Speaker 1: Happy Saturday.
Speaker 2: Paul Cuffey was born January seventeenth, seventeen fifty nine, or
Speaker 2: two hundred and sixty seven years ago today, on the
Speaker 2: day this episode is coming out. Our episode about him
Speaker 2: came out on February twelfth, twenty twenty, and that is
Speaker 2: today's Saturday Classic Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in
Speaker 2: History Class a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and Welcome to
Speaker 2: the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: Today's topic was suggested by a friend of mine who
Speaker 2: was raised Quaker and who grew up attending meetings at
Speaker 2: the same meetinghouse that today's subject helped rebuild in the
Speaker 2: eighteen teens. A subject is Paul Cuffey. Sometimes you will
Speaker 2: see his name spelled with two e's at the end
Speaker 2: of Cuffee, and sometimes with just one. I had never
Speaker 2: heard of Paul Cuffey before this conversation, and when my
Speaker 2: friends told me about him, I sort of took a
Speaker 2: cursory look at things. I was like, Oh, yeah, he
Speaker 2: does seem pretty interesting. Months later, after finally moving him
Speaker 2: up to the top of the list and getting into
Speaker 2: actual research, I became so fascinated that I took a
Speaker 2: field trip to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where there is an
Speaker 2: exhibit on him at the New Bedford Whaling Museum and
Speaker 2: the park next to the museum was named in his honor.
Speaker 2: It was not that I needed additional information. I was
Speaker 2: just so intrigued by the whole thing. I was like,
Speaker 2: I want to go see this exhibit. So we got
Speaker 2: in the car we went.
Speaker 1: I love it. Paul Coffey was born on January seventeenth,
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty nine, on Cuddy Hunk Island, which is off
Speaker 1: the coast of Massachusetts in Buzzard's Bay. This is on
Speaker 1: the far western end of the Elizabeth Islands, which are
Speaker 1: south of New Bedford, Massachusetts, on the mainland and northwest
Speaker 1: of the island of Martha's Vineyard.
Speaker 2: Paul was the sixth child of ten and the fourth
Speaker 2: son born to Kofe Slocum. He was an African man
Speaker 2: what's now Ghana and Ruth Moses, who was Wampanog. Koffe
Speaker 2: is a name used in the Tweed dialect, which is
Speaker 2: spoken by the Akan people for boys born on a Friday,
Speaker 2: So if that was the name that was given to
Speaker 2: him before he was taken from Africa. He was most
Speaker 2: likely from one of the many many subgroups that make
Speaker 2: up the Akan people.
Speaker 1: Kofe Slocum was enslaved and transported to North America when
Speaker 1: he was about ten years old, and in the seventeen
Speaker 1: twenties he was purchased by Ebenezer Slocum, a Quaker from Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: It's not completely clear how Kofe was freed about twenty
Speaker 1: five years later. Ebenezer sold Kofe to his nephew John
Speaker 1: in seventeen forty two, and according to some accounts, John
Speaker 1: freed Kofe about three years later as the religious Society
Speaker 1: of Friends became more opposed to slavery. But in other
Speaker 1: versions of the story, Kofe was given permission to do
Speaker 1: additional work, and he used the money that he earned
Speaker 1: in that work to purchase his own freedom, regardless.
Speaker 2: On July seventeenth of seventeen forty six, which was a
Speaker 2: year or so after his manumission, Kofe Slocum married Ruth Moses,
Speaker 2: and it was relatively common in this part of New
Speaker 2: England for African men to marry indigenous women because of
Speaker 2: the demographics of slavery in New England, the enslaved and
Speaker 2: free African population usually included more men than women. Conversely,
Speaker 2: Indigenous communities tended to have more adult women than men
Speaker 2: because Indigenous men were more likely to be enslaved or
Speaker 2: imprisoned or forced into indentured servitude. This had been the
Speaker 2: case for decades by the time Kofe and Ruth married.
Speaker 2: For example, after King Philip's War in the late sixteen seventies,
Speaker 2: the British enslaved roughly one thousand Indigenous men to Bermuda
Speaker 2: and other parts of the Caribbean, while enslaving Indigenous women
Speaker 2: and children and keeping them in New England.
Speaker 1: While the Slocum children had both African and Wampanogu ancestry,
Speaker 1: among the white community, they were usually considered to be Black.
Speaker 1: For their own part, Paul and his siblings referred to
Speaker 1: themselves in a number of ways over their lifetimes, referencing
Speaker 1: both their African and their Indigenous heritage. This included the
Speaker 1: term musty, which was a term used for people of
Speaker 1: multi racial ancestry in coastal Massachusetts. It was most often
Speaker 1: used to describe people who were both African and Indigenous.
Speaker 1: In seventeen sixty one, Kofe Slocum bought one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixteen acre farm in Dartmouth and the whole family moved there.
Speaker 1: Eleven years later, he died and left the farm to
Speaker 1: Paul and his brother John. It was also around this
Speaker 1: time that most of Kofe's children changed their last name
Speaker 1: from Slocum, which had been the last name of the
Speaker 1: people who had enslaved their father, to Cuffee, which is
Speaker 1: an anglicization of his first name. Paul Cuffey was only
Speaker 1: about thirteen when his father died, and even though he
Speaker 1: and his brother had inherited the farm, their father also
Speaker 1: had left some debts, so it was not really as
Speaker 1: though they suddenly had enough to support the whole family.
Speaker 1: The children also hadn't had access to any sort of
Speaker 1: formal education on Cuttyhunk Island or in Dartmouth, so Paul,
Speaker 1: with the hope of helping to support his family, decided
Speaker 1: to go to Sea in seventeen seventy three, with his
Speaker 1: brother staying in Dartmouth to manage the farm.
Speaker 2: Aside from jobs that mostly involved manual labor, there were
Speaker 2: not a lot of occupations open to people of color
Speaker 2: in New England at this point, but whaling and other
Speaker 2: seafaring work were something of an exception. These were exceptionally
Speaker 2: dangerous industries, which meant that shipowners, captains, and others were
Speaker 2: usually pretty eager to hire anybody who was willing to
Speaker 2: do the work at sea away from society's expectations. Sometimes
Speaker 2: crews could be more tolerant. Plus, if members of the
Speaker 2: crew could not work together, they put everybody aboard at risk.
Speaker 1: To add to that, the Wampanog people had their own
Speaker 1: maritime traditions that predated the arrival of European colonists in
Speaker 1: New England. This included drift whaling, which is butchering dead
Speaker 1: or dying whales that had washed up on shore, as
Speaker 1: well as fishing with harpoons. In the early seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: as English colonists were establishing a whaling industry in New England,
Speaker 1: Wampanog and other indigenous people provided critical knowledge and labor,
Speaker 1: including teaching English colonists how to butcher and prepare whales.
Speaker 1: Indigenous people's involvement in the early whaling industry in New
Speaker 1: England was often at best under coercion. This included things
Speaker 1: like being forced into indentured servitude on whaling ships in
Speaker 1: order to pay off debts. This could even extend to
Speaker 1: the indentured man's children, who were obligated to take on
Speaker 1: his indenture if he was killed at sea or if
Speaker 1: he incurred further debt. So the whaling industry was simultaneously exploitive,
Speaker 1: especially of indigenous and African labor, and also an incredibly
Speaker 1: lucrative industry in which it was possible for Indigenous and
Speaker 1: African men to rise to a higher rank than they
Speaker 1: could in any other line of work. And that is
Speaker 1: what eventually happened to Paul Cuffey.
Speaker 2: In his first voyages, he spent his free time at
Speaker 2: sea teaching himself to read and write and do a rhythmic,
Speaker 2: and he also studied navigation with the more experienced members
Speaker 2: of the crew. Shortly after the Revolutionary War started, a
Speaker 2: ship that Cuffe was on was captured by the British
Speaker 2: and he was imprisoned in New York for three months.
Speaker 2: Once he got out of prison, he went back to
Speaker 2: the family farm for a while, but soon he built
Speaker 2: a small open boat of his own and then started
Speaker 2: using it to run supplies through the British blockade. He
Speaker 2: ran the blockade repeatedly between seventeen seventy seven and seventeen
Speaker 2: eighty three, both sides in the Revolutionary War tried to
Speaker 2: recruit black soldiers, and by that point Cuffe was about
Speaker 2: the right age to join up. But he never took
Speaker 2: a side in the war, at least in terms of
Speaker 2: active fighting. What he did do was protest taxation, and
Speaker 2: we're going to get into that after we first have
Speaker 2: a sponsor break. As we've talked about on the show before,
Speaker 2: one of the issues involved in the American Revolution was taxation,
Speaker 2: including taxes that British colonists in North America found to
Speaker 2: be egregious, and the idea that colonists were being taxed
Speaker 2: but they didn't have any representation in parliament. And that
Speaker 2: second idea had another application to free black people in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: They had to pay taxes, but they did not have
Speaker 2: the right to vote at all.
Speaker 1: Paul and John Cuffey were of the opinion that under
Speaker 1: the Constitution of Massachusetts, taxation and the rights of citizenship
Speaker 1: were inextricably connected. If they couldn't vote, they were not
Speaker 1: being treated as citizens, so they also should not be taxed.
Speaker 1: Paul Cuffey stopped paying taxes in seventeen seventy eight. By
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty he owed more than one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: pounds in back taxes. That year, John and Paul Cuffee
Speaker 1: filed a petition along with three other free black men,
Speaker 1: and it read, in part quote, we being chiefly of
Speaker 1: the African extract, and by reason of long bondage and
Speaker 1: hard slavery, we have been deprived of enjoying the profits
Speaker 1: of our labor, or the advantage of inheriting estates from
Speaker 1: our parents. As our neighbors, the white people do. We
Speaker 1: have been and are now taxed, both in our polls
Speaker 1: and that small pittance of a state which, through much
Speaker 1: hard labor and industry, we have got together to sustain
Speaker 1: ourselves and families with all. The petition went on to
Speaker 1: say that without tax relief, these circumstances would reduce them
Speaker 1: to begging and cause them to be a burden on others,
Speaker 1: before saying quote, we apprehend ourselves to be aggrieved in
Speaker 1: that while we are not allowed the privilege of freemen
Speaker 1: of the state, having no vote or influence in the
Speaker 1: election of those that tax us, Yet many of our color,
Speaker 1: as is well known, have cheerfully entered the field of
Speaker 1: battle in the defense of the common cause.
Speaker 2: Their petition for tax relief was denied and Paul Cuffey
Speaker 2: was briefly jailed. Walter Spooner, who was a member of
Speaker 2: a prominent family in Dartmouth, helped arrange the terms of
Speaker 2: Cuffey's release and a reduction in the amount of tax
Speaker 2: that he owed. So this petition was not immediately successful,
Speaker 2: at least in terms of getting some tax relief for them,
Speaker 2: but it is credited with the black men getting the
Speaker 2: right to vote in Massachusetts under the same terms as
Speaker 2: white men in seventeen eighty three. On February twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: seventeen eighty three, Paul Cuffey married an Indigenous woman named
Speaker 2: Alice Abel Peaquit or Peaquot, who had been previously widowed.
Speaker 2: They went on to have several children together. Sources mentioned
Speaker 2: seven or eight, including two sons and four daughters who
Speaker 2: were still living when their father wrote his will. Alice
Speaker 2: is normally described as being Wampinogg. Her late husband had
Speaker 2: been Peaquot. Also in seventeen eighty three, Paul Cuffey established
Speaker 2: a shipping business with his brother in law, Michael Wayner.
Speaker 2: Wayner was Wampinogg and was married to Cuffee's sister Mary
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty nine. As their business grew, Wayner bought
Speaker 2: some riverfront property and they established a shipyard there. At
Speaker 2: this point, Cuffey was wearing a lot of hats, including
Speaker 2: bill building, ships, trading, and whaling. He eventually started captaining
Speaker 2: his own vessels, and while his first voyages were beset
Speaker 2: by hazards like pirates and shipwrecks, he persevered until he
Speaker 2: started to turn a profit. He also bought a farm
Speaker 2: in Westport, Massachusetts, where he and his family lived, and
Speaker 2: over time he bought other homes and farms elsewhere in
Speaker 2: New England. Over the next decade or so, Paul Cuffey
Speaker 2: became one of the wealthiest people in Westport. He may
Speaker 2: have been the wealthiest person of color anywhere in the
Speaker 2: United States while he was living, and he consistently used
Speaker 2: his wealth to help other people, especially other people of color.
Speaker 2: The captains and crews of his ships were always black
Speaker 2: and indigenous men, and that was actually something that made
Speaker 2: their work even more dangerous because they were trading with
Speaker 2: parts of the world where slavery was still being practiced,
Speaker 2: including the American South In seventeen ninety seven, Cuffey proposed
Speaker 2: the establishment of an integrated school in Westport.
Speaker 1: When the town leadership couldn't come to a consensus about
Speaker 1: it that was probably influenced by racism. Cuffey built the
Speaker 1: school on his own property with his own money, and
Speaker 1: that school opened in seventeen ninety nine, with its students
Speaker 1: including about fifteen children who were part of Cuffee's immedia
Speaker 1: and extended family, as well as any other child who
Speaker 1: wanted to attend, regardless of their race. Cuffey also supported
Speaker 1: a smallpox hospital in Westport, and in eighteen hundred he
Speaker 1: bought a gristmill.
Speaker 2: In eighteen oh eight, Cuffey formally joined the religious Society
Speaker 2: of Friends by becoming a member of the Westport Monthly Meeting.
Speaker 2: His family had been connected to Quakers ever since he
Speaker 2: was a child. The Quakers had enslaved his father like
Speaker 2: that's complicated, but like they had been part of the
Speaker 2: Quaker community in a lot of ways. This was the
Speaker 2: first time that he was documented as actually becoming a
Speaker 2: member of a meeting. To be clear, though Quaker meetings
Speaker 2: had not been integrated when he was a child, The
Speaker 2: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was the first to formally allow black
Speaker 2: members in seventeen ninety six. A few years later, after
Speaker 2: joining the meeting, Paul became part of the committee that
Speaker 2: planned and oversaw the construction of the new meeting house. Eventually,
Speaker 2: he also became the first black person to attend the
Speaker 2: New England Yearly Meeting. Throughout all of this, Cuffey was
Speaker 2: still working as a sea captain, traveling all around the Atlantic.
Speaker 2: Along the way, he made extensive connections among the black, white,
Speaker 2: and indigenous communities of New England, as well as with
Speaker 2: British abolitionists, and in all of his work he was
Speaker 2: focused on providing jobs, support and opportunities for other people
Speaker 2: of color, along with overall philanthropy. He also had a
Speaker 2: reputation for being incredibly scrupulous in all of this. In
Speaker 2: the words of the Reverend Peter Williams Junior, in a
Speaker 2: tribute to Cuffey that he wrote after his death, quote,
Speaker 2: he was so conscientious that he would sooner sacrifice his
Speaker 2: private interests than engage in any enterprise, however lawful or profitable,
Speaker 2: that might have a tendency, either directly or indirectly, to
Speaker 2: injure his fellow men. For instance, he would not deal
Speaker 2: in ardent spirit nor enslaves, though he might have done
Speaker 2: either without violating the laws of his country and with
Speaker 2: great prospects of pecuniary gain. By eighteen oh six, Cuffey's
Speaker 2: property was valued at about twenty thousand dollars, which made
Speaker 2: him the wealthiest person in Westport. By eighteen oh nine,
Speaker 2: when he turned fifty, he owned multiple sailing vessels, including
Speaker 2: a ship and two brigs, as well as multiple houses, farms, land,
Speaker 2: and the mill, and he turned some of that wealth
Speaker 2: to an even more ambitious focus, making it possible for
Speaker 2: people of African descent to immigrate to Africa. We'll have
Speaker 2: more on that. After another quick sponsor break in the
Speaker 2: early eighteen hundreds, Paul Cuffe started thinking about the idea
Speaker 2: of making it possible for Africans and people of African
Speaker 2: descent and the United States to resettle in Africa, specifically
Speaker 2: in what was then the British colony of Sierra.
Speaker 1: As a super quick recap, which means we got to
Speaker 1: back up a little bit, there were free and enslaved
Speaker 1: black soldiers on both sides of the American Revolutionary War.
Speaker 1: People chose sides for a variety of reasons, but When
Speaker 1: it came to enslaved people, it often involved a promise
Speaker 1: of freedom in exchange for their military service.
Speaker 2: For the most part, though this did not work out
Speaker 2: as planned. On the patriots side, many enslaved people were
Speaker 2: not given their promised freedom after the war ended, and
Speaker 2: on the loyalist side, people were free, but they were
Speaker 2: also regarded as traders to the United States. They could
Speaker 2: not stay in the US and were forced to leave.
Speaker 2: Many of them wound up in Nova Scotia or in
Speaker 2: British Territory in the Caribbean. At the end of the war,
Speaker 2: there were at least fourteen thousand black loyalists seeking refuge
Speaker 2: in British Territory, and Britain did not really have a
Speaker 2: plan for this. Most black loyalists arrived with nothing. Those
Speaker 2: who hadn't been enslaved generally lost all their property due
Speaker 2: to confiscation laws. Spread racism also meant that Britain's white
Speaker 2: society was not generally open to the idea of integration.
Speaker 2: Whether black loyalists wanted to assimily with British society is
Speaker 2: a whole other question. Much of this also applied to
Speaker 2: enslaved people in Britain who had been freed after Lord
Speaker 2: Mansfield's decision in Somerset versus Stuart in seventeen seventy two.
Speaker 2: So in seventeen eighty six in Britain, a plan was
Speaker 2: proposed to resettle all these people in Africa, under the
Speaker 2: idea that it would be removing a burden from the
Speaker 2: British public. This plan was approved by the British government
Speaker 2: and by the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor.
Speaker 2: That organization had initially been established to provide relief for
Speaker 2: people from the Indian subcontinent, but that work had been
Speaker 2: expanded to also include people of African descent.
Speaker 1: The first attempt to establish a colony in Sierra Leone
Speaker 1: failed for many reasons, including illnesses and deaths during transport,
Speaker 1: bad weather once they arrived in West Africa, a lack
Speaker 1: of preparation intos applies, and the fact that the British
Speaker 1: hadn't made any kind of treaty or other arrangement with
Speaker 1: the local people of Sierra Leone regarding this colony. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they really were kind of like, we want to remove
Speaker 1: all of you from our society. We're dropping you off
Speaker 1: in Africa. Like that was nearly the extent of it.
Speaker 1: Was not planned well.
Speaker 2: Even so, though in seventeen ninety one the Sierra Leone
Speaker 2: Company was established to try again. This time around, abolitionists
Speaker 2: did travel to Sierra Leone to try to establish good
Speaker 2: relationships with the local people and then also to mediate
Speaker 2: between the locals and the colony. But the British government
Speaker 2: was really viewing this as a chance to make money,
Speaker 2: basically to start a plantation that used free Africans and
Speaker 2: people of African ancestry as labor, with the Sierra Leone
Speaker 2: Company in charge of it. More than one thousand free
Speaker 2: people were transported to Sierra Leone the following year, and
Speaker 2: Britain had to offer a lot of incentives to convince
Speaker 2: most people to go. Over All, the people that were
Speaker 2: being resettled had never been to Africa before, and many
Speaker 2: had justifiable concerns about the possibility of being captured and
Speaker 2: sold back into slavery in Africa. At the same time,
Speaker 2: there were for sure, some people who either genuinely wanted
Speaker 2: to go to Africa or who thought that it was
Speaker 2: their best option. This included some people who had been
Speaker 2: born somewhere in Africa and wanted the chance to go
Speaker 2: back home. It also included people who thought that racism
Speaker 2: and white supremacy were so entrenched where they were that
Speaker 2: they might have a better chance at a good life
Speaker 2: somewhere else in the US.
Speaker 1: One of the people of color interested in this idea
Speaker 1: was Paul Cuffey. In eighteen ten, he discussed it with
Speaker 1: the Westport Friends Meeting, saying that he had been thinking
Speaker 1: about it for a few years at that point. In
Speaker 1: eighteen eleven, at the encouragement of British abolitionists, he visited
Speaker 1: the colony of Sierra Leone for himself to see what
Speaker 1: conditions were like and to make recommendations for how to
Speaker 1: improve it.
Speaker 2: By the time Cuffey got to Sierra Leone, the Sierra
Speaker 2: Leonned Company had been dissolved to sum it up there
Speaker 2: had been problems. They were removed of that responsibility. The
Speaker 2: colony was under British control. It had a population of
Speaker 2: about three thousand people. There were nearly a thousand black loyalists,
Speaker 2: who were usually referred to as Nova Scotians. There were
Speaker 2: more than eight hundred Jamaican Maroons and about one thousand
Speaker 2: people who had been taken from captured slave ships, and
Speaker 2: there were also about one hundred local Africans living in
Speaker 2: the colony.
Speaker 1: Although all of these people were African or of African ancestry,
Speaker 1: otherwise many of them didn't have much in common. Black
Speaker 1: Loyalists and Jamaican Maroons had both arrived from the Americas,
Speaker 1: but they had vastly different backgrounds and experiences. People who
Speaker 1: had been on captured slave ships represented a diversity of
Speaker 1: African nations and languages, so on top of ongoing issues
Speaker 1: with things like organizations, supplies, weather, and relationships with the
Speaker 1: local people, there was also a big cultural and language
Speaker 1: bear issue among the people being resettled at the colony.
Speaker 2: Some of the descriptions of Cuffey's work in Sierra Leone
Speaker 2: really focus on its missionary angle, and the idea of
Speaker 2: spreading Christianity in Africa was a factor in all this,
Speaker 2: but a much bigger part of it was Cuffey's very
Speaker 2: consistent focus on trying to elevate and provide opportunities for
Speaker 2: other people of color. The Transatlantic slave trade had devastated
Speaker 2: the existing social structures and economies of hundreds of African
Speaker 2: nations and peoples, and Cuffey thought that through things like agriculture, whaling, lumber,
Speaker 2: and other industries, the nations and peoples of Africa could
Speaker 2: try to undo that damage, and that all of them
Speaker 2: collectively could become a global economic power. And he thought
Speaker 2: that a colony made up of people of African ancestry
Speaker 2: could be an important part of that economic system, bringing
Speaker 2: in labor and resources to help everyone involved lift each
Speaker 2: other up. He spent his time in Sierra Leone talking
Speaker 2: to people who were actually affected by immigrating, both the
Speaker 2: colonists themselves and the local people. He also did practical
Speaker 2: work like surveying sites for a sawmill and figuring out
Speaker 2: how the colony could harvest their own salt rather than
Speaker 2: buying it from white merchants. And he also founded the
Speaker 2: Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, which was a mutual aid
Speaker 2: society headquartered in Freetown to assist quote the black settlers
Speaker 2: of Sierra Leone and the natives of Africa generally in
Speaker 2: the cultivation of their soil by the sale of their produce.
Speaker 2: He also worked extensively to build connections among all the
Speaker 2: different colonists and the leadership of the local African nations.
Speaker 2: Although Cuffy had the support of British abolitionists in all
Speaker 2: this work, British merchants who effectively had a monopoly on
Speaker 2: trade with Sierra Leone. Saw it as threatening, they started
Speaker 2: spreading false and negative propaganda about him, and when he
Speaker 2: arrived in Liverpool from Sierra Leone in August of eighteen eleven,
Speaker 2: his apprentice, Aaron Rodgers, was a rested and imprisoned, something
Speaker 2: that this same group of merchants had conspired to have done.
Speaker 1: As a side note, before Britain abolished its participation in
Speaker 1: the slave trade, Liverpool had been a major slave poort.
Speaker 1: The arrival of Cuffee's ship, which with its captain and
Speaker 1: crew entirely made up of freemen of African descent, caused
Speaker 1: enough comment and curiosity that it was covered in the newspapers.
Speaker 2: With the help of prominent British Quakers, Cuffey eventually got
Speaker 2: his apprentice released from prison and he returned to the
Speaker 2: United States. However, back in eighteen oh seven, President Thomas
Speaker 2: Jefferson had signed the Embargo Act into law. This came
Speaker 2: out of the Napoleonic Wars, when both Britain and France
Speaker 2: had each implemented punitive trade restrictions and were both harassing
Speaker 2: American ships at sea. When Cuffee arrived back in the
Speaker 2: United States On April nineteenth of eighteen twelve, carrying a
Speaker 2: cargo of goods from Sierra Leone. He was found to
Speaker 2: be in violation of that Act, and his ship and
Speaker 2: goods were seized.
Speaker 1: Cuffey's response was to petition President James Madison for its release.
Speaker 1: On May second, eighteen twelve, he met with both Madison
Speaker 1: and the Secretary of the Treasury, making him probably the
Speaker 1: first African American to meet with a sitting president. His
Speaker 1: goods were ultimately released, and he also discussed his ideas
Speaker 1: for African colonization with the President while he was there.
Speaker 1: Cuffy's plan at this point was to start arranging a
Speaker 1: round trip voyage between New England and Sierra Leone about
Speaker 1: once a year. It would carry Africans and their descendants
Speaker 1: to Sierra Leone, and it would return with African goods
Speaker 1: to trade with North America and Europe. But the War
Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve started not long after that meeting with
Speaker 1: the President and interrupted that plan. Apart from the inherently
Speaker 1: more dangerous sea travel during the war, there was no
Speaker 1: way he could make this three pronged trade route work
Speaker 1: if two of the prongs were at war with each other.
Speaker 1: He tried to get exceptions to the various embargoes that
Speaker 1: were in place and care with this project, but that
Speaker 1: was denied, so for a time he turned his attention
Speaker 1: more toward advocating for colonization from within the United States.
Speaker 1: In eighteen twelve, he visited major cities in the US,
Speaker 1: including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City to establish branches
Speaker 1: of the African Institution. This is what had replaced the
Speaker 1: Society for the Abolition of Slave Trade in Britain after
Speaker 1: slavery had been abolished there. He was really focused on
Speaker 1: getting a movement for colonization started led by Africans and
Speaker 1: people of African descent for themselves to allow people who
Speaker 1: wanted to emigrate to do so. At first, his efforts
Speaker 1: looked pretty promising. Prominent black leaders in the cities that
Speaker 1: he visited supported his plan and became involved with the
Speaker 1: African Institution. Then, on December tenth, eighteen fifteen, he departed
Speaker 1: for Sierra Leone aboard his brig called the Traveler. On
Speaker 1: board the Traveler were thirty eight people, including two families
Speaker 1: that were headed by people who had been enslaved and
Speaker 1: taken to the United States from what's now Senegal and
Speaker 1: the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Cuffey was supposed to
Speaker 1: have some funding from the African Institution in London for this,
Speaker 1: but that didn't pan out, and only eight of the
Speaker 1: people aboard the Traveler were able to pay their own way,
Speaker 1: so Cuffey paid for the rest himself at a cost
Speaker 1: of about five thousand dollars. This is believed to be
Speaker 1: the first time that a group of African Americans emigrated
Speaker 1: from North America to Africa through a venture that was
Speaker 1: run by and for black people.
Speaker 2: In spite of this promising start, though, Cuffey's efforts fell
Speaker 2: apart pretty quickly, the American Colonization Society was established in
Speaker 2: the United States in eighteen sixteen. On its surface, this
Speaker 2: organization had some of the same goals as what Cuffey
Speaker 2: was doing, But while Cuffey was focused on giving people
Speaker 2: choices and on empowering both the colonists and the local
Speaker 2: people of Sierra Leone, a lot of the people who
Speaker 2: were involved with the American Colonization Society were not. Some
Speaker 2: of the organization's leaders were of a mindset similar to Cuffe's,
Speaker 2: but others included people like Henry Clay, who thought that
Speaker 2: the colonization movement would quote rid our country of a
Speaker 2: useless and pernicious, if not dangerous, portion of its population.
Speaker 1: There had always been supporters of this colonization idea who
Speaker 1: were motivated by racism. Even among staunch abolitionists, there were
Speaker 1: people who thought that free black people could never be
Speaker 1: part of white society, and so removing them to Africa
Speaker 1: was the best for everyone concerned. But as the colonization
Speaker 1: movement grew, it also drew the attention of slave owners,
Speaker 1: who found the free black population to be a threat
Speaker 1: to the institution of slavery. Some in the colonization movement,
Speaker 1: including both abolitionists and slave owners, started to advocate for
Speaker 1: the idea of freeing people only if they agreed to emigrate.
Speaker 1: Quaker abolitionist Levi Coffin summed the situation up this way,
Speaker 1: quote Many of us were opposed to making colonization a
Speaker 1: condition of freedom, believing it to be an odious plan
Speaker 1: of expatriate concocted by slaveholders to open a drain by
Speaker 1: which they might get rid of free negroes and thus
Speaker 1: remain in more secure position of their slave property. They
Speaker 1: considered free negroes a dangerous element among slaves.
Speaker 2: We had no objection to free negroes going to Africa
Speaker 2: of their own free will, but to compel them to
Speaker 2: go as a condition of freedom was a movement to
Speaker 2: which we were conscientiously opposed and against which we strongly contended.
Speaker 2: When the vote was taken, the motion was carried by
Speaker 2: a small majority. We feel that the slave power had
Speaker 2: got the ascendancy in our society and we could no
Speaker 2: longer work with it.
Speaker 1: Cuffy really tried to distance his project from the colonization movements,
Speaker 1: racist elements and motivations, but in spite of those efforts,
Speaker 1: by eighteen seventeen he had lost a lot of his
Speaker 1: support in the black community in the United States. In
Speaker 1: January of eighteen seventeen, attendees at a meeting of the
Speaker 1: African Institute in Philadelphia were nearly unanimous and their opposition
Speaker 1: to the idea of colonization. They issued a resolution that read,
Speaker 1: in part quote, whereas our ancestors, not by choice, were
Speaker 1: the first successful cultivators of the wilds of America, we
Speaker 1: their descendants feel ourselves entitled to participate in the blessings
Speaker 1: of her luxuriance soil which their blood and sweat manured,
Speaker 1: and that any measure or system of measures having tendency
Speaker 1: to banish us from her bosom would not only be cruel,
Speaker 1: but in direct violation of those principles which have been
Speaker 1: the boast of this republic. Philadelphia businessman James Forton, who
Speaker 1: had supported Cuffey's work earlier on and had been part
Speaker 1: of the African Institution there, also withdrew his support. He
Speaker 1: co authored a statement in August of eighteen seventeen which said, quote,
Speaker 1: the plan of colonizing is not asked for by us,
Speaker 1: we renounce and disclaim any connection with it.
Speaker 2: By this point, Cuffey had become seriously ill, and he
Speaker 2: knew that he was dying. He gathered his family on
Speaker 2: August seven teenth of eighteen seventeen to say goodbye, and
Speaker 2: he died on September seventh of that year. His funeral
Speaker 2: was held the following day at Westport Friends Meeting House,
Speaker 2: and he was buried in its burial ground. Today there's
Speaker 2: a monument to Paul Cuffee at the Westport Meetinghouse which reads,
Speaker 2: quote in memory of Captain Paul Cuffey, Patriot, navigator, educator, philanthropist, friend,
Speaker 2: A noble character.
Speaker 1: Although the idea of colonization had fallen out of favor
Speaker 1: with most of the black community. When Cuffee died, the
Speaker 1: American Colonization Society continued on, and Liberia was established as
Speaker 1: a colony for Black Americans in eighteen forty seven. Some
Speaker 1: of the people who had gone to sier ear Leone
Speaker 1: aboard the Traveler eventually moved there.
Speaker 2: Today, Paul Cuffee is often described as a forerunner in
Speaker 2: the Pan African movement. This movement is rooted in the
Speaker 2: idea that everyone of African descent has some common interests
Speaker 2: and is united by their African ancestry, regardless of whether
Speaker 2: they're living in Africa or elsewhere. It's not an idea
Speaker 2: that can really be credited to one individual, specific person,
Speaker 2: but it's often traced back to people like Henry Sylvester Williams,
Speaker 2: who established the Pan African Association at the end of
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century, and Web du Bois and his contemporaries
Speaker 2: who organized the first Pan African Congress in nineteen hundred,
Speaker 2: So he was kind of presaging their ideas by almost
Speaker 2: a century. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to send us a note our email
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