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SBU professor gets Emmy nod for slavery research
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| | | The documentary’s researcher, Jennifer Anderson, teaches the history of slavery. Courtesy photo (click for larger version) | |
August 27, 2009 | 12:20 PM
From the moment she heard film director Katrina Browne speak about the documentary she was making on the slave trade's roots in the northern United States, historian Jennifer Anderson was hooked. Anderson, an assistant professor of history at Stony Brook University, immediately signed on as a researcher for the film.
"Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North," Browne's personal exploration into her family and its former status as the largest slave-trading family in the U.S., was shown on PBS television's POV series this summer and has just earned an Emmy nomination for the depth and breadth of its research. The feature-length film offers many surprising historical facts, as most people associate slavery with the Deep South and not rooted in Rhode Island, where Browne's ancestors — the DeWolfs — lived.
"People tend to think of 'Gone with the Wind,'" Anderson said. "They think of the South and cotton." Yet the practice of slavery hit even closer to home. "Not only were there slaves in New York," she said, "but there was a free black community that was important in the history of New York as well. Both of those things are important in terms of remembering a more inclusive story of American history."
Anderson, who lives in Huntington, appears to be taking in news of the film's Emmy nomination with equanimity.
"We got the nomination," Anderson said. And we'll wait to see if we actually get the prize. It's nice to be nominated anyway." The 30th annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards is set for Sept. 21 at the Frederick P. Rose Hall in Lincoln Center.
Four years ago she began working on the film, taking over what other historians had done: poring through the DeWolf family archives.
"[Browne] wanted to have somebody go back with a fresh perspective and look through all the papers that the family had left and get a sense of how the story of slavery comes up through bits and pieces … in the account books, in the letters, the journals of the different family members," she said.
At the time, Anderson was on a research fellowship in Providence, R.I., so it was convenient to visit Linden Place, the DeWolf family homestead, in nearby Bristol, one of only two remnants of the family's presence in that town. The other is an old warehouse, now an upscale restaurant called the DeWolf Tavern. Much of her research took her to the Bristol Historical Society, which is now housed in the old jail.
Because slaves were treated as chattels and often went nameless in documents, tracing their lives is one of the biggest challenges for historians, she said. The film reveals the story of the DeWolfs' plantations in the Caribbean, where slaves were traded from the West Coast of Africa, ending up in Cuba and other Caribbean islands, a practice that went on for many generations.
Anderson, who worked as a consultant to museums before returning to graduate school, didn't realize how pervasive slavery was in the North. Today, she teaches the history of slavery at Stony Brook University within the larger context of American colonial history.
The subject of slavery is still pertinent to today, she maintains: When misunderstandings occur between the races, one has only to look at the historical context.
"It really speaks to the long legacy our country has had about racial inequalities and the need to remember that that has a long history and long roots, and it doesn't come from nothing," she said.
Though she loves teaching history to her Stony Brook students, Anderson also enjoyed the filmmaking experience, particularly reaching such a wide-ranging audience.
"Normally when I'm teaching I have maybe 100 or 125 students every semester," she said. "When the movie showed on PBS, it went out across the country and lots of people got to see it. I'm working on a book right now. A few people might read it but to make a movie you reach a whole different audience."
Anderson seems most impressed with Browne's tenacity and convictions in pursuing her family's dark past, which began as rumors she heard in her youth.
And while some members of Browne's family and residents of Bristol welcomed the film project, many others were upset that she was digging up sordid dealings from the past.
"Then going out and showing this to audiences in African-American churches and community groups to people whose ancestors were enslaved," Anderson added. "Here she is the descendant of the enslaver, face to face. In a way, I think, that took a lot of courage."
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