discovered” and was the basis for the invention of aspirin.23 Prior, Native Peoples used willow bark in order to reduce pain; the active ingredient in willow bark is salicin.24 Indigenous peoples were using this plant long before, and have not been directly credited with the discovery of aspirin because pharmaceutical companies took advantage of their ability to isolate compounds within plants and claimed the discovery. As seen in figure five, it is evident that early medical practitioners used plant knowledge and produced it as their own. Stating that after its “recent discovery” the Kola plant has all of these medicinal properties, even though this plant can be traced back to very early African uses within ceremonies, and was part of the healing plants used by enslaved people, these doctors have adopted its uses and claim the knowledge of it.25 Before 1885, there were no pharmaceutical companies, and therefore The United States Pharmacopeia contained information regarding the use of different plants and their parts for medicinal purposes.26 All of these plants and their purposes were learned from a indigenous person practicing their medicine.
The colonizers did not come to the Americas and automatically understand what each plant does or how to use them, therefore The United States Pharmacopeia is a collection of indigenous plant knowledge. Studies have shown that working with indigenous peoples “doubles the success rate” of finding plants that could be made into commercial drugs.27 Once pharmaceutical companies started to take over, there was a rapid medicalization of plants and all ties to Indigenous communities were stripped from their histories. Pharmaceutical companies look at how they can maximize their profits. Pushing them to patent their drugs and find ways to commercially produce drugs. However, you can’t patent a plant. So pharmaceutical companies chose to break down the plant into its basic components, and patent the chemical that has the medicinal properties.28 This is how pharmaceutical companies were able to claim the invention of aspirin despite the uses within Native Peoples culture, and without compensating Native communities for their knowledge. In 1897, when aspirin was popularized, Native people were not allowed in research laboratories, they could not become trained practitioners. This was after having been forcibly moved out of their lands and pushed west during the trail of tears.29 Therefore, there is no way that a Native person or community could have had enough strength or resources to popularize the drug and compound in the same way a White trained doctor could.
Looking at the trajectory of modern medicine you might not believe that many of the foundational ideas were stolen from Indigenous peoples. Modern medicine is traditionally practiced by elite white men and has historically restricted access into the profession. Indigenous medicine is practiced by all people without restricted access based on gender or social status. In many instances, Indigenous medicine was learned and was taught within the family giving everyone the knowledge. Our society highly values specialization and knowledge but only in specific ways. Since White doctors are specially ‘trained’ their knowledge is considered more valuable than ‘non-trained’ Indigenous healers. Additionally, American medicine looks vastly different than how some might conceptualize indigenous medicine too.
After slavery was abolished, the medicinal plant knowledge decreased as the medicalization of birth control, childbirth, and overall medicine increased. During slavery medical advancements in birth control were becoming increasingly popular. In 1838, the first medical birth control was popularized, it was an injection into the uterus post sex. 30 And from then on the medical knowledge about conception and how to prevent pregnancy spiraled. Specifically, many of the advancements were due to Dr. James Sims who is credited as the father of modern gynecology.31 However, Dr. Sims was not doing any of these treatments ethically. During this time the patient did not need to give consent, only the “owner” which allowed Sims to take control of these patients and do all of his procedures.32 Sims operated on many enslaved women without any anesthesia or pain medication based on the incorrect assumption that Black People are unable to feel any pain.33 His experiments and discoveries have become the foundation for modern gynecology but it does not excuse the harm he perpetrated onto enslaved people.34 In the 1850s Sims opened his own hospital where he continued his unethical and harmful experiments, and when any of the women died, he blamed it on something else and was completely convinced his methods were working.35 In the 1870s there were many contraceptive devices like “condoms, sponges, douching syringes, diaphragms and cervical caps.”36 And then a little under a hundred years later the first human trials for the pill started in 1954.37
In the 18th century, American medicine was focused on bloodletting, mesmerism and earlier notions of humors.38 Based on this, you could argue that modern medicine and indigenous medicine/healing are completely separate. However, this is not true. Many of the early advances in medicine were due at least in part to an indigenous person or idea. Another example of this is the invention of the smallpox vaccine. Edward Jenner, the man credited with inventing the smallpox vaccine, actually just popularized the idea of inoculation which was introduced in the United States by Onesimus, an enslaved person who helped his enslaver slow a breakout of smallpox by using this technique.39 Since the initial introduction of inoculation and the production of a vaccine were separated, history has been able to wipe out the contributions of Onesimus. Even though the actual production of the smallpox vaccine has not credited any indigenous peoples or knowledge does not mean that the influence is not there. Aspirin and the Smallpox vaccine are not the only examples of this. As previously mentioned many of our drug discoveries are based on plants and knowledge known and used by indigenous peoples for centuries. Recent Studies have shown that the amount of money made each year off of medicinal plants used in indigenous cultures is $43 billion dollars, with none of the profits going towards the communities that actually discovered them.40 Some might argue that this is fair competition for discoveries and indigenous communities don’t deserve recognition because they did not patent or mass produce the compounds before. However, this country has never had an even playing field for White people and minorities, especially Black and Indigenous Peoples. With the rise of governmental restrictions, there has been a resurgence of medicinal plant knowledge. There are newspaper articles and even TikTok’s outlining different ways to use plants or natural remedies to help with anything. Here are some TikTok’s promoting plant or natural medicine:
v12044gd0000c9pgntjc77ucscth5780.mp4v12044gd0000cbo3hpbc77u2b8o01c10.mp4v090443d0000buc8a20gt1uohj2o83c0.mp4After watching these, you can see that there is a high demand for this knowledge, each of these videos have thousands of likes and views. In particular the video explaining an at-home abortion tea points to Amy Coney Barret being confirmed as a Supreme Court Judge as the need for this tea. This goes to show that when the government starts to restrict access to medicine, people turn to their communities. Now, the internet functions as an online community that many people turn to for help and advice. With the more recent overturning of Roe v. Wade and the potential ban on mifepristone, we are seeing increased outrage and distrust of our government and medical system as a whole.
However, unlike previous eras we are much less equipped to move around the system since everything is built in a way that allows for the restricted access of different healthcare devices, medications and procedures. Due to the undervaluation of plant knowledge and plants' natural remedies, it seems like the only way to regain any semblance of power in a society that is actively working to restrict access is to turn to other avenues. And that is exactly what is happening now.
The practice of medicine has never and will never be completely due to one person or population. Early settlers looked to Native Peoples for help and knowledge, same with enslaved populations. Similarly enslaved Black People learned white medicine by watching it being practiced and assisting the White doctors. Therefore all of these practices are intertwined, there are no advancements that draw on only one influence. Indigenous and Black medicine has always existed but has systematically been undervalued based on larger societal pushes towards white supremacy, capitalization and medicalization. But through the internet, tiktok, and community there is a re-introduction of medicinal plant knowledge making a mainstream debut on the heels of increased governmental regulation. This resurgence of knowledge has created new professions and specializations and is going to be how this and further generations rebel against governmental control.
Footnotes:
Footnotes:
Casey, P. Allen, and Richard L. Wynia. “Culturally Significant Plants.” USDA Helping People Help the Land. NRCS, September 2010. (2). https://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/va/NRCS_CulturallySignificantPlants_2010.pdf.
“Culturally Significant Plants,” (10).
“Culturally Significant Plants,” (8).
Age of Revolutions, A. “‘She Had Smothered Her Baby on Purpose’: Enslaved Women and Maternal Resistance.” Age of Revolutions, July 31, 2022. https://ageofrevolutions.com/2022/07/25/she-had-smothered-her-baby-on-purpose-enslaved-women-and-maternal-resistance/.
Fitzgerald, Colin. “African American Slave Medicine of the 19th Century.” African American Studies Commons 12, no. 10 (2016), (5).
Fitzgerald, “African American Slave Medicine,” (5).
“Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 4, Georgia, Part 1, Adams-Furr.” The Library of Congress. Accessed May 4, 2023. https://www.loc.gov/item/mesn041/. (53)
“Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project” (270).
Eisnach, Dwight, and Herbert C. Covey. "Slave Gardens in the Antebellum South: The Resolve of a Tormented People." The Southern Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2019): 11-23. muse.jhu.edu/article/773984.
Eisnach, Dwight, Herbert C. Covey. “Slave Gardens in the Antebellum South.”
Perrin, Liese M. “Resisting Reproduction: Reconsidering Slave Contraception in the Old South.” Journal of American Studies 35, no. 2 (2001): 255–74. doi:10.1017/S0021875801006612.
“Reproduction and Resistance · Hidden Voices: Enslaved Women in the Lowcountry and U.S. South · Lowcountry Digital History Initiative.” Omeka RSS. Accessed May 4, 2023. https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/hidden-voices/resisting-enslavement/reproduction-and-resistance.
“Medicinal Practices of Enslaved Peoples.” The College of Physicians of Philadelphia | Birthplace of American Medicine, February 28, 2022. https://collegeofphysicians.org/programs/education-blog/medicinal-practices-enslaved-peoples.
“Reproduction and Resistance. Hidden Voices: Enslaved Women in the Lowcountry and U.S. South”
“Reproduction and Resistance. Hidden Voices: Enslaved Women in the Lowcountry and U.S. South”
“Reproduction and Resistance. Hidden Voices: Enslaved Women in the Lowcountry and U.S. South”
“Medicinal Practices of Enslaved Peoples.”
“Medicinal Practices of Enslaved Peoples.”
“Medicinal Practices of Enslaved Peoples.”
Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 13, Oklahoma, Adams-Young. 1936. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mesn130/. (178)
Fitzgerald, “African American Slave Medicine,” (5).
Fitzgerald, “African American Slave Medicine,” (5).
Italy, U.S. Mission. “Native Americans' Many Contributions to Medicine.” U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Italy, November 19, 2021. https://it.usembassy.gov/native-americans-many-contributions-to-medicine/.
“Native Americans’ Many Contributions to Medicine.”
Sprague, Kevin. “The Kola Nut: West African Commodity in the Atlantic World.” UCLA African Studies Center. Accessed May 4, 2023. https://www.nhlrc.ucla.edu/asc/Article/186740#:~:text=The%20nut%27s%20original%20use%20on,social%20contracts%2C”%20said%20George.
“A Companion to the United States Pharmacopia; : Oldberg, Oscar, 1846- [from Old Catalog] : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive. New York, W. Wood & company, January 1, 1884. https://archive.org/details/companiontounite00old/page/4/mode/1up.
Ballvé, Teo. “Bioprospecting and Biopiracy in the Americas.” NACLA, September 4, 2007. https://nacla.org/news/bioprospecting-and-biopiracy-americas.
K;, Yamakawa. “[Historical Sketch of Modern Pharmaceutical Science and Technology (Part 3). from the Second Half of the 19th Century to World War II].” Yakushigaku zasshi. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Accessed May 4, 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11613518/#:~:text=The%20first%20pharmaceutical%20company%20was,the%20manufacturing%20of%20commercial%20drugs.
Thornton, Russell. “Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears: A New Perspective and a New Estimate.” Ethnohistory 31, no. 4 (1984): 289–300. https://doi.org/10.2307/482714.
“A Timeline of Contraception.” PBS. Public Broadcasting Service. Accessed May 4, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-timeline/.
Holland, Brynn. “The 'Father of Modern Gynecology' Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, December 4, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/the-father-of-modern-gynecology-performed-shocking-experiments-on-slaves.
“The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women.”
“The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women.”
“The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women.”
“The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women.”
“A Timeline of Contraception.”
“A Timeline of Contraception.”
“The Neo-Hippocratic Theory as Basis of Contemporary Medical Thought and Practice : Cawadias, A. P. (Alexander Panagioti), 1884- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive. London : International Society of Medical Hydrology, January 1, 1970. https://archive.org/details/b30626936/page/4/mode/2up.
Fitzgerald, “African American Slave Medicine,” (3,4)
“Bioprospecting and Biopiracy in the Americas.”
About the Author
About the Author
Nat grew up in rural Michigan surrounded by animals and nature, fostering a passion for both. They were introduced to their love of medicine from a very young age by their mother, who is herself a physician. However, this devotion for medicine and their unwavering appreciation for animals pushed them to pursue Veterinary medicine. In their free time, Nat enjoys building Legos, watching Marvel movies, and painting.
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