Preserver and Destroyer: Salt in The History of Mary Prince

ABSTRACT

Salt has a commanding metaphorical and material presence in the history of Western culture and proves an ideal substance for the study of a wide variety of interlocking phenomena. This paper explores salt’s role in The History of Mary Prince and in the broader historical circumstances in which this narrative is set. The relationship between salt, slavery, and capitalism’s growth is discussed in terms of the Lacanian concept of extimacy, or intimate exteriority, in order to bring into focus the relevance of Prince’s experience over ten years in the salt ponds. Through close readings of Prince’s narrative, this extimate relationship is investigated in the light of the historiography of race and the contemporary epidemic of hypertension among members of the African diaspora. The essay then considers the use of salt mines today as archival spaces and concludes by examining salt production in Britain during the Romantic period and its connection to West Africa.

Notes

1 Ernest Jones, in his essay “The Symbolic Significance of Salt”, explains:

in all ages salt has been invested with a significance far exceeding that inherent in its natural properties, interesting and important as these are. Homer calls it a divine substance, Plato describes it as especially dear to the Gods … Secondly, the idea of salt has in different languages lent itself to a remarkable profusion of metaphorical connotations, so that a study of these suggests itself as being likely to indicate what the idea has essentially stood for in the human mind, and hence perhaps the source of its exaggerated significance. (113)

If one considers the seemingly endless uses of salt in a wide variety of processes over the course of human history to the current day (over 14,000 uses are cited by the modern salt industry [Kurlansky 5]), the significance Jones refers to appears far less exaggerated. And because of its ubiquity and its necessity to human life, salt has provided a basis for taxation throughout history, and thus has been fundamental to the economic makeup and survival of government.

2 Largely, though not entirely, untold, as Michele Speitz’s recent essay in Romantic Circles, “Blood Sugar and Salt Licks,” attests. This essay has been an important impetus and departure point for the current paper.

3 For a thorough discussion of Strachey’s use of cathexis for Besetzung, see Hoffer’s “Reflections on Cathexis.”

4 Though some salts contain coloring taken from materials involved in their production, the salt produced on Grand Turk was white enough that “partial or total blindness was common” (“Salt Industry”) among salt workers from the prolonged exposure to the reflection of the sun off the salt. In a postscript to his introduction, Pringle mentions that Prince is effected by a “disease in the eyes” which “may terminate in total blindness” (ii).

5 Among the vast number of conditions which salt was used to treat, Eberhard Wormer indicates that

pharmacists of the 19th century recommended internal use of salt against digestive upsets, goitre, glandular diseases, intestinal worms, dysentery, dropsy, epilepsy, and syphilis. Externally applied salt (e.g. cold or warm hip-baths) was said to be locally stimulating but acerbic to skin and mucous membranes at high doses. External application was advised in cases of rash and swelling and, in ophthalmology, to drive off stains and stain-obscurations of the cornea. A clyster (enema) of salt was even supposed to work for patients who were “seemingly dead and apoplectical.” [original emphasis]

Salt was also used as a medicine in cases where the ailment was uncertain or undefined. Charles Rogers, in Scotland, Social and Domestic (1869), writes:

When a child met with an accident, a table-spoonful of water mixed with salt was applied to its brow and poured into its mouth; when an adult complained, and the cause of his ailment was unknown, an old sixpence was borrowed from a neighbour, its intended use being kept secret. As much salt as could be raised on the coin was then placed in a table-spoonful of water and melted. The sixpence was next put into the solution, and the soles of the patients feet and the palms of his hands were moistened three times with the liquid. The patient was made to taste the mixture thrice. His brow was stroked with the solution. The liquid which remained in the spoon was thrown over the fire, with these words, “Lord, preserve us frae a’ skaith.” The cure was then held to be complete. (215)

6 For an overview of this debate, see George J. Armelagos’s essay “The Slavery Hypertension Hypothesis: Natural Selection and Scientific Investigation: A Commentary.” Here Armelagos details the contemporary argument for a genetic cause of African-American hypertension and the counterargument which followed. That the scientific community lacks consensus on this issue is likely due in part to the persistence of ahistorical notions of race within all types of discourses and institutions.

7 It is important to note that the National Archives house the Colonial Office records dealing with the governance of the Turks Islands during the period Prince was resident there.

8 For the importance of Lagos to the Transatlantic slave trade, see Kristin Mann.