ABSTRACT
The large transmigration of enslaved Africans and their owners from the plantations of Haiti to New Orleans in the 1800s brought influential numbers of African practitioners of Voodoo into Louisiana. Enslaved Africans played an unportant role in the development of medicine in the antebellum South. Africans were active participants in the care and treatment of illness/disease; and in assisting Whites in maintaining their own general health care. African participation was an absolute necessity. Africans were more than aware of the various medical health risks inherent in the institution of enslavement. Dispensing medical care was a natural occupation among enslaved Africans. Many enslaved Africans of southeastern Louisiana recounted dispensing experiences handed down from their mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grand-fathers. Slaveowners attempted to inculcate in the African a fear of Voodoo, likening its existence to the concept of evil in Christianity. Slaveowners saw the event as a way to discourage unauthorized meetings of Africans which might lead to rebellion.
