POV - Traces of the Trade . Film Clip | PBS 2008

By Katrina Browne

First-time filmmaker Katrina Browne makes a troubling discovery - her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. She and nine fellow descendants set off to retrace the Triangle Trade: from their old hometown in Rhode Island to slave forts in Ghana to sugar plantation ruins in Cuba. Step by step, they uncover the vast extent of Northern complicity in slavery while also stumbling through the minefield of contemporary race relations. In this bicentennial year of the U.S. abolition of the slave trade, "Traces of the Trade" offers powerful new perspectives on the black/white divide. An official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Find out more about this film:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2008/tracesofthetrade/

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Broadcast Date:
June 24, 2008

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Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• slavery
• documentary
• United
• States
• Rhode
• Island
• Ghana
• Cuba
• race
• relations
• DeWolfe
• PBS
• P.O.V.

[castroy64]

Yawn. I think that African-Americans and a few neurotic whites have milked this slavery-thing for all that it's worth.

Quit whining and get over it already.

[tanekad]

I am reading the book "Inheriting the Trade" that one of the 9 participants wrote. It is a very good read. This family has had this guilt passed on to them by their ancestors(same as many slave families passed on their anger and mentality to their descendants) and I commend them for tackling the issue. Now they can finally lay that guilt to rest.

[actutus]

Blaming those now alive for the crimes of the past is an abuse of history. It's illogical and downright immoral. They ought to go to China, and see the virtual slavery of those who make the clothes they wear; or to Central America and work to improve the peasant-like poverty of those who harvest the bananas they eat every morning. But doing that would face them with the moral implications of their everyday lives, when it is MUCH easier to discuss the wrongs of others who died centuries ago.

[englila]

the truth shall set you free-and pay us our reps as well

[ultimatespider17]

and why would do they do that?

[ffairlane57]

The family is "too" white. They need to assimilate with the rest of the country instead of getting degrees at Harvard &Princeton and living so insular and elite.