3rd Mashantucket Pequot History Conference -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 11/29/2001
Last Visited: 8/28/2002
Jason Mancini, Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center
This paper will explore the dynamic and complex interaction between eighteenth century Native American and colonial medicinal knowledge in the northeast, particularly in southern New England.Ethnohistorical documents indicate that Native people readily incorporated European plants into their medicinal traditions while Euro-Americans, in medical literature, actively included North American plants into their collective medicinal repertoire.Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, there is a prolonged gap in the historical record concerning Native American medicinal practices.During this time, there is a corresponding increase in colonial documentation.I will examine this trend in the context of a developing American medical institution, the publication of American materia medica, the dynamic relationship between Native American and colonial medicinal traditions, the conversion of Natives to Christianity, and the continued marginalization of Native peoples.