I had the amazing opportunity to be part of a working group conference, Defining New Approaches for Teaching the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery: Teaching African History and African Diaspora History Workshop. The workshop was hosted by the Harriet Tubman Institute at York University in Toronto and sponsored by the U.N.’s UNESCO Slave Route Project. It was attended by educators, psychologists and historians from Latin America, Central America, the Caribbean, the U.S., Canada, Africa and Europe. We were applying ourselves to the question: what are the psychological consequences of slavery for descendants of enslaved Africans and descendants of the “white” populations that benefited from slavery? And in the face of those multi-generational consequences, what are the implications for how we teach about slavery and African civilization in schools.

At the Tracing Center, we have heard again and again from African-American adults about intensely negative, even traumatic, experiences of being taught about slavery in middle school and high school. The common refrain is teachers who did not have the sensitivity and knowledge to teach this loaded history in a way that was empowering and provided dignity. We know too that European-American students and students of many other backgrounds get the wrong message when slavery isn’t taught well. This is a key moment when students will either be set up for rifts and divisions based on heritage, or it can be a golden opportunity to set them up for incredible grace and understanding and sense of common cause in the work of building a society that works for everyone. Our teacher workshops this fall in Rhode Island and for Christian educators via Calvin College in Michigan, were a chance to refine and share our pedagogical models for creating positive results.

The workshop in Toronto, with reports of how text books in Central America portray slavery, to how the Taubira law in France is impacting the teaching of slavery, to how U.S., British, and French psychologists are working with clients in black communities to frame their challenges in the context of post-traumatic slavery disorder or syndrome, to how these concepts are faring in the academic field of psychology, etc., etc. – the workshop raised up how daunting the challenges are, but how hopeful it is that kindred colleagues are working in similar veins and are now in a better position to collaborate on moving the work forward in all our countries.

Elizabeth Sturges Llerena, one of the DeWolf Family members featured in Traces of the Trade, has created an art exhibit about the hidden history of the slave trade that will be presented at Linden Place in Bristol, RI.

What’s Hidden Underneath:
Artist Elizabeth Sturges Llerena’s dynamic images explore New England’s complicity in the transatlantic slave trade.

Opening Reception
Friday, October 29
6pm – 9pm
Linden Place, 500 Hope St., Bristol, RI 02809
MAP

Linden Place will host a reception, performance piece and gallery talk by artist Elizabeth Sturges Llerena in the mansion.

As part of the museum’s 2010 Bicentennial Celebration, Ms. Sturges Llerena will display a variety of artworks regarding the subject of slavery, which incorporate or imitate objects in Linden Place’s collection.  Watercolor paintings of Ghanaian women, sketches and face casts, which symbolize New England’s involvement in the slave trade, are juxtaposed with Linden Place Mansion’s original collection of paintings and antique furnishings.What’s Hidden Underneath explores her family’s collective silence about slave traders in the family using a unique period dress based on a 19th century design with imagery of the Triangle Trade made visible only by pulling back the front panels of the dress.  This clever presentation highlights slavery as an often overlooked part of Linden Place Mansion’s and the Northern states’ history. Artist and New York City art teacher Sturges Llerena’s goal is to confront audiences with the history and legacy of slavery and institutional racism and to encourage audiences to reflect, reconsider assumptions and adjust ways of thinking about U.S. involvement in slavery. Ms. Sturges Llerena has exhibited at NYU’ s Bronfman Gallery among other venues. The exhibit will be open October 26 – November 13, Tuesdays through Saturdays, from 10:00am to 4:00pm. Admission: $8.00; $6.00 for seniors/students; $5 for children under 12 and free for Linden Place members. On Friday, October 29 from 6pm – 9pm, Linden Place will host a reception, performance piece and gallery talk by artist Elizabeth Sturges Llerena in the mansion. For further information, please call the Linden Place officeat 253-0390 or visit www.lindenplace.org.

We were so thrilled to be able to go to Matanzas and Havana, Cuba in March as part of the Freedom Schooner Amistad’s visit there, which was the result of high level diplomatic discussions, given the significance of a U.S. flag vessel sailing into Havana harbor. The three of us that went were James Perry (cousin in film and our director of research), Tulaine Marshall (lead consultant for our multi-country partnership with the Amistad), and myself. Given the linkages in the two histories, it was very meaningful to be partnered with the replica ship: the story of the Amistad captives rebelling while aboard this vessel that was transporting them from Havana (where they’d been sold off a slave ship) to a plantation elsewhere on the island – and the fact that the DeWolfs were planters on the island during the same period and had been very much part of the illegal slave trade that flourished there.

As readers who have seen the film can imagine, it was a big deal to be able to finally return to Cuba to show the documentary for the first time. I was nervous because during our final editing process, editor Alla Kovgan and I decided to take out two scenes in Cuba, with Cubans. As you may recall, the Cuba section of the final film shows very little interaction with Cubans, despite the entire week we spent visiting/filming with scholars, and speaking with Cubans we met in various places. Alla and I decided that the politics of race relations in Cuba is a whole complex stew, all the more loaded because of relations between our two countries, and that it digressed too much from our main themes in the film to delve into that in the limited space/time we had.

So I was nervous that Cubans would be offended that the time in Cuba in the film was so focused on our family and what we were going through.

To all of our relief, the standing-room only audience at our screening was deeply moved and appreciative, including gracious scholars we had interviewed: Natalia Bolivar and Zoila Lapique. We heard from attendees that, while the communist government officially abolished racial discrimination after the revolution, issues of racism and privilege have lingered in Cuban society as they have elsewhere in the world. So they were eager to see Traces used as a resource for raising these issues because of the many parallels they saw in the film. The means for doing that are now being explored.

Hats off to Boris Ivan Crespo and other members of the Cuban film crew who enabled us to have such great filming in 2001 and who were able to come to the premiere to be appreciated for their handiwork.

Another great breakthrough came when we were invited to speak to staff at the Cuban National Archives. There are several researchers there who specialize in the slave trade, and they have been disappointed that so many scholarly works on the slave trade do not involve research in Cuban archives, despite the centrality of Cuba to the slave trade and the Atlantic slave economy. Because the DeWolfs were so prominent in the illegal slave trade between the U.S., Cuba and Africa, we committed to work with our new colleagues to pursue licenses and funding such that new research collaboration can take place. We were able to see customs log books from the 1810’s and 20’s with names of vessels and captains that we recognized all too well.

Lastly, the three of us were able to learn about a sixth DeWolf plantation, that we hadn’t previously known about, and to visit the location of one that we had not looked for in 2001. The AP wrote a story on that search.

My thanks to the all the Amistad team, the Cuban and U.S. officials, and to our lead consultant Tulaine Marshall for making this incredible visit possible.

Historian Joanne Pope Melish will speak tonight in the Boston area about New England’s amnesia regarding the region’s role in slavery and its consequences for the development of racial attitudes over the generations.

Joanne is a noted expert on northern slavery and the process of gradual emancipation in New England, and is the author of Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and Race in New England, 1780-1860. She has frequently worked with the Tracing Center on its programming around issues of slavery and race, and is featured at our fall teacher workshops in Michigan and Rhode Island.

The talk, “The Worm in the Apple: Slavery, Emancipation, and Race in New England,” will take place at 7:00pm at Myrtle Baptist Church, 21 Curve Street, Newton. The program is sponsored by Historic Newton as part of their outstanding lecture series, “Encountering Slavery and Race in New England.”

Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North has won an award, for “Best film/video documentary production,” at the 2010 Black International Cinema film festival in Berlin.

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

The Associated Press is running a story, “US family finds traces of slave-trade past in Cuba,” about the ten-day trip to Cuba just completed by Executive Director Katrina Browne, Director of Research James DeWolf Perry, and Project Director Tulaine Marshall of the Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery.

The story, written by A.P. reporter Will Weissert, focuses on the visit paid by Browne, Perry, and Marshall to the site of Mount Hope, a coffee plantation near Madruga owned by Perry’s ancestor James D’Wolf. D’Wolf was the leading slave-trader in U.S. history, sending the majority of his slaving voyages to Cuba, and he would work slaves on plantations like Mount Hope while waiting for prices in Havana’s slave market to rise.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, March 18, 2010

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/.

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Below is the December 2009 newsletter from Ebb Pod Productions, which provides information and updates about the use of Traces of the Trade and several activities and partnerships that involve the Tracing Center. (more…)