Caribbean Herbalism: The Healing Benefits of Aloe, Cacao, Ginger & Turmeric

If you’ve ever made a wild-harvested tea, rubbed aloe on a sunburn, or added ginger to a pot of soup, you’ve already stepped into the world of Caribbean herbalism. This isn’t a lost tradition—it’s one that’s still practiced, remembered, and evolving in homes, gardens, and communities throughout the Caribbean and its diaspora.

Aleya Fraser’s groundbreaking new book, Caribbean Herbalism: Traditional Wisdom and Modern Herbal Healing, is part memoir, part materia medica, and part cultural record. It includes plant profiles filled with time-honored Caribbean knowledge and contemporary research, alongside personal stories, interviews, and home remedies.

We’re honored to share excerpts from the book, including four of the plants Aleya features: ginger, aloe, cacao, and turmeric. These herbs have long supported everyday healing in the Caribbean and beyond, used to nourish, soothe, and strengthen across generations. – Juliet Blankespoor

The beauty of Caribbean herbal knowledge is that it lives in the people. The downside to this is that there is not as much scholarly or published work on the matter. Much as with other Indigenous ways of being, it is mainly an oral tradition passed down from generation to generation.

The knowledge lives in your grandmother’s heart, your grandfather’s hands, and your neighbor’s garden. People may not always be able to tell you how or why something works, but they can often give you a list of herbs that either they have used or someone they know has used for an ailment.

The history of the movement of peoples in the Caribbean speaks to how the same plants and traditions are found in the different nations. From the Indigenous peoples who moved freely between the islands and mainland to the Europeans who colonized the area, every culture is responsible for adding to the tapestry of the Caribbean.

It is a lifelong journey to be in right relation with the plants around us, as well as with our own bodies. I believe that nurturing these relationships is key to personal and planetary health!

Four Healing Herbs Used in Traditional Caribbean Herbalism

• Aloe (Aloe vera, A. barbadensis)
• Cacao (Theobroma cacao)
• Ginger (Zingiber officinale)
• Turmeric (Curcuma longa)

Aloe (Aloe vera, A. barbadensis)

Aloe is a succulent plant that has thick leaves filled with a translucent gel. The leaves grow around the stem in a rosette pattern. They are green or gray-green, sometimes have white spots, and often have spikes along the outer edges. One interesting thing about the root system is that a type of fungus lives symbiotically on the roots to help the plant extract more nutrients from the soil.

In the Caribbean, it is used extensively as a remedy for bug bites, burns, and skin abrasions. It is also a well-known purgative and blood cleanser.

Aloe vera is the perfect plant for everyone to grow in their home or garden because it does well indoors. It is the ultimate first aid remedy because the gel can be placed on bites or burns and then the green skin can be used as a bandage. I rub the gel from inside the leaves directly on my face to help refresh my skin. I also scoop the gel out and blend it with water, oils, and ratchette (Opuntia spp.) as a hair conditioner.

Cacao (Theobroma cacao)

Cacao, or the tree that produces cocoa and chocolate, is native to the Amazon and Orinoco River basins. It is a small tree with large oval shaped leaves with noticeable veins. The flowers are small and delicate, with the five sepals indicative of its place in the mallow or Malvaceae family. From these small flowers, which are pollinated by small midges, large football-shaped fruits are produced. The fruits can range in color from yellow to burgundy to orange when fully ripe, and they have thick skins. Inside the fruit (cocoa pod) are forty to sixty cocoa beans encased in sweet white pulp. The flowers and pods grow directly off the tree trunk and branches.

In the Caribbean, cacao is usually enjoyed as cocoa tea, which helped sustain many hungry bellies and greatly reduced malnutrition in Caribbean households by supplementing sparse diets during hard economic times.

Cacao is a vasodilator, meaning it widens your blood vessels, especially those in your heart, lungs, and brain. This increases blood flow to those organs and sends whatever other medicine you are ingesting to those areas. Cacao lowers blood pressure and regulates heart rhythm. It is truly a heart-opening experience!

Ginger (Zingiber officinale)

The most-used part of ginger is the golden-tan rhizome that grows underground. The plant has a stem with spear-shaped leaves. It is found in wet, rainy regions. It is easily grown by planting pieces of the rhizome, which will multiply and grow. The leaves and rhizomes are both fragrant.

Here in the Caribbean, it is regularly used in the treatment of coughs, flatulence, general colds, and fevers. It is ingested as tea or a fermented ginger beer. It is also infused into oils to make a liniment that can help arthritis and other inflammatory conditions because of its strong anti-inflammatory action.

When I had my daughter, my midwife, Pati Garcia, made me a salve infused with ginger and cannabis to massage on my abdomen to reduce cramping and help everything move back into place. It worked wonders!

Turmeric (Curcuma longa)

Turmeric is the orange tuberous rhizome of an herbaceous plant in the Zingiberaceae (ginger) family. The mature rhizomes are brown on the outside and dark orange on the inside, whereas the immature ones are pale orange inside. Although it flowers, it does not have seeds.

Turmeric has been used as a food, dye, and medicine for many centuries. It is a staple of Southeast Asian and Caribbean cooking and has long been known to decrease inflammation in the body, especially from arthritis. It is also known to calm the stomach for people with indigestion.

Having Trinidadian roots and growing up in the United States meant turmeric was used often in our dishes, such as split pea dal or curries. My Great-Aunt Doris swears by the turmeric and coconut milk tea she drinks every morning, and I can attest that for a woman in her eighties, she is extremely strong and healthy.