Bill Moyers Journal . Documentary Preview: TRACES OF THE TRADE | PBS: BILL MOYERS JOURNAL presents a special preview of the documentary which opens the 21st season of P.O.V. TRACES OF THE TRADE: A STORY OF THE DEEP NORTH tells the story journey of discovery into the history and consequences of slavery. In this bicentennial year of the U.S. abolition of the slave trade, one might think the tragedy of African slavery in the Americas has been exhaustively told. Katrina Browne thought the same, until she discovered that her slave-trading ancestors from Rhode Island were not an aberration. Rather, they were just the most prominent actors in the North's vast complicity in slavery, buried in myths of Northern innocence.
Browne — a direct descendant of Mark Anthony DeWolf, the first slaver in the family — took the unusual step of writing to 200 descendants. She invited them to journey with her from Rhode Island to Ghana to Cuba and back, retracing the Triangle Trade that made the DeWolfs the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. Nine relatives signed up. TRACES OF THE TRADE: A STORY FROM THE DEEP NORTH is Browne's account of the journey.
TRACES OF THE TRADE: A STORY FROM THE DEEP NORTH premieres on P.O.V. on June 24, 2008. Check local listings.
