After watching the video, traces of the trade by Katrina Browne, I felt for me personally as a member of the audience and for Katrina Browne the answers she found about her family history, raised more several more questions. Many ethical, moral questions were raised. Now that Katrina Browne knows her family and many others benefited from the slave trade, What can she do to make repairs to the ones her family oppressed? Does she even need to? Who can she really make repairs to? Somethings she did do were to pass on the knowledge to the church and thus the local community, but can that even justify generations of oppression? Can anything they do ever come close to making reprimands? What can a person do to calm the guilt and anger they feel?
This movie also brought up the power of history; it totally changed the perspective of the De wolf family's prosperity, the local and denominational church put itself to action, and the documentary was made. Knowledge of the north being anti-slavery was falsified to the point where it is almost embarrassing to even think we held that idea for so long. Possibly these notions came from some historical fact without knowing the entire picture, but as we saw the hidden history that was just revealed had a certain aspect of power. It gave them power to heal the oppression and suffering caused by their family. How will they go about it no one is quite sure but they are now making a step in the right direction.
For me, it made me slightly paranoid. What about my ancestry? how does it affect the way I live? Will I stumble upon knowledge that will totally change my outlook on life? More than anything, I realize that historical knowledge is again very precious and it should be sought out by each individual. It shows me how empowering historical knowledge can be to a person.
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I liked your post and one part of it really stood out to me. You said that "Somethings she did do were to pass on the knowledge to the church and thus the local community", but I think some members of the church and the community already knew about that past. Katrina said that she somehow already knew when her grandmother sent her that letter. I think for some people it was easy to become ignorant of the past and for others it was hard.
ReplyDeleteMegan, I think your observation is a good one, that some people are aware of the past, at least dimly.
ReplyDeleteAs one of the ten DeWolf family members in the film, however, I can tell you that very, very few people we've met, either in the church or the local community, or elsewhere in the country, have had the slightest awareness of the DeWolf family's slave trading, or of the broader history touched on in the film.