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Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History
Inheriting the Trade A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest SlaveTrading Dynasty in US History Author:Thomas Norman DeWolf A trailblazing memoir about one family's quest to face its slave-trading past, and an urgent call for reconciliation — In 2001, at age forty-seven, Thomas DeWolf was horrified to discover that he was related to the most successful slave-trading family in United States history, responsible for transporting at least 10,000 Africans. His most infamo... more »us ancestor, U.S. senator James DeWolf of Bristol, Rhode Island, curried favor with Thomas Jefferson to continue in the trade after it was outlawed. When he died in 1837 he was reportedly the second-richest man in America.
When DeWolf's cousin, Katrina Browne, learned about their family's history, she was consumed with guilt. However, unlike others who might ignore their sordid legacy, she resolved to confront it head-on. Browne produced and directed a documentary feature film, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, in which she, Tom, and eight other family members retraced the steps of their ancestors and uncovered the hidden history of New England and the other northern states. Inheriting the Trade is Thomas DeWolf's powerful and disarmingly honest memoir of their journey.
Though DeWolf had never reflected on the trade before, he now faced the horrors of slavery in a direct and unmitigated way, forced to contend with the complicated legacy that continues to impact black and white Americans, Africans, and Cubans today. Their extraordinary voyage through the notorious Triangle Trade?from New England to West Africa to Cuba?proved a life-altering experience. Their journey offers a fresh look at history, tools to overcome racism, and a path toward a more hopeful future.
"Exploring the links between a grand Rhode Island mansion and dungeons in Ghana, Tom DeWolf traces the infernal trade that gave his family, and this country, great wealth and power. His journey into the past forces painful
questions to the surface, and illuminates our present."
?Henry Wiencek, Winner of the National Book Critics' Circle Award and author of An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
"Thomas DeWolf's personal journey into his family's long hidden slave trading past is a compelling invitation to explore how our country and many institutions, including churches, benefited from this dark chapter. Such exploration is essential if we are to move forward to a place of repair and racial reconciliation."
?Frank T. Griswold, 25th Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church
"Tom DeWolf's deeply personal story, of his own journey as well as his family's, is required reading for anyone interested in reconciliation. Healing from our historic wounds, that continue to separate us, requires us to walk this road together."
?Myrlie Evers-Williams, civil rights leader, chairman emeritus of the NAACP (1995-98), and author of The Autobiography of Medgar Evers
"[Inheriting the Trade is] like a slow-motion mash-up, a first-person view from within one of the country's founding families as it splinters, then puts itself back together again."
?Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family
"Inheriting the Trade is a candid, powerful and insightful book about how one family dealt with the infamous slave trade. This book is jarring in its candor, and revealing in its honest assessment of slavery and the Dewolf family. We must read important books like this one, if we dare to appreciate every aspect of our history, and as the Dewolf family does, dare to change our judgments about the wretched history of slavery."
?Professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Executive Director, The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School« less