Mark Anthony DeWolf
{{Short description|American merchant and enslaver (1726–1793)}}
{{Use American English|date=May 2023}}
{{Mdy|date=May 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Mark Anthony DeWolf
| image = Mark Anthony DeWolf.jpg
| caption = Mark Anthony DeWolf, c. 1770
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1726|11|8}}
| birth_place = Guadeloupe, French West Indies
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1793|11|9|1726|11|8}}
| death_place = Bristol, Rhode Island, United States
| nationality = American
| other_names =
| occupation = Merchant, enslaver
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
}}
Mark Anthony DeWolf (also spelled D'Wolf{{efn|The name was occasionally spelled with the French contraction due to his education in Guadeloupe, French West Indies.{{Cite book|last=Knowlton|first=Josephine Gibson|title=Longfield: The House on the Neck|date=1956|publisher=Providence, Oxford Press|pages=16}}}} or deWolfe; November 8, 1726 – November 9, 1793) was an American merchant and enslaver. He is known for his role in the transatlantic slave trade and was an early member of the DeWolf family of Bristol, Rhode Island, which became one of the most prominent slave-trading families in American history.
Biography
Born in 1726 in Guadeloupe, French West Indies, Mark Anthony DeWolf was the second son of Charles DeWolf and Margaret DeWolf (née Potter). His father, born in Lyme, Connecticut, in 1695, immigrated to Guadeloupe in 1717, where he remained for the rest of his life.{{Cite web|title=Rhode Island Postal History - The DeWolf Family of Bristol, RI - Part 1|url=http://thesaltysailor.com/rhodeisland-philatelic/rhodeisland/stampless66.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210204045619/http://thesaltysailor.com/rhodeisland-philatelic/rhodeisland/stampless66.htm|archive-date=2021-02-04|access-date=2020-04-22|website=thesaltysailor.com}}
DeWolf received formal education in a French school and was fluent in several languages.{{Cite book|author=Perry, Calbraith B. (Calbraith Bourn)|title=Charles DWolf of Guadaloupe, His Ancestors and Descendants: Being a Complete Genealogy of the "Rhode Island DWolfs," the Descendants of Simon De Wolf, with Their Common Descent from Balthasar de Wolf, of Lyme, Conn. (1668)|date=1902}} At the age of 17, he moved from Guadeloupe to the United States, having been hired as a deckhand on a slave-trading vessel owned by Simeon Potter. In 1744, shortly after arriving in the U.S., he married Potter's sister, Abigail. Soon after, he joined Potter on board the privateer Prince Charles of Lorraine to participate in King George's War in the West Indies.
DeWolf settled in Bristol, Rhode Island, but following an attack on the town by British and Hessian forces in 1778, during which his house was burned, he relocated his family to a farm in Swansea, Massachusetts. He did not return to Bristol until shortly before his death on September 17, 1793.
The DeWolf family
{{Main|DeWolf family}}
DeWolf was the 4th generation of Balthazar DeWolf of Lyme, Connecticut.
DeWolf married Abigail Potter of Bristol, Rhode Island, on 26 August 1744. Among his eight sons and seven daughters,{{Cn|date=May 2023}} Senator James DeWolf was the twelfth child. James DeWolf made most of his fortune in the slave trade. In total, the DeWolf family is believed to have transported more than 11,000 slaves to the United States before the African slave trade was banned in 1808.{{cite web|url=http://res.providencejournal.com/hercules/extra/2006/slavery/day6/|title=Living Off the Trade: Bristol and the DeWolfs|author=Paul Davis|date=2006-03-17|work=Providence Journal|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141214024651/http://res.providencejournal.com/hercules/extra/2006/slavery/day6/|archive-date=2014-12-14}} General George DeWolf, the builder of Linden Place, was Mark Anthony DeWolf's grandson through his son Major Charles DeWolf.
Notes
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