Inheriting the Trade
A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A trailblazing memoir about one family’s quest to face its slave-trading past, and an urgent call for reconciliation
In 2001, Thomas DeWolf discovered that he was related to the most successful slave-trading family in U.S. history, responsible for transporting at least ten thousand Africans. This is his memoir of the journey in which ten family members retraced their ancestors' steps through the notorious triangle trade route—from New England to West Africa to Cuba—and uncovered the hidden history of New England and the other northern states.
A difficult but necessary examination of the slave trade, racism, and privilege in the United States, Inheriting the Trade is a powerful call for white America to reassess what they have been taught about their own ancestors, about slavery and wealth, and about America both past and present.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the summer of 2001, Katrina Browne led nine distant family members on their own triangular passage as she made a documentary film (Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North) about their DeWolf ancestors, "the largest slave-trading dynasty in early America" who transported 10,000 Africans to America and the Caribbean between 1769 and 1820. DeWolf, one of Browne's cousins, traces the journey in this soul-searching memoir, beginning in Bristol, R.I., the hub of the late 18th-century trade, and continuing to Ghana, Cuba and back to New England. At each station of the trip, the "Family of Ten" visits historic sites, and distinguished historians address the group about aspects of the slave trade. DeWolf's account gains immediacy as he reports these presentations and the ensuing group discussions, along with their personal struggles to come to terms with an ignominious family history and his own sharp learning curve. His narrative, however, bogs down toward its conclusion in an irrelevant account of allegations of sexual harassment made against him and a digressive though thought-provoking discussion of reparations for slavery. Nevertheless, DeWolf promotes conversation about "truth of the past and its impact on the present."
