Today’s page looks at the life of a mariner, businessman and philanthropist who launched a pioneering effort to settle free Blacks in West Africa.
Paul Cuffe was born on Jan. 17, 1759. He was the youngest son of Kofi Slocum and Ruth Moses. His father was a former slave who had been captured at age 10. However, his owner, John Slocum, gave him his freedom because having slaves conflicted with his Quaker values. In 1746, Kofi Slocum married Moses, a member of the Wampanoag Nation, on Martha’s Vineyard. They raised 10 children, of which Cuffe was the seventh and youngest son. Slocum died when Cuffe was 14.
At the time of his father’s death, he had had little formal education. He refused to take the surname of his father’s owner, choosing instead to adopt his father’s original name, Cuffe. He urged his siblings to do the same.
Cuffe had an early interest in ships and devoted his time to learning as much about them as he could. At 16, he worked on a whaling ship and later a cargo ship, where he learned about navigation. During the American Revolution, he was captured by the British and imprisoned in New York for three months. When he was released, he resumed his interest in cargo ships.
With his brother David, he built a small ship to deliver goods to nearby Nantucket. When his brother was too afraid to chance the dangerous water, Cuffe went alone and was detained by pirates. Finally he made a successful run and his business was off and running, building ships and delivering cargo.
In 1780, at age 21, Cuffe refused to pay taxes, since Blacks did not have the right to vote. He petitioned the state of Massachusetts to either give Blacks and Native Americans the right to vote or stop taxing them. The petition was denied, but it served as an influence on Massachusetts Constitution, which, in 1783, granted voting rights to all citizens in the state.
At 25, Cuffe married Alice Pequit, who, like his mother, was of the Wampanoag Nation. They had seven children. His business was thriving. He owned a fleet of ships. His first flagship was called yhe Sun Fish, next came the Mary. Both were sold to pay for construction of the larger, 69-ton Ranger.
Cuffe became a rich man with a waterfront property in Westport, Mass. He donated a school and helped support it and also built a meetinghouse. He was a deeply spiritual man.
Vehemently opposed to slavery, he joined other free Blacks in support of abolitionist campaigns. By the turn of the 19th century, Cuffe was one of the richest men in Massachusetts and would soon embark on his most ambitious adventure yet.
Cuffe became interested in the British colony Sierra Leone, in West Africa, and wanted to see if it could be a fitting destination to emigrate Blacks from America. He began working on an active resettlement movement in which Blacks could establish businesses and work to stop the slave trade at its source. On New Year’s Day, 1811, Cuffe and nine seamen set sail from Philadelphia aboard the Traveler, headed for Sierra Leone.
During his three-month stay in the country, Cuffe met with government officials and local leaders, all the while observing what was going on around him and determining the possibilities for settlement. His idea to relocate Blacks to the colony did not go over well with officials who were afraid of competition from American merchants. To make matters worse, Cuffe’s goods were undersold and did not turn a profit because of tariff charges.
Cuffe joined Black merchants from the colony in writing a petition to the African Institution, recognizing that agriculture, merchants and the whaling industry would be the best industries to grow wealth within the colony. They formed the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone to help support local business and loosen the British grip on trade.
Cuffe was invited to visit London, Liverpool and Manchester, where he was graciously received as a guest of Parliament. He went there to work to gather support for Sierra Leone.
While in England, he received a license to trade with Sierra Leone. Cuffe’s planned return to the colony was delayed by the War of 1812, but he petitioned the American government for aid and recruited future settlers from Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
Meanwhile, the strained relations between the United States and Britain were taking a toll on his business dealings. To make matters worse, his ship, the Hero, was declared unseaworthy while in Chile and never returned, and the Alpha suffered severe profit losses. When the war ended in 1814, Cuffe concentrated on getting his finances back in order and returning to Sierra Leone.
On Dec. 10, 1815, Cuffe set sail from Westport with 38 settlers. They arrived on Feb. 3, 1816, and quickly faced trouble. The locals were not keen on more settlers and Cuffe’s cargo sold at a loss. The American Institution in England did not contribute to the mission and Cuffe had to take a hard loss.
Despite it all, Cuffe remained committed to Sierra Leone as a location for emigrating Blacks from America and to establishing free trade between America, Britain and Africa, but he knew he could not personally finance another expedition.
Congress rejected Cuffe’s petition to fund a return trip to Sierra Leone. At the same time, many Blacks began to show interest in relocating to Africa, seeing it as the best solution to growing racial tensions.
The American Colonization Society, founded 1816 and inspired by Cuffe’s trips to Sierra Leone, started planning its own back-to-Africa voyage and wanted his support and expertise. However, he saw many in the organization as racist, and their efforts as simply a way to get Black agitators out of the South so the plantation system would not be threatened.
Congress funded the ACS project with $100,000, arranging for 88 free Blacks and three ACS agents to head for West Africa on the ship nicknamed the Mayflower of Liberia. They started a colony on a small, malaria-infested island. The following year, the ACS purchased a large piece of land in what is present-day Liberia.
Cuffe never returned to Africa. In 1817, his health began to fail. This great Black visionary died on Sept. 7, 1817, at age 58.
“On the first of the present month of August, 1811, a vessel arrived at Liverpool, with a cargo from Sierra Leone, the owner, master, mate and whole crew of which are free Negroes. The master, who is also owner, is the son of an American slave and is said to be very well-skilled both in trade and navigation, as well as to be of a very pious and moral character.
It must have been a strange and animating spectacle to see this free and enlightened African entering, as an independent trader, with his Black crew into that port which was so lately the nidus of the slave trade.”
-Edinbugh Review, August, 1811.
Activities
- Look it up: Use the Internet or other reference source to learn more about the life of Paul Cuffe.
- Talk about it: Discuss Paul Cuffe’s plan for emigrating Blacks back to Africa. Do you think this was a good or bad idea? How do you think such a plan would work today?
- Write it down: Paul Cuffe was a navigator, an essential skill as a ship captain as there are no road maps or signs at sea. Math is crucial. Learn more about the skills required to be a sea captain. Use a map or globe and plot a trip by sea. How would you travel and how long do you think it would take? Write down your plan and discuss it with your classmates.
This Week in Black History
- Feb. 6, 1820: The Mayflower of Liberia sets sail from New York with 86 Blacks headed for Sierra Leone.
- Feb. 7, 1974: Grenada achieves independence from Great Britain.
- Feb. 8, 1894: Congress repeals the Enforcement Acts (1870-1871), which protected the right to vote for Blacks. With no government intervention, the Ku Klux Klan is now free to terrorize and murder Black citizens, politicians and their supporters who voted or held office.
- Feb. 10, 1964: The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Civil Rights Act by a vote of 290 to 130.