A Northern family confronts its enslaved past

When Katrina Brown discovers that her New England ancestors, the DeWolfe family, were the largest slave-trading family in American history, she invites the DeWolfe descendants to return to the Triangle Trade Route and confront this legacy. Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, airing June 24 on the PBS film series P.O.V., follows their journey and documents the North's intimate relationship with slavery. Brown's cousin Thomas DeWolf also wrote a book about the trip, Inheritance of the Trade: A Northern Family Faces It as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in American History legacy. This year marks the bicentennial of the federal abolition of the slave trade.

How did you first learn about your family history, and why did you want to make a film about it? When I was in seminary in my 20s, I was 28, I got a little booklet that my grandmother sent to all her grandchildren. She was 88 years old and nearing the end of her life, and she wanted to know if her grandchildren really knew their family history and if they cared. She was very responsible and had a few words to say about the fact that our ancestors were slave traders. When I read those sentences, I felt extremely heavy. If I hadn’t read a book called Disonning Slasure by historian Joanne Pope Melish, I might have dismissed this as It is something for myself and my family to consider privately. She traces the process by which northern states conveniently forgot that slavery was an important part of the economy, and that slavery itself had existed in New England for more than 200 years. The history books leave most of us with the impression that because it was abolished in the North, it was as if it never happened in the North before the South, that we were good people and abolitionists, and that slavery was really the evil of the South . That book made me realize what I was doing with my own amnesia, and that my family's amnesia was parallel to this larger regional dynamic.

It was this movie that inspired me and my family to grapple with, and gave other white Americans a chance to think and talk about their own intimate feelings, no matter where their family history lies, It would also make history clear to Americans.

Did you discover how and why the DeWolfes first got into the industry? They were sailors and worked their way up to being captains of slave ships. People would often buy shares as part owners of slave ships and bees, and if you were successful, you would become a full owner. The one who really made it was [James DeWolfe]. Many of his sons were in the slave trade. This is how three generations of dynasties were truly formed within 50 years.

How did they use the triangular route from Rhode Island to Ghana to Cuba? In the late 18th century, rum became a condiment in high demand, rising to its peak as a condiment on the West African coast as part of the slave trade. So more and more rum distilleries were built in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The DeWolfes had a rum distillery and they would take the rum to West Africa and they would exchange the rum for people and take those captured Africans to Cuba and Charles, South Carolina Dayton, and also brought to other Caribbean ports and other southern states. In Cuba they also owned sugar and coffee plantations. Molasses is a key ingredient in making rum. They had an auction house in Charleston, and they developed their own insurance company and bank.

Yours is not the only northern family involved in this deal. How widespread is this practice, and what impact is it having on the North Korean economy? It might surprise most people that although Rhode Island is the smallest state in the United States, it was actually the largest slave trading state based on the number of Africans who sailed from Rhode Island's ports. These boats were usually built by Massachusetts shipbuilders. In addition to rum, ropes, sails, shackles, and other items were traded. It had many farms in Connecticut, and most of the crops for trade were shipped [to the West Indies]. These islands usually become a crop island, where you turn all the land into sugar, tobacco, coffee, things that are in high demand. They don't grow that much food [on the island], so it's shipped in from Connecticut.

People may be surprised to learn that your family and others continued this trade even when it was made illegal in 1808. How did they do that? Before 1808, states passed laws prohibiting the slave trade, but in practice they were not enforced at all. The DeWolfe family and nearly everyone else traded in the business until it was abolished by the federal government in 1808. Thomas Jefferson was president at the time and suggested they should close the trade. After 1808 many people quit the trade, including James DeWolfe, but his nephew decided to ignore the law and he continued trading until around 1820, when it became a capital offense and you could be executed. It's interesting to think about how likely it is to do something like this, which is not only completely unethical, but illegal, and then get away with it.

With their Cuban slave trading partners, they would sell a ship to one of their partners for a dollar, and then it would go around the triangle with the Cuban flag, and they would buy it back.

How did DeWolfe’s wealth and privilege manifest itself in the Bristol community? The DeWolfes were affiliated with Newport, the Newport customs collector believed in enforcing state laws. They wanted to get around the law, so they lobbied Congress to create a separate customs territory, and they succeeded. Later they remembered that their brother-in-law, Charles Collins, had been appointed Collector of the Port, as Thomas Jefferson had done. Collins was part owner of one of the Cuban plantations. People, including Newport collectors, opposed the appointment. The incident came to the attention of Jefferson and his Secretary of the Treasury, who did nothing about it. The DeWolfes were major campaign contributors to Thomas Jefferson. We can only assume he won't cause trouble for them.

When you and your nine relatives came to Ghana and then to Cuba, what remnants of trade did you see? In Ghana we visited slave castles, there are dozens of them up and down the coast, some of which have been turned into UNESCO-protected historic sites. It's very stressful going to the dungeons where people are being held and you know your ancestors went there. I used to bring so much defensiveness into conversations, some of it related to my ancestry, some of it to do with being white in America. For me, something happened there, where I could shed this defensiveness and very natural reactions and become pure empathy, imagining what it would be like to be a descendant of someone who was brutally treated in this way What does it look like.

When you visited Ghana, it was during the Pan American Festival, which was attended by many African Americans. What was that and what was it like to be in it? We were very nervous and always walked on eggshells. For many people of African descent, this is the first period of pilgrimage back to West Africa since their ancestors were taken away. The range of reactions we encountered, from those who truly appreciated our presence there and our desire to confront history, to those who truly resented the fact that we were there and felt that we were invading their space, was across the board . It is such a sacred moment for them that the last person they want to see is a white American, let alone the descendant of a slave trader.

How did your family’s attitudes toward slave trader history or contemporary racial issues change as the trip progressed? Many of us have been really inspired to engage in public policy debates, reparations debates and how to think about restoration.

I think everyone (on the trip) would say we have a sense of responsibility