MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS,THE ARCHIVE,AND THE MAKING OF SLAVERY IN EARLY MODERN BARBADOS

I.In 1679, a "practitioner in physick & chyrurgery" in the parish of St Thomas on the island of Barbados died.Amongst his various bequests he left one daughter the sum of six hundred pounds sterling, to be paid either on her majority or upon her marriage, as well as "one negro girl named Bess".He left his other daughter the same sum of money along with "one negro girl named Tom Bellah".To his youngest son, he bequeathed twelve hundred pounds sterling and "one negro boy named Sander and his heirs".His wife received his plate, "the choice of one horse out of my stable of horses, and also one negro man named Tim and one mulatto named Moly Cumbo".The rest of his estate was divided between his two older sons.As the owner of several plantations this legacy undoubtedly included other enslaved individuals. 1We have few other records of this man's life.He left behind no case-books or publications, no library or correspondence to provide insight into his medical practice or to map the trajectory of his career.At the end of his life what was important to record, by his own careful itemization, was his medical profession, his family and social network, his property and wealth, and specific, named, enslaved individuals, who materialised, both in his will and in practice, the link between living family and future descendants.The absence of 1 Barbados Department of Archives, (BDA) RB6/9, 575.This research was made possible by UKRI FLF project, Medicine and the Making of Race [MR/T041528/1] and was undertaken in partnership with Carolin Schmitz and Becca Taite.I am