Mkaumwa, Calumba, and Miami Columbo
Slavery and Expropriated Pharmacology from the Swahili Coast to the Ohio Valley
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12970566 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christopher Blakley (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 199-231 |
| Publication date | 2021-09-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Social History of Alcohol Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0887-2783 • E-ISSN: 2640-7329 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/715223 |
| OpenAlex | W3199928418 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 21 |
This article examines calumba root as a mobile scientific object in global history. The narrative begins with the first mention of calumba as an antidote from the “Indies” by an Italian physician in 1671. In the late seventeenth century and into the eighteenth century, European healers prescribed the root for gastrointestinal diseases. These authors believed the plant to be indigenous to South Asia, particularly Colombo, Ceylon. By the late eighteenth century, most doctors knew it as the “Mozambique root.” However, Europeans denied the plant’s southeast African provenance until 1808. Europeans disavowed calumba’s origins in Africa while appropriating it into their own pharmacology. American physicians likewise searched for calumba in the trans-Appalachian west by simultaneously plundering the science of Indigenous American nations. These two strands of calumba’s history illuminate how Euro-American medicine relied on and obscured African and Amerindian knowledge
Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Ethnology · Genizah · Indigenous · Miami · Narrative · Swahili · Traditional medicine · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants Studies · History · Medicine
Infected by the Devil, Cured by Calundu
Medicine and the Market in England and Its Colonies, c. 1450-c. 1850
Elusive Traces
On the origin of the tree Spondias mombin in Africa
Portuguese Slave Trade
The roots of Afropessimism
British Orientalism and the Indian 'Rational Tradition' c. 1780-1820
Inquisition Records from Goa as Sources for the Study of Slavery in the Eastern Domains of the Portuguese Empire
Bondage and the Environment in the Indian Ocean World
Mozambique Island
The trade and marketing of traditional medicines in southern and central Malawi
Secret Cures of Slaves
The World's Oldest Trade
On the Problem of Sea Voyages of Ancient Africans in the Indian Ocean
African Fire Cultures, Cattle Ranching, and Colonial Landscape Transformations in the Neotropics
The Snakestone Experiments
Cherokee Healing
The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |