manufacturer politician slave-trader
James De Wolf was born on March 18, 1764 in Bristol County, Rhode Island, United States; the seventh son of Mark A. and Abigail (Potter) De Wolf. Both his father and his uncle Simeon Potter were seafaring men, and had been interested in slave-trading in French Guinea.
The family was poor and the boys hoed corn on their father’s farm until, throwing down their hoes, they walked to Providence and sailed upon one of Potter’s privateers.
This was during the Revolutionary War and the sea was infested with private pirates who increased in audacity and lucrative gain after the French Revolution.
James De Wolf went through wild experiences. He fought in many naval battles, was captured twice by the enemy, and once was imprisoned.
The result of this cruelty and hardship made him a man of force and indomitable energy with no nice ethical distinctions. Before his twentieth birthday he was master of a ship and before he was twenty- five he had accumulated wealth enough to make him independent for the rest of his life.
His earliest voyages were made to Africa where he seized and transported Africans as slaves to the West Indies. Providence merchants of highest commercial and social standing backed him in this trade.
Apparently he had no qualms of conscience, and often went to Southern ports personally to supervise the sale of his captives. He was careful to follow the lines of largest profit.
As long as the slave-trade was flourishing after the Revolutionary War, his ships were in it. Later some of them turned to the furs of the northwest coast, then to whale-fishing, and finally even went to China.
His principal trade, however, was always in the West Indies, and when, in 1804, South Carolina threw open her ports to the importation of slaves because of the threatened national prohibition, De Wolf leaped to aid, and ten of the 202 vessels that entered Charleston between 1804 and 1808 belonged to him.
The attitude of England during the Napoleonic Wars greatly angered and embarrassed De Wolf and he sustained heavy losses through the impressment of seamen. He was a strong advocate of war with England and eleven days after the declaration of the War of 1812, he offered the government at his own expense “an armed Brig (one of the most suitable in this country for a Privateer), of one hundred and sixty tons burthen, mounting eighteen guns and carries one hundred and twenty men, called the Yankee, commanded by Oliver Wilson. ”
The Yankee was immensely successful. It made six cruises in less than three years and captured more than five million dollars’ worth of British property. After the close of the war, De Wolf sensed the coming development of manufactures in the United States. Gradually he withdrew his capital from shipping and he had already built one of the earliest cotton-mills in the United States, at Coventry, Rhode Island, in 1812. He sensed, too, that the new industry needed political influence. For thirty years he represented the town of Bristol in the Rhode Island legislature, becoming finally speaker of the House.
In 1821 he was elected to the United States Senate. Here he was a strong advocate of protection for the new young industries and he opposed the extension of slavery to Missouri and the West. His interest now was no longer in the African slave but in the white mill laborer. He did not like the atmosphere of Washington and resigned his seat in the Senate in 1825 and returned to the legislature of Rhode Island.
He made the town of Bristol his especial care. Here on a great estate of one thousand acres, he built himself a stately mansion, and devised many schemes for the advancement of the town and its industries.
James DeWolf was careful to follow the lines of largest profit. He was a man of force and indomitable energy with no nice ethical distinctions.
James DeWolf married Nancy Bradford, a daughter of William Bradford, and died in New York City.
