Paul Cuffee (1759-1817) was a successful businessman, philanthropist, and abolitionist who dedicated his life to fighting for the rights of African Americans. Born to an African father and a Native American mother in Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts, Cuffee grew up in a time when people of color faced significant discrimination and were often treated as second-class citizens. Despite this, Cuffee was able to rise above the limitations placed upon him and become a successful businessman and leader in his community.
Cuffee was the son of Kofi Slocum, an African prince who was captured and sold into slavery, and Ruth Moses, a Wampanoag Indian. Cuffee's parents were able to purchase their freedom and set up a successful farm in Cuttyhunk, where Cuffee grew up working alongside his parents. As a young man, Cuffee learned the trade of shipbuilding and became a successful maritime entrepreneur, owning and operating his own fleet of ships that engaged in the coastwise trade of New England.
In addition to his successful business ventures, Cuffee was deeply committed to social justice and the abolition of slavery. He was an active member of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and worked closely with other abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison, to bring an end to the institution of slavery. Cuffee also believed in the importance of education and worked to establish schools for African American children in the New Bedford area.
Cuffee's efforts to promote the rights and well-being of African Americans extended beyond the borders of the United States. In 1815, he organized and funded a successful expedition to Sierra Leone, a British colony on the west coast of Africa, with the goal of establishing a community of free African Americans. Cuffee believed that establishing a settlement in Africa would provide a place where African Americans could live freely and without fear of persecution. The expedition was a success, and Cuffee's efforts helped lay the foundation for the establishment of the Republic of Liberia in 1847.
Throughout his life, Paul Cuffee worked tirelessly to improve the lives of African Americans and promote social justice. He was a pioneer in the abolitionist movement and a leader in the fight for civil rights. His legacy lives on today as an inspiration to those who continue to work for a more just and equal society.
Paul Cuffe Biography
There were thirty-eight passengers, eighteen heads of family, and twenty children, common laborers who wished to till the soil. At that time Kofi was working as a paid laborer for Holder Slocum, who had a large farm in Dartmouth and also owned the westernmost Elizabeth Islands, off the south coast of Massachusetts. Early Recollections of Newport, Rhode Island from the year 1793 to 1811, Boston: A. James Wise was active early in the process, for the missionary John Huddleston was writing in February of 1822 of Wise being a leader of the Young Turk faction determined to oust the missionaries from control. With the profits from his whaling business, Paul led an effort to establish a school for blacks in Westport, eventually building one from his own funds and offering it to the community. They then sold the Mary and Sunfish to finance construction of the Ranger — a 69-ton schooner launched in 1796 again from Cuffe's shipyard in Westport. The Negro in Colonial New England, Studies in American Negro Life, New York: Atheneum, 1942 , p.
All ten siblings grew to adulthood and lived successful lives, but Paul was the star of the family. They settled on Cuttyhunk, where Paul Cuffe was born in 1759. In 1780 Cuffe and his brother John petitioned the selectmen to exempt them from paying taxes until they were given the same voting rights as white citizens. Paul Cuffe, The Black Yankee, 1759-1817. Many settlers had died from tropical illnesses and there had been continuing conflict between the English commercial and military leaders and the ostensibly free citizens.
Paul Cuffee, the black millionaire who helped resettle freed American slaves in Sierra Leone
Today at PCS we tell our students that if Paul Cuffee could achieve all that he did in his day, surely they can overcome the obstacles they face today. The whole of his crew is black also. Over time, he rose to the rank of captain and eventually owned his own fleet. He transported 10 families of 38 persons on his ship the Traveler. A new society in Africa thus conceived would require raising a new foundation conducive to producing wholesome and practical fruit. Within six days, at record-breaking speed, Cuffee was in Washington knocking at the door of President Madison, who immediately arranged for the ship to be returned.
Thomas, Rise to be a People: A Biography of Paul Cuffee Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986 , 37. Cuffe's education consisted of basic reading and writing, plus enough mathematics to permit him to navigate a ship. Philadelphia: Henry Longstreth, 1847. His dream also Depiction of African American returning to Sierra Leone Four years after founding the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, on December 10, 1815 Paul together with other African Americans sailed to Sierra Leone on his ship to join the already small community that was there. One of his first tasks was to help obtain the release of a slave named Aaron Richards, with a petition on the matter to the Board of Admiralty established under the terms of the 1807 act abolishing the slave trade.
I foresee this to be the means of improving both your country and nation. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972. Paul Cuffe was born in colonial Massachusetts as a free Black person. He pledged to Congress that he would commit his own resources to promote the improvement and civilization of Africa and help avert from its people the curse which the slave trade had brought. Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints. Paul Cuffe Manuscript Collection.
Paul Cuffee – Bio, Personal Life, Family & Cause Of Death
Many as men became crew members and even captains on ships owned by their father and uncle. Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia. These merchants took measures to undermine his efforts. A new American organization called the American Colonization Society was being formed about the same time that Paul Cuffe returned from his third trip to Sierra Leone and its leaders sought his support and endorsement. This was property of only a little over 4 acres that he identified as his homestead and divided among his wife and children when he died in 1817. The following year Paul sold this property to his sister and brother-in-law, Mary and Michael Wainer, for the same price he had paid for it.
He joined the voyage at his own expense with hopes of making it eventually to his home in Senegal. In 1797, Captain Cuffee, lamenting that the place in which he lived, was destitute of a school for the instruction of youth; and anxious that his children should have a more favorable opportunity of obtaining education than he had had, proposed to his neighbours to unite with him in erecting a school-house. Captain Paul Cuffe's Logs and Letters. In 1780 he and his brother John petitioned the Massachusetts government either to give African and Native Americans the right to vote or to stop taxing them. Cuffee advised the society to look outside Freetown, probably wishing to avoid conflict with the authorities there.
Quakers themselves, they raised their children to be contributing citizens. Cuffee would not travel again to Africa. According to active role as an abolitionist was in 1780 when he refused to pay taxes out of anger that freed blacks were not eligible to vote in Massachusetts. Cuff Slocum bought his freedom in 1745. His influence soon found its way into Africa. Finley, a Presbyterian minister from New Jersey and later president of the University of Georgia, had been rallying public opinion for a settlement for free blacks in Africa. Impressed and eager to start settling African Americans there who could evangelize the Africans, establish business enterprises, and work to stop the slave trade at its source, Cuffe returned to the United States after conferring with his allies in England.
He was let down by The African Institution in England which had previously offered to support him but failed. Died: September 9, 1817 Infoplease knows the value of having sources you can trust. The British Abolitionists in particular saw Paul Cuffe, a prominent black entrepreneur and humanitarian, as a potential ally in their efforts to create a successful colony for the freed slaves from both America and England who had already been transported to the African territory of Sierra Leone. Our editors update and regularly refine this enormous body of information to bring you reliable information. His thoughts ran deep, and his motives were pure. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Washington: Howard University Press, 1996.
There he built a house and lived year-round with his family for the next 15 years. Cuffe's landholdings and those of Michael Wainer are described in the Cole, Gifford, Slade listed and linked in the references. Paul Cuffe: Black Entrepreneur and Pan-Africanist Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988 , pp 4-5. This was further exacerbated after abolition of slave trading by the British in 1807, when any slaves recaptured from illegal British slave-trading ships were brought to Sierra Leone for resettlement. Upon his return in 1812 from a voyage to Sierra Leone, unaware that his country was at war with Great Britain, he found his ship impounded by the U. What they needed in Sierra Leone, Cuffee pleaded, was a sawmill, a millwright, a plow, and a wagon on which to haul loads so that people would not have to carry loads on their heads. People of this zodiac sign like family, tradition, and dislike almost everything at some point.
