Conjuring of America Notes

Youtube Video here: https://youtu.be/FXfuayn7q3M

Themes/ Questions/ Objectives

This book was intriguing to me because it sits at a cross-section of personal interests for me. First, in its connection to African spirituality. I come from a Black African spiritual system background, though not one that many other people share, and as such I have always found it odd the ways in which it is often demonized not only through popular culture, but by many Black Americans who consider a lot of it to be demon worship. I know that this is largely due to a long history of spiritual repression and conversion that has afflicted the African-American community since its inception, but a knowledge of having lost something without knowing what that is feels akin to grasping the memory of a pullcord during a freefall. 

To know Black history is to peer into the cobwebbed corners of the world where messy tangles of narrative get swept into the shadows, and painstakingly teasing out the knots. Tracing what aspects of modern culture derive themselves from conjurework and root knowledge, and learn the important roots, symbols, and practices of conjurework.

Rather than merely rejecting a bastardized history, I wanted to lay my hands on some truth that would tell me about the ways in which my people have navigated the American system for so many years. I wanted to learn the alchemic miracles of life that sustained my eventual creation: the spells that siphoned nourishment from the bleak nothingness that was supposed to swallow our existence. That transformed deadly forests into verdant apothecaries, and mournful melodies into songs of sustenance and resilience. Magic is nothing at all if it doesn’t thrum with the vibrancy of truth when summoned, and nothing is truer than my bones, the skin that they carry around, and the stories that brought both into this world.

 The conjure that rests at the origins of American staples of music (blues, jazz, ragtime, gospel, ring shout), fashion (weaving, denim, indigo, quilting), dance (juba, tap dance, cakewalk, Bamboula), medicine (Vick’s Vapor Rub, midwifery, abortion methods, the use of teas and salves).

This book is another step in the journey of discovering the true story of the where and why that produced me, what I lost and what I still carry, what to call forth and what to leave behind. 

Figures

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Name	Description	Page
Aunt Caroline Dye (1843–?)	A famous conjure woman from Arkansas who is featured in W.C. Handy’s song “Sundown Blues” and blues musician Will Shade’s song “Aunt Caroline Dyer Blues.”	141, 144
Betsy Toledano	High Priestess of Voodoo.	—
Billy Kersands	African American minstrel performer who wrote the song and dance “Old Aunt Jemima,” which eventually inspired the creation of the Aunt Jemima character.	116
Eliza Foote	A free Black woman who practiced medicine in Maryland. When enslaved people who had escaped were seen leaving her house, she was arrested and forced to leave town under threat of being sold into slavery.	30
Harriet Jacobs (1813–1897)	A formerly enslaved woman who escaped from the plantation and later wrote under the pen name Linda Brent. She spent seven years hiding in her grandmother’s attic.	23
Marie Laveau (1801–1881)	A 19th-century Creole woman of African, European, and Indigenous descent who lived in New Orleans. She was a free woman of color who was dubbed the “Queen of Conjure” by Zora Neale Hurston. Some accounts suggest that the historical Marie Laveau may represent two different women. Juliette, an enslaved woman, was “purchased” by Marie Laveau and became her apprentice.	—
Onesimus	An enslaved Yoruba man who, in the 18th century, helped the city of Boston stave off a widespread outbreak of smallpox by introducing the vaccination method of his homeland.	19
Sanite Dede	Voodoo Queen of New Orleans who preceded Marie Laveau. She reportedly purchased her freedom through the sale of calas, a type of fried rice cake.	259
San Malo	Leader of a series of slave rebellions in 1784. His memory continued to live on through ancestor worship in New Orleans conjure traditions.	77
W.C. Handy (1873–1958)	Known as the “Father of the Blues” for his role in bringing the Delta blues of the South into wider popular music and connecting it with ragtime.	138
Wiley	An ancestor of the Stancil-Shepherd family and the Black “mammy” of Lunsford Richardson, who is credited with inventing Vicks VapoRub. The Stancil-Shepherd family maintains that the recipe derives from Wiley and other conjure women who used similar salves.	21

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Date / Period	Event / Context	Page
1712	One of the early slave revolts referenced in the text.	75
1742	One of the slave revolts referenced in the text.	75
1791	Haitian Revolution began, eventually leading to the abolition of slavery and the establishment of Haiti as an independent nation.	—
1794	Invention of the cotton gin.	—
1790s–1800s	France and Spain traded ownership of New Orleans back and forth, resulting in changes to the laws governing the city.	79
1808	End of the transatlantic slave trade in the United States.	—
1811	German Coast Uprising: Charles Deslondes led hundreds of enslaved people in a revolt near the Mississippi River.	77
1817	A law was passed restricting gatherings between enslaved and free people of color in Congo Square.	—
1822	Denmark Vesey’s planned revolt against slavery.	—
1831	Nat Turner’s Rebellion, one of the most significant slave rebellions in the United States.	36
1850	Captain Mazaret raided a Vodou meeting led by Madame Laveau.	82
1860s–1870s	Following the Civil War, doctors lost significant income because the government was no longer paying for healthcare provided to enslaved people as property. Formerly enslaved people and other poor communities increasingly relied on Granny Midwives to fill the healthcare gap. Midwives were subsequently heavily criticized and targeted by government authorities and physicians. During the same period, hundreds of Chinese men immigrated to the Delta South, and former slaveholders used their presence to pit immigrants and newly freed slaves against each other for labor.	192
Post–Civil War	White physicians increasingly attempted to discredit and restrict midwives, despite their important role in providing healthcare to rural and poor communities.	192
1915–1934	United States invasion and occupation of Haiti.	136
Early 1940s	Virtually all births were still taking place at home and were attended by midwives.	215
Late 1940s–1950s	By the end of the following decade, almost 90% of births occurred in hospitals, marking a major shift away from home births and midwife-assisted deliveries.	215
1973	The Relf sisters’ case brought national attention to the coercive sterilization of poor and Black women. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Relf sisters, exposing widespread sterilization abuse funded by the federal government. The district court found that an estimated 100,000–150,000 poor people were sterilized annually through federally funded programs.	—

Words

Term	Definition	Page
Ashcake / Hoecake / Cornbread	Traditional corn-based foods associated with African American foodways.	119
Babalawo	Expert diviners in the Yoruba spiritual tradition.	35
Bamboula	A historical West African and Afro-Caribbean drum, dance, and syncopated rhythm, typically using a 3+3+2 pattern. It was brought to Haiti, Louisiana, and the Virgin Islands by enslaved Africans. In New Orleans, it became famous through gatherings at Congo Square and influenced American jazz and regional music.	97
Cakewalk	A dance that grew to national popularity through minstrel shows. It derived from an enslaved tradition of mockingly imitating slave masters during plantation “frolics.”	127
Calinda	A popular Vodou dance that was prominent in the 19th century.	64
“Catching Babies”	A term historically used for assisting with or delivering babies.	—
Code Negro	Rules governing how enslaved people were to be treated under Spanish rule in New Orleans. These regulations were generally more liberal than the French Code Noir.	—
Code Noir	Rules governing the treatment and regulation of enslaved people under French rule in New Orleans.	—
Conjure	A mixture of spiritual beliefs, herbal rituals, and therapeutic practices.	8
Damballah and Ayida Wedo	Dual water spirits from the Fon people of Dahomey who were believed to assist the supreme being, Mawu-Lisa.	83
Erzulie	A Haitian Vodou loa who occasionally takes the form of a mermaid in Haitian lore.	76
Gris-gris	Objects of spiritual power derived from the syncretism of multiple spiritual practices.	93
Gullah Geechee	Descendants of Yoruba, Igbo, Senegambian, and Ovimbundu peoples who settled in areas such as Georgia and the Carolinas in large numbers. They became known for their expert knowledge of rice and indigo production.	—
Gunny Sack	A type of conjure bag.	28
Hoppin’ John	A dish made with black-eyed peas and rice. It is an African American staple traditionally associated with bringing good luck.	—
Ipori	A spiritual force that the Yoruba believed resided in the big toes of the feet.	290
Iyami Aje	Yoruba witches who were believed to transform into birds at night.	260
Juba	A dance derived from the Congo thigh-thumping dance called Nzuba, often performed at cakewalks.	129
Mami Wata	A water spirit whose origins are tied to earlier goddesses such as Oshun. Mami Wata emerged between the 15th and 19th centuries through cultural blending among Africans, Europeans, and Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean.	84
Minkisi / Nkisi	Sacred power objects and spirit containers created by the Kongo people of Central Africa.	93
“Mississippi Appendectomy”	A term coined by Fannie Lou Hamer referring to the coercive or nonconsensual removal of the wombs of Black women by white doctors, particularly in the post–Civil War period. The practice became part of broader discussions about coerced sterilization.	225
Motherwit	A blend of practical wisdom and otherworldly insight.	198
Nature Sack	A specialized form of conjure work that gained popularity in the 1930s and was said to control a promiscuous man's erections.	210
Onisegun	Specialized healers in the Yoruba tradition.	35
Osanyin	Orisha of herbalism who inhabits the forest, giving the woods a spiritual power of their own.	36
Potlikker	Broth made from cooked-down greens. It was traditionally used as a nourishing remedy when someone was ill or to fortify the body against flu and colds.	275
Simbi	Water spirits associated with the Kongo who were believed to take the form of mermaids.	66; 67, 70
Turpentine	A longtime ingredient in conjurework salves, teas, and rootwork. It was also a main active ingredient in the original recipe for Vicks VapoRub. Turpentine is produced by distilling oleoresin, the sticky resin extracted primarily from pine and other coniferous trees.	—
Voodoo / Vodou	A distinctive tradition of conjure that combines Roman Catholicism with multiple spiritual traditions, including Islamic magical charms (gris-gris) from Senegambia, minkisi from the Congo, the worship of loa from Haitian Vodou and the Fon traditions of Benin and Togo, and the veneration of Orishas by the Yoruba.	61