Tom Dewolf, author of Inheriting the Trade
photo provided by: Tom Dewolf
When I joined nine distant cousins to retrace the steps of our ancestors through the notorious triangular slave trade route from New England to Ghana to Cuba and back, I was unprepared for the profound impact our journey would have on my life. I wrote Inheriting the Trade in part to try to make sense of my experiences.
Prior to meeting Katrina Browne (producer/director of the Emmy-nominated documentary film of our journey, Traces of the Trade), I didn’t know that I was related to the most successful slave-trading family in U.S. history, responsible for transporting at least 10,000 African people to the “new world.” Frankly, I was also shocked by all I learned that I hadn’t been taught in school. I figured I probably wasn’t the only white person who received a quality public school education with important historical events left out—and that those missing pieces, the “hidden history”—impacted the ways in which I viewed the world. So I wrote about it. Inheriting the Trade is part history, part memoir, and part healing journey. Included are brief accounts of the history of Ghana and the trans-Atlantic slave trade as well the history of Cuba prior to the Castro revolution, subjects that aren’t covered much in American schools. Also included are aspects of American history that I knew little or nothing about. For instance:
• Did you know that King Philip’s War was the most deadly war, per capita, in American history? I discuss what took place after the first “Thanksgiving” as more Europeans came to the new colonies and demanded more land, which led to increased tensions with indigenous people. Four decades later, King Philip’s War resulted in the virtual extermination of indigenous life throughout New England.
• Are you aware that almost all slave-trading was done by Northerners and half of all slaving voyages originated from tiny Rhode Island?
• Or that slavery itself existed in the North for more than 200 years?
• Also included is an explanation of the special favor the DeWolf family received from none other than President Thomas Jefferson, allowing them to continue in the slave trade long after it was outlawed.
I also wrote Inheriting the Trade as a memoir of our journey so that readers could feel in some way that they are with us in Accra and Cape Coast in Ghana, West Africa; that they can feel the despair in the slave dungeons and the Door of No Return as well as the hope that is on display in the celebrations of Panafest and Emancipation Day. Since it is very difficult—and mostly illegal—for Americans to visit Cuba I wanted people to experience, through our family journey, the exuberance of Carnival, the challenges of finding sites of historic interest (including former DeWolf slave labor camps, typically called “plantations”), the differences between slavery in Cuba versus the United States and—significantly—how different Cuba is compared to what American politicians and media have led us to believe.
Finally, I intended for Inheriting the Trade to be useful to those who not only want to face the truth of the past but to heal from its trauma. On the first day of our journey, in Rhode Island, an African American woman challenged us ten white cousins by asking, “What’s next?” What is the point of retracing the triangle slave trade route of our ancestors? What will we do with this knowledge? What will change in our individual lives and the lives of our children as a result? Inspired by Aaron Lazare’s book On Apology, I outline steps that can lead to reconciliation and healing.
The greatest impact this journey has had on me is the impact I hope that Inheriting the Trade will have on people who read it. I hope readers will be encouraged to explore what they don’t know about our nation’s history, including the legacy of slavery and its significant, ubiquitous, lingering impact. I hope they will see my family’s journey as an invitation into a deeper conversation about damaged and broken relationships along racial lines, about the connections between racism, sexism, religious intolerance and other forms of oppression and trauma. I hope more white people will acknowledge the truth of the past and its present-day impact. I hope we all will offer each other more grace and respect.
I consider Inheriting the Trade an introduction to this conversation. One reader wrote that she thought my book was “…really good. Not because it solves anything, but because it gives us a glimpse of the enormity of the mess we’re in and a sense we need to learn to live in the discomfort of it together.” That’s key. How do we live in the discomfort of this mess together? For me, the next step in the journey became Coming to the Table (CTTT). To be part of a community of descendants of the enslaved and enslavers dedicated to living in the discomfort of this mess together, and modeling what healing can look like, is both enlightening and deeply gratifying. My CTTT partners are my family. I marvel how one family journey led to another. Connecting with the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, and taking several classes there, has allowed me to deepen my own understanding of historic traumas like slavery and to learn about ways to be resilient in the face of such trauma.
We all inherited the slave trade just as we inherit other historic traumas. My writing and public speaking now focus on aspects of healing, justice, and peacebuilding that have been enhanced through my participation in CTTT and CJP. Achieving health, justice, and peace is not only possible; it is a requirement for successful relationships as individuals and as nations. I hope more people will join us on this journey. I hope Inheriting the Trade will continue to help.
About the Author
Thomas DeWolf is the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History. He is a public speaker who focuses on healing the collective trauma of slavery’s legacy. DeWolf has appeared at colleges, universities, and conferences throughout the United States, as well as at the National Constitution Center and the Smithsonian Institution. He is a graduate of the STAR program and participates in the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at EMU.
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