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See also Perry's DeWolf family history and genealogy, on-line
From Caughtry. "Pre-Voyage Planning" in The Notorious Triangle.
"Altogether, this Bristol clan [the DeWolfs] financed eighty-eight slaving
voyages, or 24.3 percent of all voyages identified by owner from 1784 to
1807. alone, or in combination with other merchants, the family was
responsible for 59.4 percent of all African voyages that originated in
Bristol. Its closest competitors, the Newport partnerships of Briggs and
Gardner and of Clarke and Clarke, together sent only forty-four vesels to
the coast, exactly half the D'Wolf total. Without a doubt, then, the
D'Wolfs had the largest interest in the African slave trade of any
American family before or after the Revolution; theirs was one of the few
fortunes that truly rested on rum and slaves. Blessed with an abundance
of cooperative family capital, which they invested to great advantage, teh
clan eventually placed D'Wolfs or D'Wolf in-laws in every phase of the
slaving operation. James, the principal trader and business head of the
family after Mark Anthony's retirement [Mark Anthony was the brother of
Simon, both sons of Charles who settled in French Guadeloupe] married the
daughter of one of the owners of Bristol's huge rum distillery. Together,
James, his four brothers, and their scion served as financiers, captins,
and crew for many of the family's slaving ventures. In addition, D'Wolfs
also became factors at the major slave markets in Havana and Charleston.
Finally, the family purchased a sugar plantion in Cuba; thus, their circle
of involvement in African commerce was complete. In the annals of the
American slave tradae, the D'Wolfs are without peer.
Table 3
Slaving Voyages of the D'Wolf family, 1784-1807
Name Sole Owner Joint Ownership total
James 12 19 31
John 6 15 21
William 3 18 21
Charles 5 12 17
George 2 9 11
Levi 1 7 8
Samuel 0 1 1
From The Gentle Americans: "The Bristol Way"
(how this family felt about it)
"Of all the beautiful old houses--rivaling one another in grace, elegance,
and grandeur--...none was more flamboyant or imposing than "The Mount",
built by Captain, later Senator, Jim DeWolf who, when he died in 1837, was
the second richest man in the country [and Mary Sizer Allen's first
cousin]. ...
"In the reverberating names of those black ghosts [the family house
slaves] we are confronted wiht the grim fact that the gracious burgeoning
of beautiful DeWolf houses and lavish DeWolf hospitality sprang from roots
which were buried deep in the brutal filth of the slave trade. Bristol
was the apex of an ugly triangle; molasses was transproted from Cuba, in
Bristol distilleries converted into rum, from Bristol the rum went to the
west coast of Africa, to be converted into such cargo that even today it
is shame to name it. Of all the Bristol slave-runners Captian Jim
DeWolf's record is the most appalling -- and therefore, the most
successful.
Father, in his own writing, has gravely sorrowfully, and truthfully -- if
a trifle mutedly--recorded some of the appalling statistics of Bristol's
slave trade. He had heard as a boy the story of the old trader "who
sometimes had to put down his morning cup of coffee because he seemed to
see blood on the surface of it, and when he saw it he remebered hs
throwing a slave with smallpox out of a boat, and chopping off his hands
with an axe when he tried to pull himself back over the gunwhale."
Father tried to cheer himself by the thought that he was not a direct
lineal descendant of the nefarious Captian Jim--the empty Howe coffers
alongside the heavily laden DeWolf ones were proof enoughof that--but
heknew that final judgment must still be reserved on old "privateering"
Mark Antony, whose blood they both shared. It is striking to observe
Father's difference in attitude from HIS father's toward this blot on the
DeWolf family scutcheon, as that of the town from which they came. The
Bishop [Howe, first Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Central
Pennsylvania] in his reminiscences privately printed for his children,
rather oploftily asserts concerning Bristol that "in one way or another
some of our people having plantations in the West INdies there came to be
a considerable colored population, and I recollect that for a while in my
early days they ocupied a certain part of town called Goree." He
neglectts to mention the fact that the nameplace, Goree, is situated on
the west coast of Africa from which "this considerable colored population"
was brought--in chains below decks. When the generation after Father's
spoke up, however, in the person of George Howe, he did so loud and clear,
with the names and numbers of the players. Father, then a very old man,
was considerably saddened by having the record published. I tried to
offer the bleak comfort of suggesting that many other New England families
had been pretty bad, too. 'I'm afraid not as bad as ours' was his
answer."
"If longevity, regularity, and volume--rather than value-be the measures,
the Caribbean trade domoniated Rhode Island's maritime life. There were
two reasons. First, because the business could be conducted in small
craft, teh Caribbean attracted men of small means. For some it served as
a training ground, andmany who became wealthy entrepreneurs started there,
then went on to greater things. For those who remained petty merchants it
was always the cheif trading area. Second, because Rhode Island's own
products were useless in direct commerce with many areas, the Caribbean
trade served as an adjunct to other and more profitable vetnures. It
supplied highly prized trading goods and raw materials, and it also
provided a marekt for many types of New England commodities that could not
be diposed of elsewhre. Rum distilled from West Indian or Cuban molasses
was the currency of the Guinea trade; the Caribbean was also a princiipal
slave market. VEssels outward bound for Europe or the Orient unloade
American provisions, soap, candles, and lumber and goods derived from
earlier foreign voyages. Inward bound they unloaded European textiles,
wines, and naveal stores, andOriental goods. In each instance they
acquired goods useful in further trade: molasses, sugar, rum, coffee ,
cocoa, spices, cigars, cotton, dyes, and lumber.
Though deeply affedted aafter 1792 by the Anglo-French and Anglo-American
conflicts, Rhode Island's Caribbean commerce sustained less damage,
whether temporary or permanent, than any other branch of international
trade. Throughot the period, hte kaleidoscopic political and economic
conditions in the Gulf of Mexico rigorously tested the skill,
resourcefulness, and flexibiility of Narragansett Bay merchants. On the
whole, they steered a successful course."
Coleman discusses how Rhode Island's role in international trade dropped
from 1790 to 1860. All but in the African commodity trade, the Canadian
coal and lumber trade, and the Scottish iron trade. First, international
conflicts made maritime operations risky and expensive. Second,
competition fromn "ports with richer hinterlands and better physical
facilities, particularly New York, placed the Narragansett Bay traders at
a disadvantage in the American market", "and the steady
instituionalization of world trade reduced the effectiveness of the
dominant Rhode Island traits--flexibility, timing, otherwise-mindedness,
and invdividualism. This new trading world was no place for merchant
adventurers. Risks were less now but so were profits. The majority of
merchants, therefore, gradually withdrew and soguht from other types of
enterprise the speculative returns tehy ahd come to expect from foreign
commerce.
Some refused to abandom the sea. Either because their range of choices
was limited by physical and psycholotical factors or because they believed
the solution to declining maritime profits lay in attack, not in retreat,
these diehards retained their oceanic investments. The least adventurous
turned to coasting, then to freighting. The more hardy--or
foolhardy--turned to slaving, privateering, or whaling."
"Slaving, a highly speculative form of enterprise, met the classic
narrangansett Bay requirements--low investments, high risks, rising
demand, and speculative profits. Middling but ambitious merchants as well
as the owners of small craft found the trade particularly attractive. The
premium it placed on flexibility appealed wspecially. Moreover, traders
could get financial support relatively easily and because each voyage
constited a clearly defined venture which generally left no transactions
dangling, both merchants and their backers could enter or abandon the
trade at will. Despite the humanitarian and legislative drive against
slaving, therefore, some merchants refused to withdraw from the Guinea
trade.
Rhode Island ports had virtually ceased to be slave markets after 2774,
when the Genreral Assembly had halted importations excetp from the West
Indies. A decade later another law had provided for the gradual
emancipation of slaves, adn in 1787 the Assembly had forbidden Rhode
Island citizens to carry slaves into foreign ports. Restrictions were
intensified after Rhode Island joined the Union. In 1794 Congress
directted Americans to cease carrying slaves between foreign ports and
made it a federal crime to violatestate laws against the slave trade.
Convcted slavers forfeited their vessels adn were fined $100 for each
slave carried. Opponents of the trade...sought more stringent penalties in
1800. John Brown, a member of the Rhode Island delegation in Congress,
unsuccessfully defended the New England slaving interests. ...Congress
stiffened the law by imposing prison terms and by increasing the fines.
These restrictions failed to keep Rhode Islanders out of the traffic. As
Willliam Ellery, the Newport collector of customs, had observed in 1791,
"an Ethiopian could as soon change his skin as a Newport merchant could be
induced to change so lucrative a trade...for the slow profits of any
manfacotry."
"All the major Rhode Island ports re-entered the slave trade after the
Revolution. HOwever, Procidence houses gradually withdrew from "eastward"
ventures, partly because the Abolition Society, led by teh influential
Quaker merchant, oses Brown, waged an effective campaign against the
traffic. Some eminent and respectable firms, such as Clark and
Nightingale, as well as lesser merchants and shipowners, ntably Ebenezer
Jenckes, Abihah Potter, Amasa Smith, ane Cyprian Sterry, did trade on teh
Guinea coast,...but the scale of Providence operations was modest and
declining... the scale of Newport's slaving operations might well have
been larger but for William Ellery, the local customs collector, who kept
a close watch for ilicit ventures. Since his incorruptible administration
extended as far north as Conimicut Point, Ellery also circumscribed the
activities of teh DeWolfs, Bristol's leading mercantile family. Never
ones to submit meekly to damaging regultions, they fuoght back with
unusual but effective stratagems.
"The DeWolf star ahd begun its ascent in the mid-eighteenth century with
the marriage of a young supercargo, Mark Anthony DeWolf, to the sister of
his emplyer, Simeon Potter. Through is wife's inheritance DeWolf acquired
captial for operations as slaver, merchant, and privateer. Though Mark
Anthony never became wealthy himself, one of his several sons, James, who
had served a maritime apprenticeship during the Revolution, amassed an
enormous fortune. James obtained his first command, a slaver, at
nineteen. Thereafter his indifference to ethical niceties kept him in the
traffic long after many Rhode Islanders had turned respectable, adn after
Guinea voyages had acquired the additional stigma of illegality. Apa4rt
from Levi, who proved too squeamish ot follow the family trafition, and
John, who abandoned slaving for farming as soon as his fortune was made,
James had two other brothres , Charles and William, each of whom had the
DeWolf touch of profitable opportunism. There were also assorted nephews,
including John DeWolf of the Juno, the son of another brother, Simon, who
had died at sea during the Revolution.
James DeWolf defende his 'backbirding' interestes with extraordinary
resourcefulness. In 1799, when Ellery libeled the DeWolf slave schooner,
the Lucy, and the United States District Court at Providence ordered it
auctioned, James retaliated by kidnapping Ellery's deputy just before the
sale, This frustrated the plan to use the craft as a revenue cutter on
Narragansett Bay, but even teh unscrupulous James knew that he had won ony
a temprary respite. With a clver turn of opportunism, he and his brother
John then embraced the Republican party. Jefferson soon rewarded their
new found devotion to principle. By one of his early presidential acts,
Bristol and Warren became a separate customs dist4rict and, over Ellery's
indignant protests, he appointed Charles Collins, the Lucy's captain,
reputed part-owner of atleast two other slavers, and James'
brother-in-law, collector. So long as Collins held office - twenty years-
DeWolf slavers fitted out in Bristol as if the trade were lgeal. They
posted good conduct bonds without question and changed ship registries at
will. Armed with powers of attorney, DeWolf captains made nominal sales
of vessels and cargoes to Spanish interests and thus operated with
relative impunity. Collins, it seemed, was more the employee of the
DeWolfs than of the United States.
This brilliant example of political chicanery guaranteed safety on
narragansett Bay, and "wash" slaes to Spaniards provided protection on the
high seas, but fluctuating markets in the Caribbean posed a third type of
threat. Jmaes fashioned a typical DeWolf solution; he acquired Cuban
sugar plantations. When prices were low in Havana, or when the risks of
smuggling slaves into the United States were too high, DeWolf simply held
his caroes off the market. The Negroes were set to work rasing sugar cane
and converting it to molasses. This was then shipped to Bristol,
distilled into the golden currency of the slave trade, and eventually
invested to profitable advantage on the African coast.
James also knew how to squeeze great profits out of legitimate slaving
voyages. Many of the thirtynine hundred slaves shipped into Charleston in
Bristol vessels between 1803 and 1807 were carried in DeWolf craft on
consignment to the family's local brokerage house, DeWolf and Christian.
thus the DeWolfs kept sales commissions in the family, and if the firm
took payment in a draft on New York, another DeWolf was in the northern
city to cash it without the expense of paying collection fees to an agent.
Profitable though Guinea voyages were, James DeWolf was too shrewd to stay
in slaving after the Cngressional prohibition took effect in 1808. Like
other Rhode Island merchants, James had always diversified his risks by
engaging simultaneously in sevreal different kinds of buiness, and he
experienced no difficulty in shifting his effort to other profitable
ventures. Not all Bristol traders followed this exacmple. The most
notable exception was James' nephew, George DeWolf.
Working in collusion with ?Charles Colins, who cleared vessels as before,
George DeWolf despatched slaver after slaver on illicit voyages. So long
as his luck held the profits were fabulous. But int eh years following
the War of 1812, Congress enacted thr4ee additional restrictive measures.
An Act of 1818 required a suspecte slaver to prove hre innocence, another
adopted in 1819 encouraged informers by giving them half the value if a
condemned vessel; and an 1820 statute made slaving a hanging crime. As a
member of the United States Senate, James DeWolf relieved some of this
pressure by securing an amendemnt to the Angl0Ameican treaty of 1819,
which had provided for joint naval patrols of the African coast. By
preventing British men-of-war from searching craft flying the American
flag or American cruisers searching British vessels, the DeWolf amendment
enable slavers to escape by running up whatever colors - American,
British, or Spanish - mementarily promised the greatest safety.
Bristol slavers also came under local pressure. In 1817, the DeWolfs had
secrued the Bristol postmastership for the REverend Barnabas Bates, a
Baptist pastor who had lost his living by turning Unitarian. Bates repaid
them by supplying Ellery with information about illegal Bristol Voyages.
Oer the next few years, the courts condmened nine Bri9stol craft as
slavers. The DeWolfs breathed more easily when Ellery died in 1820, but
their troubles were not over.
President Monroe declined to reappoint Colllins. Instead, he transferred
Bates from the post office to the customshouse, a move that closed Bristol
to slavers thoughout the new collector's four-year therm. James DeWolf
did get his Senate colleagues to refuse confirmation of Bates'
reappointment in 1824, but by that time Bristol merchants had probably
withdrawn from the slave trade.
Privateering, like slaving, began as a lawful activity. During the War of
1812 the diehard Rhode Islanders, wespecially the Bristol men, seized on
it as a profitable alternative to slaving, which was now piracy. Indeed
Bristol privateers operated so successfully that, even though it too
became common piracy with the war's end, they refused to give it up.
Probably the most speculative of all lawful maritime enterprises,
privateering was organized so as to spread the risks as widely as
possible. most vessels were jointly owned, and crews shared in the
profits in lieu of wages. Oners usually took half the prize money;
officers, sailors, and marines shared the balance according to rank and
occupation. Speical bonuses ranging up to fifty dollars were paid for
being the first man to sight an enemy sail or to board a prize's deck, and
the government paid a bounty of twenty dollars for each prisoner captured.
...
Small brigs or schooners, especially exslavers of proven spped and
maneuverability, made the best privateers. ...Greed rather than patriotism
probably explains the readiness of teh sailors and marines to endure the
cramped conditions, harsh discipline, and grave dangers of privateering.
some Expeditions failed outright or returend only trifling dividends, but
a few were so lucrative that sailors fought for the privilege of signing
on for cruises which, they fervently hoped, woudl maek the independent for
life.
The hundred and sexity-eight ton hermaphrodite brig Yankee came closest to
fulfilling these hopes. She was partly owned by James DeWolf, who always
defended his interestes skilfully and, when the need arose, ferociously.
For as long as he lived, he neither forgot nor frogave an injury. Partly
out of anti0British snentiment - he had been imprisoned during the
Revolution, and British cruisers had captured several of his vessels
during the Napoleonic conflict - in 1812 he and his kinfolk declared war
on British shipping. They fitted out eight of the nine privateers that
operated from Bristol, and James himself invested in no less than six of
them. Only the Yankee cruised successfully, but she captured forty
vessels, including nine ships and twenty-five brigs, worth, with their
cargoes, $5,000,000. James DeWolf, who owned a three-quarter share in teh
privateer, reaped a gross profit of about $1,500,000. Yet whatever else
he was, James DeWolf was no miser. He spent $52,000 of his spoils on the
four hundred ton cruisers Chippewa which he presented to teh Navy, in the
hope, one supposes, that it would destroy whatever enemy shipping eluded
the Yankee.
By rights, the Treaty of Ghent should have halted privateering. But for
Bristol folk the war had ended too soon. AFter all, the crews of the
Yankee had spent about a million dollars in the little poirt.
Understandably, people hankered for the glamor, excitement, and, most
important, the high profits of wartime enterprise. to a certain extenet
illicit slaving ventures gratified their need, but the traffic grew
steadily more dangerous. The chance to revive the port's flagging economy
soon came when the outbreak of revolutions in Latin America created
opportunities for mercenaries, and in the slaver, George DeWolf, Briostol
had jstu the man to organize lucraive privateering voyages. It mattered
little that the United States government expressly forbade Americans to
outfit or serve in any vessel flying an insurgent flag. So long as a
steady stream of specie flowed back to Bristol, investors conveniently
overlloked the fact that what had been lawful during the War of 1812 was
onw priacy.
But the bubble evetnually burst. As soon as word rached Bristol in June,
1825, that George's Cuban sugar crop ahd failed, confidence sagged, and
when his London banker crashed in the fall to the amount of $700,000,
creidtors began closing in. Hope remained alive in Bristol into December,
but George was making secret plans to escape. The people woke one morning
to find George gone and Bristol tottering on the verge of ruin. Losses
were staggering. Few residents ahd resisted the possibility of a stady
twenty-five percent return on investmetns. Cousin James, lacking his
father' s canniness, had borrowed and invested $250,000, and between themn
the townfolk had lent George several hundred thousand more.
Bristol's prosperity collapsed overnight. Though A. T. and T. J. Usher
buoght up the DeWolf fleet and made a fortune in the Cuban moasses,
Bristol onion, and carrying trades, many families faced bankruptcy. Some
fled their creditors; others joined the stream of New Englanders
migrationg westward. The majority, however, hung on in Bristol hoping
that some way would be found to repair the town's shattered economy, but a
full decade elapsed before Bristol made up for the sudden loss of
population, and the port never recovered.
... Fortunately for Bristol, the crisis did not completely destroy the
port's resilience. James and John DeWolf preserved much of their capital
intact; the Usher brothers built a prosperous shipping buinsess; and a
DeWolf protege, Byron Diman, helped perpetuate teh port's entrepreneurial
leadership..Diman began as an apprentice to James DeWolf. Born too late
(1795) to have ahd personal experience in his employer's slaving
operations, Diman acquired his first sloop in 1822. Over the next
half-centry, he owned shares in atleast twenty-one other vesels, mainly
brigs and ships, which ie employed in West INdian trade, coasting,
freighting, and whaling. Like his mentor, he diversified into banking,
insurance, adn manufacturing, and he tok an active part in state politics.
Despite teh staggering loss of hundreds of thougsands of dollars in 1825,
therefore, an d the flight of dozens of families, Bristol's sprit was
never entirely crushed."
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