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 state’s 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 North’s 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. It’s 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 region’s 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.
“We’re trying to move in concert with what’s 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 church’s role in the trade and the extensive but often-ignored history of s***ery in New England.

The region’s 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 state’s 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 didn’t 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 family’s 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 — that’s 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.”