Anarcha Westcott

Little is known about Anarcha, and what is known comes from records kept by the plantation owner, medical journals written about Sims' work, and primary documents written by Sims himself.[2] At the time of her pregnancy Anarcha was a seventeen-year-old enslaved girl living in Alabama. She had a severe form of rickets caused by a lack of vitamin D and malnutrition, which had disfigured her pelvis, making it impossible for her to give birth. She went into labor during June 1845 and after trying to give birth for three days, Sims, a "plantation physicisn", was summoned to assist her in her labor.[3]

After the stillbirth, Anarcha was brought back to Sims because she had several unhealed tears in her vagina and rectum – a vesicovaginal fistula and rectovaginal fistula. These tears caused her to have excruciating pain, which was from her uncontrollable bowel movements flowing through her open wounds. Being unable to control her bowel movements led to infections, inflamed tissue, and odor.[3]

Sims performed 30 experimental, nonconsensual, anesthesia-free operations on Westcott before successfully closing the fistula and tears.[4] During the procedures, Westcott was given no anesthesia, which had recently become available.[4] Following the procedures, Sims administered opium, which was then an accepted method to treat pain.[5] The experimental procedures that Sims performed on Westcott and other enslaved people revolutionized gynecological surgery; the technique Sims developed became the first ever treatment for vesicovaginal fistulae.[4]

Although Sims claimed to have cured Anarcha in Montgomery, records recently (2022) uncovered reveal that her owner had her taken to New York for further surgery by Sims, after he had relocated and founded his Women's Hospital.[6]

In 2015, author J.C. Hallman became obsessed with finding Anarcha. He published articles about Sims and Anarcha in Harper's Magazine, the Montgomery Advertiser,[7] and The Baffler,[8] and his work to discover Anarcha's final resting place is featured in Josh Carples' documentary film Remembering Anarcha.[9] Hallman is working on a book entitled The Anarcha Quest, based on the first archival evidence of Westcott's life that did not come from Sims's own accounts.[10]

Sims controversially performed experimental surgery on black women without anesthesia.[4]

A small statue of Anarcha Westcott was erected by protestors near the statue of Sims on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol. It was quickly stolen.[7]

In 2021, artist Michelle Browder toured the country raising funds, and asked for donations of discarded metal objects, which she would weld to construct a 15-foot memorial to Anarcha Westcott and two other women who were experimented on by Sims. The work was completed in San Francisco and the sculpture was erected in Montgomery, Alabama, as part of a wider campus project to bring awareness to the Mothers of Gynecology Movement.[11]

• Vedantam, Shankar (February 16, 2016). "Remembering Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey: The Mothers of Modern Gynecology". Hidden Brain. National Public Radio.
• Thom, Robert, Illustration of Dr. J. Marion Sims with Anarcha[7]
• “Behind the Sheet”, by Charly Evon Simpson, "reframes modern gynecology’s origin story, demonstrating how these women supported one another through suffering, and challenges the dominant historical narrative that centers Sims."[12]
• Outdoor painting of Anarcha, Lucy and Betwey in downtown Montgomery. Artist?

• List of enslaved people
• List of monuments to African Americans
• Mothers of Gynecology Monument
• Mothers of Gynecology Movement
• Slavery in the United States

• Sims, J. Marion (January 1852). "On the Treatment of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula". American Journal of the Medical Sciences: 59–82.