David Pettee and Mindy Scharlin in Ghana
Cannons at Cape Coast Castle
Boats and people on the coast of Ghana
Claiming Our History, Warts and All
May 10, 2007
By David PetteeThis essay is the newest contribution to an ongoing
conversation on issues of truth and reconciliation
which has appeared on UUA.org since January 2007.
I was raised in a family that celebrated very deep roots in New England. Early in my career as a Unitarian Universalist minister, I traced back my roots through my mother's family in the congregation where she was raised. I was delighted to be able to claim seven generations of Unitarianism, and then, Unitarian Universalism! I was proud that my people had been part of the solution for so many years.
Last year, I upgraded an on-line genealogy subscription. The seemingly innocent act of typing the name of my ancestor into a searchable version of the 1774 Rhode Island Census brutally exposed my forgotten Yankee heritage. Without warning, I was stunned to find that four enslaved Africans lived in my ancestor's home. Further research transformed my curiosity into a pilgrimage when I began to suspect another ancestor was a slave trader.
Confirmation of this disturbing news emerged from the pages of colonial court records. In a memorable case, the great great grandfather of William Ellery Channing sued John Robinson, my ancestor, over a dispute involving nonpayment of wages to his crew on a voyage from Africa to Jamaica.
Old wounds need fresh air to heal, to release the accumulated toxins that come with a lingering infection. Even though two and a half centuries had passed, I felt determined to learn as much as I could about this unwanted legacy. My faith had taught me that only an uncensored encounter with the truth might point the way forward. It wasn't long before I began to realize that to make a fuller reckoning, I would need to return to the scene of the original crime.
In February, my wife Mindy and I traveled to Ghana in West Africa to return to the slave fortress that John Robinson had visited during the mid-eighteenth century.
When I am quiet, I can still recall the sound of the roar of the surging surf, pounding the rocks beneath Cape Coast Castle. For a time, this building lay at the heart of the largest involuntary diaspora in human history. From the outside, instead of feeling sinister, the prevailing mood in the palaver, the room where negotiations for lives took place, was sterile and bureaucratic. I knew that I was standing in the same room where my ancestor had traded rum for human beings. I could look out the same window and see the same things those people, who were bartering people for products, would have seen more than two hundred years earlier.
This aura abruptly changed with the descent into the dark and cramped dungeons that served as holding cells for thousands of captured Africans before they were forced to endure the 'Middle Passage.' My feelings are hard to put into words: over a century, nearly a million Africans were placed in these dungeons, all bound for the same purpose: to cross the Atlantic to serve as slaves. Marks where people tried to scratch their way out were on the walls; the pathway ahead led to the "door of no return" where those souls who survived this imprisonment were loaded onto canoes and then onto ships in chains.
My faith assures me that the act of rememory can be like the natural cycling of water, forever seeking return from whence it came. After touring the Castle, Mindy and I made our way down the rocks to the beach. I took out a bottle I had brought from home and poured out sea water I had collected from Narragansett Bay. Feeling the liminal presence of my own ancestors, I prayed that this water would be received into the sea, ever moving, ever merging with other bodies of water, with the spirit of humility and repentance that represented my deepest apology and sorrow. I committed to always remember that repentance without real resulting action would be a mockery of my best intentions, adding further insult to the memory of all those whose lives were destroyed by my family.
It has been nearly four months since I visited Africa. My meditative practice keeps urging me to reflect upon what this journey means to me as a Unitarian Universalist. Not surprisingly, this pilgrimage has unleashed many new questions. What has emerged is the awareness that I had naively placed most of my faith in the belief that a strong personal commitment to becoming an antiracist person was somehow enough. But the work of justice making is never an individual passion. I've discovered that if our commitments are only on an individual basis and we fail to engage our religious communities in this work, we are unlikely to change the realities of systemic racism. It is only in a diverse and multicultural relational context that reconciliation might take place.
I have wrestled long and hard to understand if I am now responsible for the actions and deeds of those who lived before me. If I allow myself to be disconnected from history, then I am off the hook. But when I acknowledge my true relationship to our community of memory, I can no longer make sense of the privileges that I have inherited. I know that these comforts I enjoy are a direct product of the labors of others who were denied the opportunity to pursue their own dreams. I believe it is only through the communal work of building the Beloved Community that we will find liberation. We must be willing to claim all of our history, warts and all. We must be willing to make mistakes. Lots of them, I'm afraid, if my own experience is typical.
Some of my friends have wondered where this pilgrimage will lead next. Using the same genealogical tools that first brought my forgotten family legacy into the light, I have traced forward in time the descendants of an African man who was formally enslaved by one of my Rhode Island ancestors. I have now written to the descendants of this man, and I have begun to imagine a meeting with those whose lives were significantly shaped by my family, where I will be more accountable to this shared legacy.
I recognize that I have been blessed in my life, and that not everyone has the opportunity to make such a life-changing journey. This past year has reminded me over and over again that there is no easy path toward reconciliation but that it must surely begin with truth-telling. The only way we will succeed is if we are willing to make this journey together. Our future together depends upon it.
Rev. David Pettee dpettee @ uua.org is Director of Ministerial Credentialing
for the Unitarian Universalist Association. In this position he is charged
with overseeing the formation process for individuals pursuing ministerial
fellowship.
For more information contact info @ uua.org.
Last updated on Tuesday, May 29, 2007.
