I grew up with a mix of cultures, but I have always held on to the moral philosophies of my indigenous American roots. As it turns out, many of these teachings appear to have much in common with those still carried out by the native peoples of Africa. I was humbled and moved to see my distant relations on the shores of Ghana making prayers for the spirits of those ancestors who were taken. I was aware of this happening but only vaguely since, of course, we are not taught those kinds of things in school. Thank you for including the African perspective in your film.

The challenge for any of us, always, is to be a good descendent to the relatives who came before us. If you study your ancestors and implore them for guidance they will respond to you. Sometimes their lessons will require that you do something or change your behavior in such a way that acknowledges their historical presence.

This may sound foreign to some readers. Most white people including those in my own family seem unwilling to face their relationship with history. Privilege insulates them from the responsibilities of historical consciousness. The result is a disconnect that breeds the kind of pathological thinking that allows racism and social inequality to persist.

I applaud the descendants of the DeWolf family for answering their ancestors’ call to action and adding their voices in telling the story of the Slave Trade.

Please continue your good work.

I am an amateur historian. Decades of reading, research, visiting, pondering and interacting and more.

And I have found, and this is not off the subject of Traces of Trade and this site, that there are so many lessons we learn about others and ourselves, when we find out what people actually did or do versus what they say or profess.

Oh, the West African Slave trade… My poor tortured ancestors… How would old man D’Wolf have liked it if someone raped and kidnapped his wife or daughters? A rhetorical question of course. I hope he died a painful death and is in hell.

I am a black american – a big and black male – and I have “caught hell” for years and years. Not because of my skin color, but because certain white americans use my skin color as an excuse to steal.

I am unhappy with it all but I know that whites, are not unlike so many other “types” of humans regarding the extent they will go to steal.

I have no kind words for the “brothers” in Ghana and so many other parts of Africa who were so complicit in the Slave Trade.

Documentaries like the Living Consequences – I am sure – and this well constitued website, remind me of a couple of truths that seems to ring clearer and clearer to me over the years. One is that people – regardless of color, race ot creed, will do almost anythng to other preple if there is something to be gained from it and if they can get away with it. The other truth is that people who talk about how “superior” they are—are really trying to explain why they are “entitled”.

What whites have done to black people and native americans is almost unspeakable. What all the “know nothing” whites continue to do or allow to be done to blacks and native americans is also shameful.

Their motives are just like those of the slave traders.

I particularly like the fact that you’re openly proud of your black heritage and what your enslaved ancestors went through, and yet, at the same time, you can still acknowledge that race is merely a social construct started by a white-dominated society to serve its narrow interests. These two ideas are not incompatible, and yet too often people will seize onto one of them, and reject the possibility of the other.

I think the thing that bugs me most is the total eradication of blacks from american history. In high school i hated history even though i loved my teacher. she got to the part about slavery, said “it was not a peculiar institution” and moved to the next chapters. I’ve only come to love history since attending a black college and meeting other people who stressed our importance in the founding of this nation. I think not knowing our history, and not knowing that the african american experience is so very interwoven in the founding of this country is devastating to african americans. We basically are influenced to believe that blackness is bad and whiteness is everything there is to aspire to. I don’t know how i really feel about reparations. I have stories i could tell you about what happened to my landowning black grandfathers, but i think the lack of education about black people and their very integral role in this country is crippling to both blacks and whites.

I’m glad your family had the courage to undertake this journey. Many don’t.