Working cures
Subtitle: healing, health, and power on southern slave plantations
By: Sharla M. Fett.
Series: Gender and American culture; Gender & American culture
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Chapel Hill
Language: eng
Number of pages: 290
Subjects: Healing -- Southern States -- History; Slaves -- Health and hygiene -- Southern States -- History; Plantation life -- Southern States -- History; Slaves -- Medical care -- Southern States -- History; Health and race -- Southern States -- History; Slaves -- Southern States -- Social conditions; Southern States -- Social conditions
Other titles: Healing, health, and power on southern slave plantations
Description: "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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [251]-279) and index.