Graman Quassi

{{Infobox person

| name = Graman Quassi

| image = Blake after John Gabriel Stedman Narrative of a Five Years copy 2 object 15-detail.jpg

| birth_date = {{circa|1692}}

| birth_place = Gold Coast (region)

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1787|03|12|1692}}

| death_place = Paramaribo, Surinam

| occupation = Physician, botanist, planter

}}

Graman Quassi ({{circa|1692}} – 12 March 1787) was a Surinamese physician, botanist and planter. Born in present-day Ghana, Quassi was taken to the Dutch colony of Surinam via the Atlantic slave trade, where he was initially enslaved on a sugar plantation before managing to emancipate himself. Assisting the Dutch colonial authorities in suppressing the activities of local maroons, he managed to rise to the top of the colony's small community of free people of color and eventually became a plantation owner himself. He gave his name to the plant genus Quassia.R. Price. Kwasimukambas gambit. In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 135 (1979), no: 1, Leiden, 151-169

Biography

Quassi's roots were among the Kwa speaking Akan people of present-day Ghana, but as a child he was enslaved{{Cite web |last=Crabbe |first=Nathaniel |date=2020-03-05 |title=Graman Quassi: Meet the Ghanaian who discovered the Quassia Tonic to heal Whites |url=https://yen.com.gh/149351-graman-quassi-meet-ghanaian-discovered-potent-quassia-tonic-heal-whites.html |access-date=2022-10-02 |website=Yen.com.gh - Ghana news. |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2020-03-04 |title=Graman Quassi, discoverer of Quassia Tonic |url=https://ghanaianmuseum.com/graman-quassi-the-ghanaian-slave-in-surinam-who-discovered-bitter-quassia-amara-tonic/ |access-date=2022-10-02 |website=Ghanaian Museum |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-01-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230131071451/https://ghanaianmuseum.com/graman-quassi-the-ghanaian-slave-in-surinam-who-discovered-bitter-quassia-amara-tonic/ |url-status=dead }} and brought to the New World. In Suriname, a Dutch colony in South America, he was first put to work in the sugar plantation of New Timotebo. Quassi had great linguistic and botanical knowledge. He was famed as a healer. He obtained his freedom in 1755.

Quassi participated in the colonial wars against the Saramaka maroons as a scout and negotiator for the Dutch. He lost his right ear during the fighting.{{Cite web|url=http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/08/surinam-slave-trade.html|title = Surinam Slave Trade|date = 19 August 2007}} For this reason the Surinamese Maroons remember him as a traitor.First-time: the historical vision of an African American people. Richard Price. University of Chicago Press, Sep 15, 2002 In the late 1760s, he was owner of a slave plantation.

In February 1772, he visited the Netherlands, and was given an audience by William V, Prince of Orange. He returned to Suriname in September 1772.{{cite journal|url=https://pure.knaw.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/487212/16466.pdf |author1=Gert Oostindie |author2=Emy Maduro |title=In het land der overheerser II|journal=Verhandelingen van Het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde|year=1986|volume=100|language=nl|location=Dordrecht|publisher=Foris Publications|page=109}}

On 12 March 1787, Governor Wichers announced that Quassi had died in Paramaribo at the age of at least 95. He was buried by the Free Negro Corps.{{cite magazine|url=https://dbnl.org/tekst/_oso001199301_01/_oso001199301_01_0009.php?q=quassie#hl14 |title=Een weinig bekende brief over de heelmeester, lukuman en slavenjager Quassie |author=Ruud Beeldsnijder |magazine=OSO. Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse taalkunde, letterkunde en geschiedenis|year=1993|language=nl|access-date=23 January 2022|page=82}}

Legacy

One of his remedies was a bitter tea that he used to treat infections by intestinal parasites, this concoction was based on the plant Quassia amara which Carl Linnaeus named after him, as the discoverer of its medicinal properties. Quassia continues to be used in industrially produced medicines against intestinal parasites today.Promoting Interest in Plant Biology with Biographies of Plant Hunters. Peggy Daisey. The American Biology Teacher , Vol. 58, No. 7 (Oct., 1996), pp. 396-406 In contemporary accounts he was described as "one of the most extraordinary black men in Suriname, and perhaps the world"