Proper Respect Given to the Pain and Suffering of Many
Aug 24, 2015 00:38:42 #
Rhode Island Church Taking Unusual Step to Illuminate Its S***ery Role
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYEAUG. 23, 2015
The 200-year-old Cathedral of St. John in Providence, R.I., which will become a racial reconciliation center and a museum focused on the North's involvement in s***ery. Credit Charlie Mahoney for The New York Times
PROVIDENCE, R.I. One of the darkest chapters of Rhode Island history involved the states pre-eminence in the s***e trade, beginning in the 1700s. More than half of the slaving voyages from the United States left from ports in Providence, Newport and Bristol so many, and so contrary to the popular image of s***ery as primarily a scourge of the South, that Rhode Island has been called the Deep North.
That history will soon become more prominent as the Episcopal diocese here, which was steeped in the t***s-Atlantic s***e trade, establishes a museum dedicated to telling that story, the first in the country to do so, according to scholars.
Many of the shipbuilders, captains and financiers of those slaving voyages were Episcopalians. The church, like many others in its day, supported s***ery and profited from it even after the t***s-Atlantic s***e trade was outlawed and s***ery had been banned in the state. Among the most notable Episcopalian s***eholders were Thomas Jefferson, who was active for some time in the church, and George Washington.
Over the last decade, the Episcopal Church of the United States has formally acknowledged and apologized for its complicity in perpetuating s***ery. Some Episcopal dioceses have been re-examining their role, holding services of repentance and starting programs of t***h and reconciliation.
The Diocese of Rhode Island, like many others, has been slow to respond. But under Bishop W. Nicholas Knisely, who became the Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island in 2012, it is taking steps to publicly acknowledge its past. They include the establishment of a museum focused on the t***s-Atlantic s***e trade, s***ery and the Norths complicity, as part of a new center for racial reconciliation and healing.
I want to tell the story, Bishop Knisely said, of how the Episcopal Church and religious voices participated in supporting the institution of s***ery and how they worked to abolish it. Its a mixed bag.
Other s***ery museums notably the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, La., and the Old S***e Mart Museum in Charleston, S.C. tell the story of s***ery in the South. Some museums and historic sites touch on s***ery in the North. But no museum is dev**ed to the regions deep involvement, according to James DeWolf Perry VI, a direct descendant of the most prolific s***e-trading family in the United States early years and a co-editor of a book called Interpreting S***ery at Museums and Historic Sites.
He is helping to plan the museum and reconciliation center, which are still in the organizing and fund-raising phases. They are to be housed at the 200-year-old stone Cathedral of St. John, the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island. Because of dwindling membership, the majestic but deteriorating cathedral was closed in 2012.
Under Bishop W. Nicholas Knisely, the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island is taking steps to publicly acknowledge its complicity in perpetuating s***ery. Credit Charlie Mahoney for The New York Times
The idea for the museum and reconciliation center grew out of community discussions over what to do with the shuttered cathedral; it has gained new urgency in recent months as numerous cities have erupted in racial unrest.
Were trying to move in concert with whats happening around the country, said the Rev. David Ames, who is helping to establish the center for reconciliation. Events like the massacre in Charleston have really focused us on the dire need to improve race relations in this country.
Diocesan officials have already begun conversations with the public, including African-American church leaders, about the goals of the reconciliation center. While the cathedral is being renovated, planners have worked with local universities and organizations to sponsor speakers and programs that delve into racial issues. They have scheduled more forums for the fall at Episcopal churches throughout the state where s***e traders once worshiped.
The museum, scheduled to open in 2017, will aim to illuminate the churchs role in the trade and the extensive but often-ignored history of s***ery in New England.
The regions economy was inseparable from the s***e trade starting in the 1600s, when the earliest settlers bartered Native Americans they had captured for s***es brought from Africa. Later, merchants and suppliers who grew wealthy from the s***e trade founded and endowed several Ivy League colleges; soon, Northern textile mills were humming with Southern cotton picked by s***es.
In a sign of how this history is only slowly coming to light, a ceremony was held Sunday in Boston, where the first s***e ship in New England is believed to have arrived in 1638; a historic marker, to be placed later, will mark where it would have docked. The ceremony Sunday was part of a larger project commemorating the two million s***es who died and the 10 million who survived the t***s-Atlantic s***e trade.
James DeWolf Perry VI, whose ancestors were involved in s***e trading, helped found a center for s***ery education. Credit Sean Proctor for The New York Times
Tiny Rhode Island played an outsize role in the trade, thanks to the states financiers, a seafaring work force and officials who turned a blind eye to antis***ery laws.
While many s***e ships were built in Boston, they were supplied, manned and dispatched from Rhode Island ports. Between 1725 and 1807, more than 1,000 slaving voyages about 58 percent of the total from the United States left from Providence, Newport and Bristol.
Those vessels brought more than 100,000 Africans to the Americas as part of the triangle trade. They traveled to West Africa carrying rum, which was traded for s***es. The human cargo was then t***sported to the Caribbean in the infamous Middle Passage of the triangle. There, the ships were emptied of s***es and loaded with sugar, which was brought back to Rhode Island distilleries to make more rum to take back to Africa and repeat the cycle.
They also brought s***es to the North, and they populated numerous households. By the middle of the 18th century, according to a report by Brown University, about 10 percent of Rhode Islanders were ens***ed. (In 2003, the university, in Providence, began exploring and confronting its own deep ties to s***ery.)
Bishop Knisely said his research had revealed shameful episodes in church history. For example, he said, when Quakers and Baptists in Newport began turning against s***ery, some s***e owners in those churches switched to the Episcopal Church, where they were welcomed and their s***eholding was not challenged.
We sounded an uncertain trumpet, Bishop Knisely said. We were happy to receive their financial support. We allowed ourselves to be convinced by the prejudice of the time and didnt speak out.
Architecture plans lie on a table at the Cathedral of St. John. Credit Charlie Mahoney for The New York Times
In establishing the museum and reconciliation center, the church is working with the Center for the Study of S***ery and Justice at Brown and with descendants of the DeWolfs, a prominent Episcopalian family based in Bristol and the most prolific s***e-trading family in the United States.
The DeWolf family alone imported more than 12,000 Africans. The profits from the s***e trade by James DeWolf speaker of the Rhode Island House, United States senator, banker, merchant, privateer and owner of numerous rum distilleries were so vast that, according to newspaper accounts at the time of his death, in 1837, he was the second-richest man in the United States.
One of his descendants, James DeWolf Perry III (1871-1947), became the bishop of Rhode Island, the first bishop of the cathedral here and later the 18th presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States.
The current generation of DeWolfs began digging into their family heritage a decade ago. One of them, Katrina Browne, a seventh-generation descendant of Mark Anthony DeWolf, the familys first s***e trader, organized a journey for 10 family members to trace their legacy from Bristol through s***e forts in Ghana and old family sugar plantations in Cuba.
In 2008, she produced a documentary from the trip called Traces of the Trade. That experience led her and Mr. Perry, her distant cousin, to found the Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of S***ery, dedicated to educating the public about the complicity of the entire nation in s***ery and the s***e trade.
The experience of seeing black audiences respond to a white family acknowledging these things thats a powerful starting point, Mr. Perry said.
Before he began retracing the steps of his ancestors, I had no idea just how bad my family history was, said Mr. Perry, 47, who left an academic career to start the Tracing Center. Although he was appalled by that history, he nonetheless decided to name his son, who was born in March, James DeWolf Perry VII.
I want my child to remember our family history, both good and bad, he said. I think this is how we need to approach our shared history as a nation, too.
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYEAUG. 23, 2015
The 200-year-old Cathedral of St. John in Providence, R.I., which will become a racial reconciliation center and a museum focused on the North's involvement in s***ery. Credit Charlie Mahoney for The New York Times
PROVIDENCE, R.I. One of the darkest chapters of Rhode Island history involved the states pre-eminence in the s***e trade, beginning in the 1700s. More than half of the slaving voyages from the United States left from ports in Providence, Newport and Bristol so many, and so contrary to the popular image of s***ery as primarily a scourge of the South, that Rhode Island has been called the Deep North.
That history will soon become more prominent as the Episcopal diocese here, which was steeped in the t***s-Atlantic s***e trade, establishes a museum dedicated to telling that story, the first in the country to do so, according to scholars.
Many of the shipbuilders, captains and financiers of those slaving voyages were Episcopalians. The church, like many others in its day, supported s***ery and profited from it even after the t***s-Atlantic s***e trade was outlawed and s***ery had been banned in the state. Among the most notable Episcopalian s***eholders were Thomas Jefferson, who was active for some time in the church, and George Washington.
Over the last decade, the Episcopal Church of the United States has formally acknowledged and apologized for its complicity in perpetuating s***ery. Some Episcopal dioceses have been re-examining their role, holding services of repentance and starting programs of t***h and reconciliation.
The Diocese of Rhode Island, like many others, has been slow to respond. But under Bishop W. Nicholas Knisely, who became the Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island in 2012, it is taking steps to publicly acknowledge its past. They include the establishment of a museum focused on the t***s-Atlantic s***e trade, s***ery and the Norths complicity, as part of a new center for racial reconciliation and healing.
I want to tell the story, Bishop Knisely said, of how the Episcopal Church and religious voices participated in supporting the institution of s***ery and how they worked to abolish it. Its a mixed bag.
Other s***ery museums notably the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, La., and the Old S***e Mart Museum in Charleston, S.C. tell the story of s***ery in the South. Some museums and historic sites touch on s***ery in the North. But no museum is dev**ed to the regions deep involvement, according to James DeWolf Perry VI, a direct descendant of the most prolific s***e-trading family in the United States early years and a co-editor of a book called Interpreting S***ery at Museums and Historic Sites.
He is helping to plan the museum and reconciliation center, which are still in the organizing and fund-raising phases. They are to be housed at the 200-year-old stone Cathedral of St. John, the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island. Because of dwindling membership, the majestic but deteriorating cathedral was closed in 2012.
Under Bishop W. Nicholas Knisely, the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island is taking steps to publicly acknowledge its complicity in perpetuating s***ery. Credit Charlie Mahoney for The New York Times
The idea for the museum and reconciliation center grew out of community discussions over what to do with the shuttered cathedral; it has gained new urgency in recent months as numerous cities have erupted in racial unrest.
Were trying to move in concert with whats happening around the country, said the Rev. David Ames, who is helping to establish the center for reconciliation. Events like the massacre in Charleston have really focused us on the dire need to improve race relations in this country.
Diocesan officials have already begun conversations with the public, including African-American church leaders, about the goals of the reconciliation center. While the cathedral is being renovated, planners have worked with local universities and organizations to sponsor speakers and programs that delve into racial issues. They have scheduled more forums for the fall at Episcopal churches throughout the state where s***e traders once worshiped.
The museum, scheduled to open in 2017, will aim to illuminate the churchs role in the trade and the extensive but often-ignored history of s***ery in New England.
The regions economy was inseparable from the s***e trade starting in the 1600s, when the earliest settlers bartered Native Americans they had captured for s***es brought from Africa. Later, merchants and suppliers who grew wealthy from the s***e trade founded and endowed several Ivy League colleges; soon, Northern textile mills were humming with Southern cotton picked by s***es.
In a sign of how this history is only slowly coming to light, a ceremony was held Sunday in Boston, where the first s***e ship in New England is believed to have arrived in 1638; a historic marker, to be placed later, will mark where it would have docked. The ceremony Sunday was part of a larger project commemorating the two million s***es who died and the 10 million who survived the t***s-Atlantic s***e trade.
James DeWolf Perry VI, whose ancestors were involved in s***e trading, helped found a center for s***ery education. Credit Sean Proctor for The New York Times
Tiny Rhode Island played an outsize role in the trade, thanks to the states financiers, a seafaring work force and officials who turned a blind eye to antis***ery laws.
While many s***e ships were built in Boston, they were supplied, manned and dispatched from Rhode Island ports. Between 1725 and 1807, more than 1,000 slaving voyages about 58 percent of the total from the United States left from Providence, Newport and Bristol.
Those vessels brought more than 100,000 Africans to the Americas as part of the triangle trade. They traveled to West Africa carrying rum, which was traded for s***es. The human cargo was then t***sported to the Caribbean in the infamous Middle Passage of the triangle. There, the ships were emptied of s***es and loaded with sugar, which was brought back to Rhode Island distilleries to make more rum to take back to Africa and repeat the cycle.
They also brought s***es to the North, and they populated numerous households. By the middle of the 18th century, according to a report by Brown University, about 10 percent of Rhode Islanders were ens***ed. (In 2003, the university, in Providence, began exploring and confronting its own deep ties to s***ery.)
Bishop Knisely said his research had revealed shameful episodes in church history. For example, he said, when Quakers and Baptists in Newport began turning against s***ery, some s***e owners in those churches switched to the Episcopal Church, where they were welcomed and their s***eholding was not challenged.
We sounded an uncertain trumpet, Bishop Knisely said. We were happy to receive their financial support. We allowed ourselves to be convinced by the prejudice of the time and didnt speak out.
Architecture plans lie on a table at the Cathedral of St. John. Credit Charlie Mahoney for The New York Times
In establishing the museum and reconciliation center, the church is working with the Center for the Study of S***ery and Justice at Brown and with descendants of the DeWolfs, a prominent Episcopalian family based in Bristol and the most prolific s***e-trading family in the United States.
The DeWolf family alone imported more than 12,000 Africans. The profits from the s***e trade by James DeWolf speaker of the Rhode Island House, United States senator, banker, merchant, privateer and owner of numerous rum distilleries were so vast that, according to newspaper accounts at the time of his death, in 1837, he was the second-richest man in the United States.
One of his descendants, James DeWolf Perry III (1871-1947), became the bishop of Rhode Island, the first bishop of the cathedral here and later the 18th presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States.
The current generation of DeWolfs began digging into their family heritage a decade ago. One of them, Katrina Browne, a seventh-generation descendant of Mark Anthony DeWolf, the familys first s***e trader, organized a journey for 10 family members to trace their legacy from Bristol through s***e forts in Ghana and old family sugar plantations in Cuba.
In 2008, she produced a documentary from the trip called Traces of the Trade. That experience led her and Mr. Perry, her distant cousin, to found the Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of S***ery, dedicated to educating the public about the complicity of the entire nation in s***ery and the s***e trade.
The experience of seeing black audiences respond to a white family acknowledging these things thats a powerful starting point, Mr. Perry said.
Before he began retracing the steps of his ancestors, I had no idea just how bad my family history was, said Mr. Perry, 47, who left an academic career to start the Tracing Center. Although he was appalled by that history, he nonetheless decided to name his son, who was born in March, James DeWolf Perry VII.
I want my child to remember our family history, both good and bad, he said. I think this is how we need to approach our shared history as a nation, too.
Aug 24, 2015 01:15:40 #
S***ery has been over for in excess of 150 years. Get over it.
Aug 24, 2015 01:26:13 #
PoppaGringo wrote:
S***ery has been over for in excess of 150 years. Get over it.
If I ever need someone to assist me in an advisory capacity, I know how to go out and seek them and ask them for specific advice..presently, it is so far so good in terms of not needing anyone........
Aug 24, 2015 02:22:33 #
KHH1 wrote:
Rhode Island Church Taking Unusual Step to Illumin... (show quote)
And let's not forget where they got those s***es from. From other b****s.
Aug 24, 2015 03:16:11 #
Let's not forget who left the country in order to not stop "The Peculiar Institution".....and fought over it...imagine if the South would have won....ISIS would have been here long ago...
Aug 24, 2015 03:16:11 #
Let's not forget who left the country in order to not stop "The Peculiar Institution".....and fought over it...imagine if the South would have won....ISIS would have been here long ago...
Aug 24, 2015 03:19:18 #
KHH1 wrote:
Let's not forget who left the country in order to not stop "The Peculiar Institution".....and fought over it...imagine if the South would have won....ISIS would have been here long ago...
That doesn't change the fact that the majority of s***es were sold to us by b****s. You never hear liberals mention this. Besides. S***ery is a dead issue. I never owned s***es, and I refuse to bear the guilt for something that happened before I was born. It's a non issue.
Aug 24, 2015 04:47:13 #
KHH1 wrote:
Rhode Island Church Taking Unusual Step to Illuminate Its S***ery Role
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYEAUG. 23, 2015
The 200-year-old Cathedral of St. John in Providence, R.I., which will become a racial reconciliation center and a museum focused on the North's involvement in s***ery.
I want my child to remember our family history, both good and bad, he said. I think this is how we need to approach our shared history as a nation, too.
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYEAUG. 23, 2015
The 200-year-old Cathedral of St. John in Providence, R.I., which will become a racial reconciliation center and a museum focused on the North's involvement in s***ery.
I want my child to remember our family history, both good and bad, he said. I think this is how we need to approach our shared history as a nation, too.
Congratulations to RI. It should be noted that it was Roger Williams who established the principle of secularism in Rhode Island as a means of keeping government pure. Williams royal charter stated this with respect to the state:
"No person within the said colony, at any time hereafter, shall be anywise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any differences in opinion in matters of religion ... but that all persons may ... enjoy their own judgments and consciences in matters of religious concernments."
This was the first inkling that State and Church were to be separate entities as up to now church and state were always intertwined.
So congratulations to Rhode Island, they have always been ahead of their time! It was from these inklings that Jefferson and Madison borrowed to establish the principles that led to ours being a truly free land where no matter our beliefs we could practice them without persecution of state...
http://twelvetribes.com/articles/religious-nation-secular-state
Aug 24, 2015 04:58:38 #
Grugore wrote:
That doesn't change the fact that the majority of s***es were sold to us by b****s. You never hear liberals mention this. Besides. S***ery is a dead issue. I never owned s***es, and I refuse to bear the guilt for something that happened before I was born. It's a non issue.
So, if you went to a s***e auction the owners of the s***es were black? And exactly why does the color of the sellers skin matter?Do you think it recuses white educated Christians from acting like uneducated heathens with no sense of morality? The question you pose is a logical fallacy (red herring) which is why liberals don't mention it. Don't forget. If W***e A******ns weren't so eager to buy s***es b****s would have had no reason to capture and sell them would they!!!
Aug 24, 2015 05:12:17 #
PeterS wrote:
So, if you went to a s***e auction the owners of the s***es were black? And exactly why does the color of the sellers skin matter?Do you think it recuses white educated Christians from acting like uneducated heathens with no sense of morality? The question you pose is a logical fallacy (red herring) which is why liberals don't mention it. Don't forget. If W***e A******ns weren't so eager to buy s***es b****s would have had no reason to capture and sell them would they!!!
B****s also owned s***es. You did know that right? You can't point to whitey and say we're evil. And again, I never owned s***es. It's ancient history. There are no s***es today. So why even bring it up? Acknowledge that it happen and move on. But you cannot make me feel guilty about it. And what about all those b****s who are k**led by other b****s? W****s treat b****s better then b****s treat their own kind. That's a fact.
Aug 24, 2015 06:38:49 #
lpnmajor
Loc: Arkansas
KHH1 wrote:
Rhode Island Church Taking Unusual Step to Illumin... (show quote)
The mistakes we made in the past shouldn't be overlooked or forgotten, but acknowledged - and then we move on. Constantly apologizing to people long dead, serves no purpose in the present - except to incite and/or further fuel the "America owes me something because of injustices in the past" crowd of folks - and they don't need any more help.
I think the episcopalians could s***e their guilty consciences in a more constructive manner.
Aug 24, 2015 08:59:38 #
PoppaGringo wrote:
S***ery has been over for in excess of 150 years. Get over it.
Kibbles doesn't understand that he, and many b****s are s***es...owned by the Democrat Socialist Party.
Aug 24, 2015 09:24:49 #
PoppaGringo wrote:
S***ery has been over for in excess of 150 years. Get over it.
Do you say the same to those who insist on flying confederate battle f**gs, after all the confederacy has also been defeated for over 150 years. The holicost was over 70 years ago should we get over that also? Some things leave a stain on history that will never wash out.
Aug 24, 2015 09:38:11 #
Kevyn wrote:
Do you say the same to those who insist on flying confederate battle f**gs, after all the confederacy has also been defeated for over 150 years. The holicost was over 70 years ago should we get over that also? Some things leave a stain on history that will never wash out.
Apples and oranges, moron. BTW, learn how to spell.
Aug 24, 2015 13:19:28 #
Grugore wrote:
That doesn't change the fact that the majority of s***es were sold to us by b****s. You never hear liberals mention this. Besides. S***ery is a dead issue. I never owned s***es, and I refuse to bear the guilt for something that happened before I was born. It's a non issue.
America maintaining s***ery is a whole different issue....i'm sure they were not forced to take their azzes way to Africa bring s***es all the way back here at gunpoint....and establishing the Confederacy to try and maintain it is also another issue........but the attitudes coming from you all is expected.......that is the American way for many of you...understood...and would never try to change your attitudes or convince you all of anything....a big phucking waste of time..so i'm kool..............I understand the mentality........
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