 Inheriting the trade
Charleston again will confront its history as a slave-trading city in a slave-owning state beginning May 22 with the premiere of a newly revised version of Anthony Davis' opera "Amistad" at Spoleto Festival USA.
Charleston and South Carolina are home to descendents of slaves and descendents of slave owners who had "slaves in the family," as Charlestonian Edward Ball titled his family history.
Freedom Schooner Amistad, a reproduction of the 19th-century slave ship, will arrive in the Lowcountry on May 15.
In advance of this year's 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, 10 relatives decided to document their New England family's legacy of shame with a project that could have been called "slavers in the family."
All are descendents of the DeWolf family of Rhode Island. From 1769 to 1820, the DeWolf men trafficked in humans, sailing their ships from Bristol, R.I., a slaver center, to West Africa, where they traded rum for African men, women and children.
The DeWolfs owned plantations in Cuba where they worked slaves to grow sugar and molasses, and they owned rum distilleries in Bristol.
The DeWolfs also sold slaves at auction in port at Havana and Charleston. The family owned 47 ships that took Africans across the Middle Passage.
Katrina Browne, seventh-generation descendent of the family's first slave trader, Mark Anthony DeWolf, has made a documentary film, "Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North," that premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival and will be aired on PBS the week of June 24. (See tracesofthetrade.org.)
Her cameras and crew followed the 10 descendents, including Charleston-reared Dain Perry who is married to the descendent of a slave, as they retraced the Triangle Trade in Bristol, at slave forts on the Ghana coast and at the ruins of the Cuba plantation.
Cousin Thomas Norman DeWolf wrote a companion book to the film titled "Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History." (See Inheritingthetrade.com.)
"We want to get into the subject of racism and dig deep," Perry told a classroom at Wooster School in Danbury, Conn., which he attended. "We don't know how to talk about race. If we can deepen the national conversation on race, we can begin the healing. There is a lot of healing to be done."
Half a dozen states have passed resolutions making a statement of regret or apology for the slave trade.
Freedom Schooner Amistad, a reproduction of the 19th-century slave ship Amistad, will arrive in Charleston for Harbor Fest and Spoleto Festival USA later this month.
Here are more events related to Amistad, the ship, and "Amistad," the Spoleto opera:
-- Amistad (the ship) will be anchored off Sullivan's Island during an afternoon remembrance ceremony there May 15. It'll then be escorted to Charleston Maritime Center by three tall ships, including Spirit of South Carolina, and will be open for tours May 16-18, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tickets are $5-$15.
-- Amistad (the ship) will be at dock for the Spoleto opera premiere and remain here until May 27.
-- "Amistad" (the opera) composer Anthony Davis and director Sam Helfrich will talk with College of Charleston music professor Trevor Weston on May 22. 5:30 p.m. Recital Hall, College of Charleston. Free.
-- May 25, Martha Teichner will interview Davis and "Amistad" librettist Thulani Davis. 5 p.m. Recital Hall, College of Charleston. Free.
-- May 26, Anthony Davis and Thulani Davis along with author Josephine Humphreys and historian Bernard Powers will talk about creating works of art based on historic events. Noon, Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, 125 Bull St. Free.
-- May 31, attorney Robert Rosen will lead a roundtable discussion of the Amistad (the ship) court case. 3 p.m. Avery Center. Free.
-- Gibbes Museum of Art will mount "Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art."
-- Tours of the Old Slave Mart Museum and walking tours will be led by historian Harlan Greene at 10 a.m. May 24, May 31, June 2 and June 7. $10. Call 579-3100.
-- Charleston County Public Library's Main Library will show a series of films related to Amistad (the ship) on the big screen. Free.
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