(NAME-MCE) Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North

[Anselmo Villanueva]

http://www.tracesofthetrade.org/

In the feature documentary Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep
North, filmmaker Katrina Browne discovers that her New England
ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. She
and nine cousins retrace the Triangle Trade and gain a powerful new
perspective on the black/white divide.

Producer/Director: Katrina Browne. Co-Directors: Alla Kovgan, Jude
Ray. Co-Producers: Elizabeth Delude-Dix, Juanita Brown.
In Traces of the Trade, Producer/Director Katrina Browne tells the
story of her forefathers, the largest slave-trading family in U.S.
history. Given the myth that the South is solely responsible for
slavery, viewers will be surprised to learn that Browne’s ancestors
were Northerners. The film follows Browne and nine fellow family
members on a remarkable journey which brings them face-to-face with
the history and legacy of New England’s hidden enterprise.
“A far-reaching personal documentary examination of the slave trade …
The implications of the film are devastating.”
— Stephen Holden, The New York Times

>From 1769 to 1820, DeWolf fathers, sons and grandsons trafficked in
human beings. They sailed their ships from Bristol, Rhode Island to
West Africa with rum to trade for African men, women and children.
Captives were taken to plantations that the DeWolfs owned in Cuba or
were sold at auction in such ports as Havana and Charleston. Sugar and
molasses were then brought from Cuba to the family-owned rum
distilleries in Bristol. Over the generations, the family transported
more than ten thousand enslaved Africans across the Middle Passage.
They amassed an enormous fortune. By the end of his life, James DeWolf
had been a U.S. Senator and was reportedly the second richest man in
the United States.

The enslavement of Africans was business for more than just the DeWolf
family. It was a cornerstone of Northern commercial life. The Triangle
Trade drove the economy of many port cities (Rhode Island had the
largest share in the trade of any state), and slavery itself existed
in the North for over 200 years. Northern textile mills used
slave-picked cotton from the South to fuel the Industrial Revolution,
while banks and insurance companies played a key role throughout the
period. While the DeWolfs were one of only a few “slaving” dynasties,
the network of commercial activities that they were tied to involved
an enormous portion of the Northern population. Many citizens, for
example, would buy shares in slave ships in order to make a profit.

The film follows ten DeWolf descendants (ages 32-71, ranging from
sisters to seventh cousins) as they retrace the steps of the Triangle
Trade, visiting the DeWolf hometown of Bristol, Rhode Island, slave
forts on the coast of Ghana, and the ruins of a family plantation in
Cuba. Browne pushes the family forward as they struggle through the
minefield of race politics. Back home, the family confronts the thorny
topic of what to do now. In the context of growing calls for
reparations for slavery, family members struggle with the question of
how to think about and contribute to “repair.” Meanwhile, Browne and
her family come closer to the core: their love/hate relationship with
their own Yankee culture and privileges; the healing and
transformation needed not only “out there,” but inside themselves.

The issues the DeWolf descendants are confronted with dramatize
questions that apply to the nation as a whole: What, concretely, is
the legacy of slavery—for diverse whites, for diverse blacks, for
diverse others? Who owes who what for the sins of the fathers of this
country? What history do we inherit as individuals and as citizens?
How does Northern complicity change the equation? What would
repair—spiritual and material—really look like and what would it take?

Schedule

Sept. 17, 7:00pm, Tallgrass Film Festival Third Thursday at the Warren
Theatre, Wichita, KS

Sept. 18, 7:00pm, Episcopal Diocese of Missouri screening at the
Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, MO

Oct. 25, Calvary Church, Germantown, Philadelphia, PA

Nov. 6, Race To Unity Conference 2009, Grand Rapids, MI

Nov. 12, Southern Arts Federation’s Southern Circuit Tour of
Independent Filmmakers, The Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg,
Spartanburg, SC

Nov. 13, Southern Arts Federation’s Southern Circuit Tour of
Independent Filmmakers, Historic Polk Theatre, Lakeland, FL

Nov. 14, Southern Arts Federation’s Southern Circuit Tour of
Independent Filmmakers, Grand Theatre, Fitzgerald, GA

Nov. 16, Southern Arts Federation’s Southern Circuit Tour of
Independent Filmmakers, Madison-Morgan Cultural Center, Madison, GA

Nov. 18, Southern Arts Federation’s Southern Circuit Tour of
Independent Filmmakers, RiverCenter for the Performing Arts, Columbus,
GA