Critique of Secondary Source
This essay examines a secondary historical interpretation of evidence in detail. For students and teachers, this section is meant to illustrate the critical perspective required when drawing on secondary sources.
The Power of History
A Critique of: Herbert Morais, The History of the Negro in Medicine. (New York: Publishers Company, Inc., 1967).
In the same year that civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael coined the term “black power,” The History of the Negro in Medicine, by Herbert Morais, was published by the International Library of Negro Life and History.1 The series grew out of certain historians’ interest in analyzing the legacy of racism in various spheres of African-American life, including medicine. While Carmichael meant “black power” to connote the need for black people to fight for their liberation by any means necessary — a shift from the passive resistance techniques that characterized the early part of the Civil Rights movement — Morais, a Columbia-trained historian, looked to the past as a means of empowering black Americans in the late 1960s.
Knowledge of the temporal, intellectual, and cultural atmosphere in which a particular history is written is important for analyzing an author's argument. In 1967, scholarship on the contribution of African Americans to the medical field — as well as about their distinctive healing practices — was relatively under-developed. The fact that Morais wrote his book during a period of dramatic social activism and change among African Americans, and was explicit about using history to illuminate the injustices of the present, should make us as historians-in-training think about how that context may have influenced Morais’ choice and interpretation of his primary source material. We should keep this in mind as we take a closer look at Morais’ approach.
Morais’ first, and most general, purpose was to provide a broad historical overview of African Americans’ contribution to medicine, extending from the time of slavery into the mid-20th century. Morais recognized the limitations of such an ambitious project, indicating that the book was intended to stimulate other scholars to further investigation. To foster such research, Morais provided an extensive bibliography with references to both primary and secondary source material.
On a more focused level, Morais structured his overview by examining the contribution of exceptional African Americans over two centuries. In the chapters devoted to blacks in the 18th century, he makes central the achievements of several individuals who used their knowledge of medicine to win the favor of white physicians central to his narrative. For example, we learn the story of James Derham2, a black slave whose master took him as an apprentice physician. When Derham’s master’s loyalist political tendencies got him into trouble during the Revolutionary War, Derham was sold to a series of physicians — all of whom, Morais tells us, were impressed with his medical acumen. It was his skill as a healer, Morais argues, that enabled Derham to purchase his freedom. Derham forged a relationship with eminent Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush, who not only served as an advocate, but engaged in a correspondence that lasted for 10 years. In testimony to the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, Rush wrote of Derham, “I expected to have suggested some new medicines to him, but he suggested many more to me."
The reason we recounted this relatively detailed depiction of the story about Derham and Rush is because it exemplifies the historiographic approach that drives Morais’ analysis. Sometimes referred to as a “great man” version of history, for Morais, highlighting the achievements of notable or famous historical actors serves his primary argument: that blacks have never been intellectually inferior to whites; even in colonial times, ambitious blacks were capable not only of learning the practice of medicine, but also contributed to the development of useful medical knowledge. That the experience of health and healing in the 18th century was characterized by cultural exchange between blacks and whites is an aspect of Morais’ argument taken up in greater depth by scholars in subsequent decades (see historiographic overview).
Indeed, while Morais focuses primarily on the accomplishments of individuals like Derham, he does not entirely neglect the other forms of healing practiced by African Americans during the 18th century. He notes that blacks engaged in domestic healing practices involving botanically-derived materia medica as well as with charms and conjuration. Yet, as often as people like Derham achieved privileged social status, practitioners of “root-docterin” or the “healing touch” were persecuted by whites. Morais argues that many whites, particularly those in the South, feared that their slaves would use their medical knowledge to poison their masters.
If his attention to “great men” like Derham enabled him to argue that blacks are, and have always been intellectually equal to whites, Morais’ discussion of other forms of African healing underscores a complementary argument: the fact that black healers were constantly at risk of being accused of attempt to poison — a crime punishable by death — which prevented them from practicing healing arts. Morais argues that the legacy of this oppression can be seen in the 1960s, a time when black men and women continued to be denied access to health care much as they continued to be prevented from pursuing medically-related careers.
Morais’ book is an important example of an attempt to use history as a means of illuminating the concerns of the present as well as attempting to shape the future. That many recent scholars have chosen to pursue issues raised by Morais helps us see the book’s “power” in its particular temporal and cultural context, as well as in the larger historiography of healing among African Americans.
Thinking about Race in History
A discussion of race in 18th century America begs the question of descriptive categories. Morais’ use of the word “Negro” is one that is no longer considered politically-correct. “African American” is often used in its stead. Yet, does that make everyone else simply American? While many “whites” in colonial Philadelphia were of British or “anglo” descent, there were also Irishmen and Germans who were not immune to prejudice from these “anglo-Americans.” There is no simple answer or guide for dealing with these issues, but in telling a history of race-relations in 18th-century Philadelphia, it is important to be sensitive both to the categories used by our historical actors as well as to the difficulties inherent in discussing race.
1 Created in 1926, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History has supported many publications dealing with the contributions of African Americans to the growth and development of the United States. A representative for the Association, writing in the preface remarked, “It is a well-known fact today that too few Americans are aware that the Negro has a notable history of proud achievement. Because the standard sources of world history have failed to include his contributions, an honest account of the many outstanding roles that Negroes have played in the mainstream of world culture is long overdue.”
2 Some sources refer to this physician as Durham, not Derham. Such variable spelling is common in documents of the time-period. By cross-referencing clues from the primary source materials, it was possible to determine that both names refer to the same individual. Attention to such issues in your own research can lead to unexpected and exciting revelations!