Article ID: CBB518452624

From Ethnobotany to Emancipation: Slaves, Plant Knowledge, and Gardens on Eighteenth-Century Isle de France (2019)

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This essay examines the relationship between slavery and plant knowledge for cultivational activities and medicinal purposes on Isle de France (Mauritius) in the second half of the eighteenth century. It builds on recent scholarship to argue for the significance of slaves in the acquisition of plant material and related knowledge in pharmaceutical, acclimatization, and private gardens on the French colonial island. I highlight the degree to which French colonial officials relied on slaves’ ethnobotanical knowledge but neglected to include such information in their published works. Rather than seeking to explore the status of such knowledge within European frameworks of natural history as an endpoint of knowledge production, this essay calls upon us to think about the plant knowledge that slaves possessed for its practical implementations in the local island context. Both female and male slaves’ plant-based knowledge enriched – even initiated – practices of cultivation and preparation techniques of plants for nourishment and medicinal uses. Here, cultivational knowledge and skills determined a slave’s hierarchical rank. As the case of the slave gardener Rama and his family reveals, plant knowledge sometimes offered slaves opportunities for social mobility and, even though on extremely rare occasions, enabled them to become legally free.

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Authors & Contributors
Weaver, Karol Kimberlee
Turner, Sasha
Paolo Conte
Heath, Elizabeth A.
Marquese, Rafael de Bivar
Kate Ramsey
Concepts
Slavery and slaves
Colonialism
Botany
Slavery, abolition, and emancipation
France, colonies
Medicine
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
Early modern
17th century
16th century
Places
Caribbean
Great Britain
France
Saint Domingue (Caribbean)
Atlantic world
Suriname
Institutions
Académie Royale des Sciences (France)
Jardin du roi (France)
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