America, the "most noted Salem privateer" from A History of American Privateers by Edgar Stanton Maclay (1899).
The America arrived at Salem from her last venture, April 10, 1815, after a cruise of one hundred and thirty-four days. In the course of the war she netted her owners six hundred thousand dollars. On the close of hostilities she was tied up at Crowninshield's wharf, where she remained a number of years. In June, 1831, she was sold at auction and broken up.
Even though there is a 2014 article in Naval History Magazine arguing that privateers played an important role in the War of 1812, I am thinking about what Alfred Lorrain wrote. He titled a chapter in his autobiography SECOND MATE—PRIVATEERING which you might think at first glance means he was on a privateer, but it's actually all about how much he hates privateers and thinks they're cruel and unethical. A History of American Privateers also mentions the huge sums brought in by privateers owned by James DeWolf in a chapter dedicated to Rhode Island. I am suspicious of a known trafficker of enslaved people in the privateering business, especially since DeWolf's ships were always off the coast of Africa in the War of 1812.
It's difficult for me to summon the executive function necessary to read books these days, but I tore through James DeWolf and the Rhode Island Slave Trade by Cynthia Mestad Johnson as fast as I've read anything in a long time. DeWolf's hometown and base of Bristol, Rhode Island is also my hometown, and I'm very familiar with all of the New England locations in this horrifying book; even if Bristol seems committed to not talking about DeWolf.
Growing up I had a better idea of Rhode Island's role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade than most, thanks to my historian mother, but I thought it was a Newport thing (as if the entire state didn't profit). I didn't know DeWolf's name, didn't know the nice wide street at State St. and Thames St. where I liked to walk was his wharf, didn't know my sister was married in a DeWolf family mansion (known as Linden Place, and now more open about their history on their webpage). I didn't know that Bristol, a town where I immediately felt at home when I moved there as a child, and where I have deep family roots, was built on the profits of enslavers.
I was a lot more aware of DeWolf even before I picked up this book. In 2004, before I left Bristol, the DeWolf Tavern restaurant opened near one of DeWolf's old rum distilleries on Bristol Harbor. There were archeological investigations and talk of finding shackles. I was again surprised that this happened in Bristol, not Newport? It was just dawning on me that my quaint little town, that allegedly loved its rich history, was silent on much of that history. And I was still unaware of the sheer scale of DeWolf's businesses.
As one of the Goodreads reviews says of this book, it is "argued with all the sophistication of a high school term paper." Maybe it's because every chapter hit home for me, but I liked the author's plain, journalistic style that didn't feel the need to comment on the evils of slavery. Just learning the staggering numbers behind DeWolf's empire was overwhelming—tens of thousands of enslaved people trafficked in chains, making DeWolf the second richest man in America, and Rhode Island the epicentre of the legal and illegal slave trade. He owned plantations abroad and mills and distilleries everywhere; he's said to have had more ships than the US Navy.
Not to go full Godwin's law, but DeWolf's name should be right up there with Hitler when people want to invoke an evil, genocidal monster. DeWolf might not have had a whole country behind him, but his personal brutality was shocking. He was a man who captained slave ships, personally, and once threw an enslaved woman dying of smallpox overboard in a way that was so horrifying that his own associates pressed murder charges against him (it took him many years to be exonerated). Slavers (guineamen) were notoriously brutal.
DeWolf isn't quoted much, but Johnson references his correspondence extensively to track his movements, and his business dealings that often use evasive language, e.g. referring to a cargo of enslaved people as "articles." It's hard to say what his personality was like, or if that matters. He was clearly a consummate businessman and successful politician, detail-oriented and enterprising. He was beloved by Bristol, and it's hard to say that anyone in town wasn't complicit in his business and sharing his profits. Certainly his own family were all behind him, even the "good" DeWolf brother, Levi, who was said to be pious. Levi was just as guilty as James, Johnson demonstrates this very clearly.
I think a lot about how Rhode Island has a certain popular mythology about our history. I grew up learning what rogues and scoundrels we were, but always in a flattering, positive light. We defied the British and burned HMS Gaspee! We're independent and free-spirited, and our state was founded on religious freedom by Roger Williams! We were the last state to sign the Declaration of Independence because we were waiting on the Bill of Rights! The statue atop the Rhode Island state house is called "The Independent Man."
Rhode Island is also absolutely bonkers about the Revolutionary War, and reenactors are everywhere. Today Bristol, Rhode Island is famous for its huge 4th of July parade, the oldest continuous 4th of July parade in the USA, since 1785. One of my earliest memories as a child was being really impressed by a bunch of amrev reenactors having a skirmish (even baby Shaun loved military garb). We also love to talk about our role as the "birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution," with Samuel Slater's 1793 mill in Pawtucket.
We don't talk much about slavery, and we never, ever talk about New England's opposition to the War of 1812, which seems to have been especially strong in Rhode Island. I had to wonder if our opposition was rooted in the increased British presence harrassing Rhode Island slave traders, because I know that the British captured a few Rhode Island slavers as prizes, but DeWolf made a huge profit with his many privateers (some of which were definitely also involved in the slave trade).
The Harper's New Monthly Magazine article that I shared actually mentions two of DeWolf's War of 1812 privateers, Yankee and Macdonough. It proclaims the huge profits raked in by Yankee especially, with one cruise alone bringing in over $300,000. The author, seemingly unaware of DeWolf's illegal activities and corrupt port authorities in Rhode Island, praises the ship that "scoured the whole western coast of Africa." The War of 1812 was a great thing for DeWolf, personally. I don't know if he publicly opposed it for political reasons.
I reached out to my sister, who is still in Bristol, to see if this 2014 book made any noise, and learned that "when it came out it caused a big ruckus in town nobody wanted to hear it." (I left Rhode Island to move to the midwest with my then-fiancée in 2013). The internet doesn't add any more news of controversy, just more silence. I don't know what to say, and while I think this isn't the entirety of Bristol's past and present, it's unfortunate that we are so loathe to talk about it. The DeWolfs are very much still around and one of them, James DeWolf Perry—the most Rhode Island of all names—is committed to discussing his ancestor's legacy.
I have always loved Bristol, and I still love Bristol, but my hometown has an extraordinarily dark past. I feel part of that too.
