The Anti-Racism Committee, chaired by the Rev. John Kitagawa, was responding to Resolution A-143 from the 2009 General Convention, which calls on dioceses to learn about the historic complicity of the Church in slavery and racial discrimination. Resolution A-143, in turn, followed similar resolutions at the 2006 General Convention which were adopted following screenings of a rough cut of Traces of the Trade and pleas from DeWolf family members appearing in the film. Scenes from the debate and adoption of these resolutions appear towards the end of the film.

For information about obtaining the film, arranging for facilitated conversations, or inquiring about our other programs on slavery, race, and privilege, please see the Tracing Center’s programs and screenings page.

Katrina is executive director of the Tracing Center, and James blogs at The Living Consequences.

Traces of the Trade was directed by Katrina Browne, with co-directors Alla Kovgan and Jude Ray.

The Tracing Center has been formed by people who have long been involved in Traces of the Trade and in the use of the film for national and international outreach efforts involving the history and legacy of slavery. Their intention is to broaden and deepen those efforts and to develop related programming. This development will also allow Ebb Pod Productions to focus on its core mission as a film production company.

For more on the Tracing Center, please see its new web site at www.tracingcenter.org.

The story, “US family finds traces of slave-trade past in Cuba,” covers a just-completed trip to Cuba by Producer/Director Katrina Browne and historical consultant James DeWolf Perry, both of whom also appear in the film, along with Tulaine Marshall, who works with them at the Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery.

On the trip, the trio visited the site of Mount Hope, a Cuban slave plantation owned by Perry’s fifth-great grandfather, James D’Wolf, the leading slave trader in U.S. history. They also held the Cuban premiere of Traces of the Trade, spoke at a number of public events, participated in activities surrounding the voyage of the Schooner Amistad to Matanzas and Havana, and reunited with Cubans who were in the film, advised the project, or were part of the Cuban crew during filming.

For more on the A.P. story and the visit to Cuba, see Perry’s blog, The Living Consequences.

En español

Katrina Browne, Producer/Director, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North
Executive Director, The Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery
kbrowne@tracesofthetrade.org o: 617-349-0019 c: 617-290-5275
Ms. Browne will be in Cuba from March 22-30, so may not be reachable then.

Marga Varea, Events and Development Director, The Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery mvarea@tracesofthetrade.org o: 617-349-0019 c: 617-710-5436

The Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery is pleased to announce that three representatives of the 2009 Emmy®-nominated documentary Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North will be traveling to Cuba with the Freedom Schooner Amistad next week. We are honored to be able to hold the Cuba premiere of the film during the Amistad’s visit. The ship is visiting Cuba from March 22-31 as part of the United Nations commemoration of March 25 as the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. For the press release from Amistad America please see: http://www.amistadamerica.org/content/view/1994/257/.

Traces of the Trade (Sundance 2008; POV/PBS 2008) chronicles Katrina Browne’s discovery that her ancestors from Rhode Island were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. As Browne and nine cousins retrace the Triangle Trade from Rhode Island, to Ghana, to Cuba, they uncover the hidden history of Northern complicity in slavery and grapple with the persistence of the black/white divide today. Havana was a regular stop on the D’Wolf “slaving” route—for selling Africans at auction—especially during the illegal period. Rhode Island and Cuba were central players during the period after the U.S. ban of 1808 and British ban of 1807. James and George D’Wolf eventually developed five sugar and coffee plantations on the island in order to control all sides of their “vertically integrated” triangle of commerce.

The Traces of the Trade premiere will be on Saturday, March 27 at Casa de Africa in Havana, hosted by Miguel Barnet, a preeminent Cuban cultural leader and ethnographer. This will be the first visit of family members since filming for the documentary took place in 2001 (which involved working with a Cuban crew and Cuban scholars). During next week’s visit, the team will also seek to locate two more D’Wolf plantations and perhaps meet Afro-Cuban descendants of people who had been enslaved there. Joining Producer/Director Katrina Browne in Cuba will be James DeWolf Perry, VI, a cousin in the film, an expert in the transatlantic slave trade, and a direct descendant of James D’Wolf (patriarch of the slave-trading dynasty, and a U.S. Senator); and Tulaine Marshall, a leader in Boston and in the community and youth development sectors nationally. Ms. Marshall serves as partnership coordinator between the film and Amistad America and facilitates use of the film for inter-racial dialogue.

Katrina Browne: “We are deeply moved to be part of this historic visit of the replica ship Amistad to Cuba. The successful revolt of Sengbe Pieh and the other captured Africans, in the waters off of Cuba in 1839, took place against a backdrop that our family now knows about all too well. It’s important to understand the details of that de-humanizing global economy that built so many nations. Its reverberations are still with us. We hope this visit will be a chance to deepen the dialogue.”

Relevant Film Credits:

Katrina Browne: Producer/Director/Writer
Alla Kovgan: Co-Director/Editor/Writer
Jude Ray: Co-Director/Executive Producer
Elizabeth Delude-Dix: Co-Producer/Executive Producer
Juanita Brown: Co-Producer
Director of Photography: Liz Dory
Production Sound Mixer: Jeffrey Livesey
Original Score: Roger C. Miller
Animation: Handcranked Productions

Cuban Crew:

Line Producer: Boris Iván Crespo
Unit Production Manager: Santiago Llapur
Second Unit Camera: Ariam R. Grass
Second Unit Sound: Ricardo Pérez Ramos
Gaffer: Luís Manuel Escuela
Electrician: Ovidio Gastón
Translator: María Teresa Ortega
Travel Guide: Raul Izquierdo

Cuban experts interviewed for the film:

Maria del Carmen Barcia
Natalia Bolivar
Carlos de Lara
Zoila Lapique (appears in final film)

The visit of the Traces of the Trade team to Cuba and the partnership with the Amistad for the Caribbean Heritage Tour has been generously supported through grants from the Wynecote Foundation and the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.

Producer/director Katrina Browne was present to accept the “Spirit of Freedom: Documentary” award, one of four categories in which 68 films from 26 countries competed.

Actor Johnny Depp was honored with the film festival’s career achievement award.

The DeWolf family’s slaving voyages included at least one stop in the Bahamas.

In this opinion essay, Katrina writes about the significance of the U.S. Senate apology for slavery and discrimination, and offers her thoughts, as a descendant of U.S. slave traders, about what comes next.

CONTACT:

Katrina Browne, Producer/Director, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North
Office: 617-349-0019; cgibson@tracesofthetrade.org
Holly Cowan, PR Collaborative
Office: 202-339-9598; holly@prcollaborative.com

DESCENDANTS OF LARGEST SLAVE-TRADING FAMILY IN U.S. HISTORY COMMENT ON OBAMAS’ VISIT TO CAPE COAST CASTLE, GHANA

The President and First Lady’s visit to Cape Coast Castle has troubling personal resonance for the descendants of the DeWolf family from Rhode Island.  From 1770-1820, three generations of DeWolfs created a slave-trading dynasty, making them responsible for bringing more Africans to the Americas than any other U.S. family.  Documents show that James DeWolf, the family’s “leading” slave trader came specifically to Cape Coast Castle (among other forts) to purchase human cargo.

IN FILM, FAMILY HIGHLIGHTS THAT IT WAS NORTHERN SHIPS THAT PRIMARILY CONDUCTED THE U.S. TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

At the invitation of DeWolf descendant and first-time filmmaker Katrina Browne, 9 relatives joined her to retrace their family’s triangle trade on camera, from Rhode Island to Ghana to Cuba.  The resulting film Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North uncovers the vast extent of Northern complicity in slavery, contrary to widespread amnesia about that role.

Producer/Director Katrina Browne: What most Americans don’t realize is that it was Northern merchants who were largely responsible for the slave trade, not Southern ones.

Family member James DeWolf Perry:  It was Northern ships, with Northern trade goods, and Northern financing that propelled the slave trade.  The North sent out 85% of all U.S. slaving voyages; New England sent 75%; and small Rhode Island was responsible for 58% of all U.S. voyages. Outside of R.I., the busiest ports were Boston and New York City.

Footage in the film shows the 10 white descendants as they walk through the same dungeons and ramparts that the Obama family visited Saturday. The film also shows the family grappling with their relationship to the legacy of slavery today, inviting white Americans to ask these questions as well.  The film premiered in January 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to critical acclaim with a national broadcast on PBS’s award-winning series P.O.V. in June 2008.  Traces is now being used for dialogue across the country in schools, universities, churches, museums, community groups, etc.

NEWS & DOCUMENTARY EMMY AWARD NOMINATION ANNOUNCED

Browne and the research team (Jennifer Anderson, Catherine Benedict, Beth Sternheimer, and others) have just received a News & Documentary Emmy nomination for OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN A CRAFT: RESEARCH.

Browne:  We are thrilled and honored to be nominated for an Emmy in Research in recognition of our work to bring forward this buried history.  On the heels of the U.S. Senate’s passage of a resolution apologizing for slavery, we hope the First Family’s visit to Cape Coast will help Americans learn about the role of the North, which establishes irrefutably that slavery was a NATIONAL institution, worthy therefore of a NATIONAL apology.

A greater understanding of this history and how it has shaped all of us in this country, can lead the way towards further dialogue and repair.  While overt racism has largely diminished, white Americans still have a historic head start so the playing field isn’t level, and all groups carry “racial baggage” that makes full trust and harmony still elusive.

Information: www.tracesofthetrade.org.

Press availability: Browne, other DeWolf descendants, and black colleagues connected to the film. A statement responding to the U.S. Senate’s recent apology for slavery and racial discrimination is also available.

The historic resolution, offered by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), was debated by the full Senate for an hour this morning, with no senator objecting to the measure, before being approved on a voice vote. The concurrent resolution now proceeds to the House for that body’s approval, before becoming a joint expression of the sentiment of Congress.

S. Con. Res. 26 “acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws.” It further states that “African-Americans continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow laws–long after both systems were formally abolished–through enormous damage and loss, both tangible and intangible.”

The resolution then “apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States.”

For more information and background on this resolution, readers may visit my own blog, “The Living Consequences.”