Herbal knowledge of the Caribbean

Long before 1492 the Taíno, the Kalinago and other Indigenous peoples lived on the islands of the Caribbean. They knew the plants of their islands and used them as food, as medicine and in ceremonies. The word tobacco comes from their language via Spanish; the Taíno used tobacco in rituals, among other things.

After the Spanish conquest most Taíno died from violence, forced labour and new diseases. Part of their knowledge lived on in the families and villages that followed. From the sixteenth century hundreds of thousands of Africans were enslaved and brought to the plantations on the islands. They brought their own knowledge of plants and learned the plants of their new surroundings.

From that mixture of Indigenous, African, European and later also Indian and Chinese knowledge grew the herbal medicine found on the islands today. On the English-speaking islands it is called bush medicine and bush tea; on Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire, rèmedi di tera.

In the folk medicine of many islands, health is about a clean and balanced body. Bitter teas are considered blood-cleansing. In Jamaica cerasee is the best-known example. Some families give their children a “washout”, a cleansing tea, once a year.

There is also a division into “hot” and “cool” herbs and ailments, as in many folk medicines around the Atlantic. A cool tea is said to help with fever and a hot one with chills and stomach ache.

For many people illness does not have only a physical cause. On some islands healing is connected with religious traditions, such as Vodou in Haiti and Santería in Cuba. We do not describe these here; they belong to their own communities.

Knowledge is passed on mainly at home, from grandmother to grandchild. Almost every family knows a few teas for fever, colds or stomach ache. There are also herbal doctors, midwives and market vendors who keep a larger part of the knowledge.

On Curaçao, Dinah Veeris (1939–2024) grew up in her mother’s herb garden. She gathered the knowledge of elders on the island and in 1991 founded the herb garden Den Paradera, where visitors get to know the plants and their uses.

Most knowledge is oral. European naturalists did write a great deal down, but rarely mentioned whom they learned it from. In his book on the natural history of Jamaica (1707 and 1725), Hans Sloane described hundreds of plants and their uses, learned largely from enslaved Africans.

A well-known example is the name quassia. Linnaeus named the genus Quassia after Graman Quassi, a freed healer and plant expert in Suriname. In the eighteenth century he showed Europeans how the bitter bark was used against fever.

Since the 1980s the research network TRAMIL has recorded on many islands which plants people actually use. It has those plants studied for effect and safety and publishes the results in a Caribbean plant pharmacopoeia.

On the islands herbal tea is an everyday home remedy, often alongside a visit to the family doctor. Markets sell bunches of fresh herbs, and many people have a few medicinal plants in the garden.

The knowledge is under pressure, though. Young people move to the city or abroad, and ready-made medicines are easier to get. Gardens such as Den Paradera, schools and research projects such as TRAMIL try to record the knowledge and pass it on.

Through migration the tradition also lives on in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. In Caribbean shops in Amsterdam, Rotterdam or London you can find many of the same herbs.

The herbs come from the garden, the yard and the bush. They are usually steeped or boiled as tea, sometimes used as a bath or compress.

Sopropo (cerasee) is one of the best-known bitter teas. The leaf of soursop is drunk in the evening to relax. Lemongrass is called fever grass in Jamaica and is drunk for fever and colds. Allspice has long grown in Jamaica and is used for stomach ache and in food.

The bark of lignum vitae was shipped to Europe as early as the sixteenth century as a remedy against syphilis. Sarsaparilla was a well-known blood-cleansing root. People also use quassia, velvetleaf, coffee senna, papaya and aloe vera, which was grown on a large scale on Aruba from 1840.

Much of this knowledge arose under slavery, among people who often received no other care. Europeans took over the knowledge without naming its source. It is good to know that history and to give the people who keep the knowledge the recognition they deserve.

Not all herbs are harmless. Soursop leaf contains substances that are toxic to nerve cells in laboratory studies, and bitter melon can lower blood sugar and is dangerous in pregnancy. Do not use home remedies in place of medical care for serious complaints.