Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power on Southern Slave Plantations (Gender and American Culture) (Gender & American Culture)

exploring The Charged Topic Of Black Health Under Slavery, Sharla Fett Reveals How Herbalism, Conjuring, Midwifery, And Other African American Healing Practices Became Arts Of Resistance In The Antebellum South. fett Shows How Enslaved Men And Women Drew On African Precedents To Develop A View Of Health And Healing That Was Distinctly At Odds With Slaveholders' Property Concerns. While White Slaveowners Narrowly Defined Slave Health In Terms Of Soundness For Labor, Slaves Embraced A Relational View Of Health That Was Intimately Tied To Religion And Community. African American Healing Practices Thus Not Only Restored The Body But Also Provided A Formidable Weapon Against White Objectification Of Black Health. enslaved Women Played A Particularly Important Role In Plantation Health Culture: They Made Medicines, Cared For The Sick, And Served As Midwives In Both Black And White Households. Their Labor As Health Workers Not Only Proved Essential To Plantation Production But Also Gave Them A Basis Of Authority Within Enslaved Communities. Not Surprisingly, Conflicts Frequently Arose Between Slave Doctoring Women And The Whites Who Attempted To Supervise Their Work, As Did Conflicts Related To Feigned Illness, Poisoning Threats, And African-based Religious Practices. By Examining The Deeply Contentious Dynamics Of Plantation Healing, Fett Sheds New Light On The Broader Power Relations Of Antebellum American Slavery. tera W. Hunter reveals How African Americans Developed A Distinctive Health Culture That Drew On A Panoply Of Therapies, Remedies, And Botanical Knowledge From African, European, And Native American Sources. "Exploring the charged topic of black health under slavery, Sharla Fett reveals how herbalism, conjuring, midwifery, and other African American healing practices became arts of resistance in the antebellum South.". "Felt shows how enslaved men and women drew on African precedents to develop a view of health and healing that was distinctly at odds with slaveholders' property concerns. While white slave-owners narrowly defined slave health in terms of "soundness" for labor, slaves embraced a relational concept of health that was intimately tied to religion and community. African American healing practices thus not only restored the body but also provided a formidable weapon against white objectification of black health.". "Based on innovative readings of slave narratives, household remedy books, overseer letters, plantation records, and antebellum medical journals, Working Cures charts the contentious realm of plantation medical encounters. Fett's compelling analysis of these struggles illuminates the vital connection drawn by enslaved African Americans between personal health and collective freedom."--BOOK JACKET. Working Cures explores black health under slavery showing how herbalism, conjuring, midwifery and other African American healing practices became arts of resistance in the antebellum South and invoked conflicts. "The being of slavery, its soul and body, lives and moves in the chattel principle," wrote Presbyterian minister James W. C. Pennington in 1849.