A Family Discovers Its History of Shackles and Shame

DeWolf family members and Ghanaian Beatrice Manu, right, watch a river ceremony where centuries ago, captive Africans were taken for their last baths before leaving their homeland. "Traces of the Trade," about the family's role in the slave trade, airs tomorrow. (By Amishadai Sackitey -- Pbs Via Associated Press)

They learn that that the slave trade was the cornerstone of Northern commercial life for about 200 years, forming the economic engine behind the early nation and the subsequent Industrial Revolution. They also learn that a family nursery rhyme, "Adjua and Pauledore," describes two child slaves given by James DeWolf to his wife as a Christmas gift. DeWolf, whose local rum distilleries supported his slave trade, would become one of the richest men in America, as well as a U.S. senator.

The group visits slave forts in Ghana, where their ancestors traded rum for captured Africans, many of whom had been baptized by Christian missionaries, stripped of their birth names and confined to crowded dungeons beneath the living quarters of their captors.

The family's journey coincides with Panafest, a festival attended by many people of African descent in search of their ancestral roots. One of the DeWolfs, Dain Perry, reports that his attempts to draw a black woman into conversation at a slave fort were rebuffed, an experience he calls humbling.

"She said she was hoping not to see any white people there," Perry, 64, says by phone from Boston. He adds that he and his wife, Constance, 60, an African American friend he married after the film's journey, have appeared at more than 60 public discussions on race relations -- work he describes as a "ministry." (The couple donate their speaking fees to the film's outreach efforts.)

The film's escalating tension peaks in Cuba, where the DeWolf ancestors transported African slaves to work on plantations that supplied sugar cane to the DeWolf distilleries in Bristol.

During a family discussion about white responsibility, Elly DeWolf Hale expresses concern for Brown, the co-producer -- prompting Brown's unplanned appearance on camera.

"The entire truth is that in this moment you're just a good person to me," says the co-producer, clasping the hands of Hale, who appears close to tears.

"Of course I'm angry at white people," Brown continues calmly on-screen. "I think white people have been cowards and have chosen to give up their integrity and their humanity for so long. Anybody who's alive or who's paying attention should be [angry]. And the fact that white people are not [angry] means that they're not paying attention."

Brown elaborates by phone from California. "My mother talks about one of her cousins, a former slave. He had scars on his ankles and wrists where the shackles used to be. He ate from a trough. To people who tell me, 'Get over it, it's ancient history,' I say, 'I can touch the hand of my mother who touched a slave.' "

Over lunch at a cafe on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Browne, who lives in Boston, criticizes white Northerners who deny having systemic or economic privileges rooted in the slave trade. " 'My parents or grandparents weren't even here then' is a common refrain," she says.

"Even if you entered this land of opportunity from a boat at Ellis Island, you had access to privileges not available to African Americans," says Browne, who is also descended from Irish immigrants. "Some people think that their ancestors pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, but no, actually there were a lot of government handouts for the white middle class, like the G.I. Bill and home loans."

The personal cost of making the film?