Medical practices in the french west indies: Master and slave in the 17th and 18th centuries

In these pages, the example of Guadeloupe is used to evaluate the power of coercion exercised by French slavery on the body of the slave afflicted by illness. The prohibition of African healers and their practices aimed to prevent the expression of the slave's body through its own medicine. Conversely, by wishing to forcibly promote their own order, the white masters were able to impose — as far as this was possible — their own vision of the body and of its relationship to nature and to society.