Katrina Browne, the director and author of “Traces of the Trade” film about eight families and their ties to the former slalve trade in America shown to Bement School students on Monday, uses string to show how the slave trade was intertwined in all trade by listing the cargo of a slave trading ship.
Recorder/Paul Franz
Bement students take lesson in slave system
DEERFIELD — String crisscrossed a classroom at the Bement School in Ted Pina’s eighth-grade history class. It ran from one student holding a card that said “Sail Makers of Providence,” to another student holding a card for “Swivel Gun,” to another for “40 Handcuffs and 40 Shackles” and ultimately formed the web of the New England slave trade.
Each card represented an item that was aboard the slave ship “Sally,” which traveled from Providence to West Africa on a slaving voyage in 1764. Directing this web was filmmaker Katrina Browne, who spent the day at Bement screening her film and facilitating classroom discussions to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Browne wrote and directed the documentary film “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” which follows the revelation that Browne’s New England ancestors were one of the largest slave-trading families in American history and were involved with the voyage of the Sally.
May 16, 2012
WeatherReport
