filed under History | Television
Traces of the Trade
9:30AM ON
06/30/2008
BY
Beth Comery
The highly regarded PBS series P.O.V. is running Traces of the Trade, a look at the slave-trading history of Rhode Island’s DeWolf family. Director, and DeWolf descendant, Katrina Browne takes a hard look at the human toll that is the source of her own good fortune. Apparently not all family members were keen participants.
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 DeWolf mansion at Linden Place in Bristol is open to visitors through Columbus Day. Judging from the website, the museum would rather tell of ’seafaring’ and ‘exploits’, but they do mention the slave trade.
P.O.V./Tonight 10PM/Channel 2/WGBH
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