Plant Migrations from Africa to
the Americas During Slavery Times

GWI Africa Wellness Initiative Event

Webinar Held on Tuesday, November 15, 10:00AM ET

View Webinar Recording at this Link

Passcode: Y?AaV6zx

While there is a great deal of in-depth research going on to improve our knowledge about the history, geography and economics of slavery during the 18th and 19th Century, much less is being done to look at the transfer of plants from Africa to the New World that arose as a result of this mass migration across the Atlantic. These plants brought by slaves or slave owners have had a major impact on the life of people living in the Caribbean and southern states of the US.

Researchers like Judith Carney at UCL and others at the African American Museum in Washington, DC, have begun working on African “foodways” while Black American celebrity chefs in US have increasingly returned to their ancestral roots to find inspiration for new dishes and interesting ingredients for their restaurants and food businesses.

This presentation provides a brief introduction to ten of the most important African plants that found their way across the Atlantic and became important in Caribbean and Black American foods, medicines and beauty care products.

Much work still needs to be done to understand just how these plants got across the Atlantic and how and where they were established throughout those parts of the Americas where slavery predominated. This webinar will hopefully encourage more people to work on this important subject.