It is an unconscious bias of ours that White doctors have been the go-to person since the colonization of North America. Some may think they diligently took care of the sick; in addition, they also worked during antebellum slavery where they took care of the slaveowners and enslaved peoples. However, that is far from the truth. During the years of early America, a medical doctor wasn’t a legitimate thing. Yes, they were called when needed, however, they weren’t the first person people would call. It was the enslaved women (and men) that took care of the aliments on the plantations and the slave owners' house.
According to Working Cures by Sharla M. Fett, professor of history at Occidental College, “Black midwives visited slave dwellings and white households to attend mothers and catch babies...any serious exploration of African American health culture in the antebellum South, quickly puts to rest the myth of slave dependency on white healthcare”(Fett 1). Enslaved Black peoples were the doctors of the time, they carry the medicinal knowledge from fellow enslaved persons or their homeland they were stolen from and applied their knowledge to keep their people alive and attend to their slave owners. It’s important to remind you that enslaved people were a livestock that solely drove the economy of the South. They needed to keep the enslaved people alive in order to make a profit.
During this time, the White doctor was just starting to gain legitimacy since ultimately they did not know what they were doing (most people didn’t really). They were not trusted as their go-to and the head wife of the plantation had more say over treatment than a doctor. However, though they would slowly start to gain traction with the experimentation of Black bodies that secured their practices, it was Black medicine that “provided the foundation of popular medicine”(Fett 3). Although, there is no doubt that some medicinal practices used by the White doctor were adopted from enslaved Black doctors.
Source:
Fett, Sharla M. Working Cures; Healing Health, and Power on Southern Slave Plantations. E-book. Chapel Hill. The University of North Carolina Press. 2002
Note: it is part of my school capstone that I am currently working on. Some of the content of this article may be updated or deleted later in the future.
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