We turn today to the African influences on African American herbalist like Tennessee native Dr. Alvenia Fulton (1893-1999). Lievain Bonaventure Proyart (1743-1808) served as a French Missionary in the Congo. His account provides a detailed record of how West Africans in the Congo practiced medicine. He writes, lemon or lime-juice, pepper, and cardamom had been the most widely used curatives along with “the roots, branches, and gums of trees” and about thirty green herbs. Experts among the people knew the recipes for creating potent healing combinations that resolved people’s illnesses. Proyart observed, these herbal remedies produced “very successful” results. He added, at the time, no European physician knows anything about the healing properties of the herbs here which “are better for our bodies” than the medical practices in Europe. Congolese peoples who resettled in the Americas brought with them their knowledge of natural remedies. And oral history transferred that knowledge from generation to the next.
