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Cotton root bark is used by enslaved African women for birth control and terminating pregnancies.

1800s

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Throughout the plantation period, enslaved African people care for themselves and their communities with medicinal practices rooted in knowledge from their homelands, including the use of cotton root bark for birth control. The root of the cotton tree is used as an abortifacient in Africa, and this knowledge is adapted upon encountering the cotton crop on Southern plantations. As an act of reproductive resistance, enslaved women chew the fresh bark to induce late menstruation or miscarriage. The practice becomes so widespread that as white doctors attempt to stop abortions already in process, supplies of the herbal antidote are soon depleted.