WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Paul Cuffe 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:03.400 Happy Saturday. 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:08.640 Paul Cuffey was born January seventeenth, seventeen fifty nine, or 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:11.280 two hundred and sixty seven years ago today, on the 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.560 day this episode is coming out. Our episode about him 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.279 came out on February twelfth, twenty twenty, and that is 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:25.279 today's Saturday Classic Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:35.600 History Class a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and Welcome to 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.919 the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.120 Today's topic was suggested by a friend of mine who 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.640 was raised Quaker and who grew up attending meetings at 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:49.839 the same meetinghouse that today's subject helped rebuild in the 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.760 eighteen teens. A subject is Paul Cuffey. Sometimes you will 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:55.960 see his name spelled with two e's at the end 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.880 of Cuffee, and sometimes with just one. I had never 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.600 heard of Paul Cuffey before this conversation, and when my 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:04.479 friends told me about him, I sort of took a 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:06.400 cursory look at things. I was like, Oh, yeah, he 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:11.280 does seem pretty interesting. Months later, after finally moving him 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.039 up to the top of the list and getting into 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:18.119 actual research, I became so fascinated that I took a 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:22.040 field trip to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where there is an 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:24.880 exhibit on him at the New Bedford Whaling Museum and 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.240 the park next to the museum was named in his honor. 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:30.720 It was not that I needed additional information. I was 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:32.520 just so intrigued by the whole thing. I was like, 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:34.440 I want to go see this exhibit. So we got 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:35.320 in the car we went. 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.240 I love it. Paul Coffey was born on January seventeenth, 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.240 seventeen fifty nine, on Cuddy Hunk Island, which is off 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.520 the coast of Massachusetts in Buzzard's Bay. This is on 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:47.960 the far western end of the Elizabeth Islands, which are 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.360 south of New Bedford, Massachusetts, on the mainland and northwest 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:52.840 of the island of Martha's Vineyard. 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.600 Paul was the sixth child of ten and the fourth 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.800 son born to Kofe Slocum. He was an African man 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:05.040 what's now Ghana and Ruth Moses, who was Wampanog. Koffe 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.520 is a name used in the Tweed dialect, which is 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:11.280 spoken by the Akan people for boys born on a Friday, 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:13.480 So if that was the name that was given to 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.040 him before he was taken from Africa. He was most 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.720 likely from one of the many many subgroups that make 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:20.079 up the Akan people. 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:24.200 Kofe Slocum was enslaved and transported to North America when 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.919 he was about ten years old, and in the seventeen 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:31.320 twenties he was purchased by Ebenezer Slocum, a Quaker from Dartmouth, Massachusetts. 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.240 It's not completely clear how Kofe was freed about twenty 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:39.040 five years later. Ebenezer sold Kofe to his nephew John 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.640 in seventeen forty two, and according to some accounts, John 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.160 freed Kofe about three years later as the religious Society 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.359 of Friends became more opposed to slavery. But in other 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.080 versions of the story, Kofe was given permission to do 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:54.800 additional work, and he used the money that he earned 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.840 in that work to purchase his own freedom, regardless. 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.680 On July seventeenth of seventeen forty six, which was a 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:05.320 year or so after his manumission, Kofe Slocum married Ruth Moses, 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.799 and it was relatively common in this part of New 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.760 England for African men to marry indigenous women because of 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:14.920 the demographics of slavery in New England, the enslaved and 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:20.919 free African population usually included more men than women. Conversely, 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.960 Indigenous communities tended to have more adult women than men 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:28.800 because Indigenous men were more likely to be enslaved or 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:33.040 imprisoned or forced into indentured servitude. This had been the 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.800 case for decades by the time Kofe and Ruth married. 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.720 For example, after King Philip's War in the late sixteen seventies, 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:44.320 the British enslaved roughly one thousand Indigenous men to Bermuda 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.720 and other parts of the Caribbean, while enslaving Indigenous women 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:49.760 and children and keeping them in New England. 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.920 While the Slocum children had both African and Wampanogu ancestry, 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.440 among the white community, they were usually considered to be Black. 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.520 For their own part, Paul and his siblings referred to 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:03.640 themselves in a number of ways over their lifetimes, referencing 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.880 both their African and their Indigenous heritage. This included the 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:10.320 term musty, which was a term used for people of 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.640 multi racial ancestry in coastal Massachusetts. It was most often 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.200 used to describe people who were both African and Indigenous. 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:22.040 In seventeen sixty one, Kofe Slocum bought one hundred and 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:25.679 sixteen acre farm in Dartmouth and the whole family moved there. 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:28.839 Eleven years later, he died and left the farm to 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.560 Paul and his brother John. It was also around this 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.760 time that most of Kofe's children changed their last name 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:37.920 from Slocum, which had been the last name of the 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:41.120 people who had enslaved their father, to Cuffee, which is 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.599 an anglicization of his first name. Paul Cuffey was only 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.280 about thirteen when his father died, and even though he 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:50.440 and his brother had inherited the farm, their father also 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:52.840 had left some debts, so it was not really as 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.200 though they suddenly had enough to support the whole family. 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.600 The children also hadn't had access to any sort of 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:03.599 formal education on Cuttyhunk Island or in Dartmouth, so Paul, 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.680 with the hope of helping to support his family, decided 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.520 to go to Sea in seventeen seventy three, with his 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.040 brother staying in Dartmouth to manage the farm. 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.640 Aside from jobs that mostly involved manual labor, there were 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.279 not a lot of occupations open to people of color 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.440 in New England at this point, but whaling and other 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.840 seafaring work were something of an exception. These were exceptionally 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:30.040 dangerous industries, which meant that shipowners, captains, and others were 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:32.920 usually pretty eager to hire anybody who was willing to 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:37.560 do the work at sea away from society's expectations. Sometimes 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.320 crews could be more tolerant. Plus, if members of the 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.640 crew could not work together, they put everybody aboard at risk. 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.520 To add to that, the Wampanog people had their own 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:50.680 maritime traditions that predated the arrival of European colonists in 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.719 New England. This included drift whaling, which is butchering dead 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.560 or dying whales that had washed up on shore, as 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.520 well as fishing with harpoons. In the early seventeen hundreds, 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:05.000 as English colonists were establishing a whaling industry in New England, 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:09.320 Wampanog and other indigenous people provided critical knowledge and labor, 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.560 including teaching English colonists how to butcher and prepare whales. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.640 Indigenous people's involvement in the early whaling industry in New 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.800 England was often at best under coercion. This included things 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.560 like being forced into indentured servitude on whaling ships in 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.839 order to pay off debts. This could even extend to 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:32.000 the indentured man's children, who were obligated to take on 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.840 his indenture if he was killed at sea or if 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:39.880 he incurred further debt. So the whaling industry was simultaneously exploitive, 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.880 especially of indigenous and African labor, and also an incredibly 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.920 lucrative industry in which it was possible for Indigenous and 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:49.640 African men to rise to a higher rank than they 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.280 could in any other line of work. And that is 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.320 what eventually happened to Paul Cuffey. 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.200 In his first voyages, he spent his free time at 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.000 sea teaching himself to read and write and do a rhythmic, 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.040 and he also studied navigation with the more experienced members 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.640 of the crew. Shortly after the Revolutionary War started, a 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.440 ship that Cuffe was on was captured by the British 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.040 and he was imprisoned in New York for three months. 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:15.640 Once he got out of prison, he went back to 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.400 the family farm for a while, but soon he built 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.040 a small open boat of his own and then started 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.560 using it to run supplies through the British blockade. He 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.640 ran the blockade repeatedly between seventeen seventy seven and seventeen 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:33.120 eighty three, both sides in the Revolutionary War tried to 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.760 recruit black soldiers, and by that point Cuffe was about 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.400 the right age to join up. But he never took 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:41.320 a side in the war, at least in terms of 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:45.320 active fighting. What he did do was protest taxation, and 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:47.320 we're going to get into that after we first have 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:59.840 a sponsor break. As we've talked about on the show before, 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.800 one of the issues involved in the American Revolution was taxation, 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.600 including taxes that British colonists in North America found to 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.440 be egregious, and the idea that colonists were being taxed 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.680 but they didn't have any representation in parliament. And that 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:19.720 second idea had another application to free black people in Massachusetts. 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.440 They had to pay taxes, but they did not have 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:23.720 the right to vote at all. 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.760 Paul and John Cuffey were of the opinion that under 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.680 the Constitution of Massachusetts, taxation and the rights of citizenship 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.720 were inextricably connected. If they couldn't vote, they were not 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.800 being treated as citizens, so they also should not be taxed. 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:42.319 Paul Cuffey stopped paying taxes in seventeen seventy eight. By 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.040 seventeen eighty he owed more than one hundred and fifty 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.760 pounds in back taxes. That year, John and Paul Cuffee 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.080 filed a petition along with three other free black men, 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.040 and it read, in part quote, we being chiefly of 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.520 the African extract, and by reason of long bondage and 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.360 hard slavery, we have been deprived of enjoying the profits 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.520 of our labor, or the advantage of inheriting estates from 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.360 our parents. As our neighbors, the white people do. We 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.520 have been and are now taxed, both in our polls 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.240 and that small pittance of a state which, through much 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.360 hard labor and industry, we have got together to sustain 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.560 ourselves and families with all. The petition went on to 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.520 say that without tax relief, these circumstances would reduce them 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.200 to begging and cause them to be a burden on others, 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.440 before saying quote, we apprehend ourselves to be aggrieved in 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:34.000 that while we are not allowed the privilege of freemen 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:36.800 of the state, having no vote or influence in the 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:40.280 election of those that tax us, Yet many of our color, 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.480 as is well known, have cheerfully entered the field of 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.840 battle in the defense of the common cause. 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.880 Their petition for tax relief was denied and Paul Cuffey 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.240 was briefly jailed. Walter Spooner, who was a member of 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.400 a prominent family in Dartmouth, helped arrange the terms of 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.520 Cuffey's release and a reduction in the amount of tax 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.160 that he owed. So this petition was not immediately successful, 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.640 at least in terms of getting some tax relief for them, 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.360 but it is credited with the black men getting the 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.920 right to vote in Massachusetts under the same terms as 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.320 white men in seventeen eighty three. On February twenty fifth, 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.760 seventeen eighty three, Paul Cuffey married an Indigenous woman named 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:22.680 Alice Abel Peaquit or Peaquot, who had been previously widowed. 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.440 They went on to have several children together. Sources mentioned 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:29.920 seven or eight, including two sons and four daughters who 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.319 were still living when their father wrote his will. Alice 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:38.120 is normally described as being Wampinogg. Her late husband had 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.800 been Peaquot. Also in seventeen eighty three, Paul Cuffey established 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.480 a shipping business with his brother in law, Michael Wayner. 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.400 Wayner was Wampinogg and was married to Cuffee's sister Mary 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.440 in seventeen eighty nine. As their business grew, Wayner bought 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:57.040 some riverfront property and they established a shipyard there. At 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.760 this point, Cuffey was wearing a lot of hats, including 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:04.520 bill building, ships, trading, and whaling. He eventually started captaining 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.320 his own vessels, and while his first voyages were beset 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.320 by hazards like pirates and shipwrecks, he persevered until he 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.280 started to turn a profit. He also bought a farm 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.560 in Westport, Massachusetts, where he and his family lived, and 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.200 over time he bought other homes and farms elsewhere in 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.360 New England. Over the next decade or so, Paul Cuffey 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.480 became one of the wealthiest people in Westport. He may 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:29.120 have been the wealthiest person of color anywhere in the 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.600 United States while he was living, and he consistently used 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.080 his wealth to help other people, especially other people of color. 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.560 The captains and crews of his ships were always black 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.000 and indigenous men, and that was actually something that made 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.920 their work even more dangerous because they were trading with 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.559 parts of the world where slavery was still being practiced, 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:53.000 including the American South In seventeen ninety seven, Cuffey proposed 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:55.920 the establishment of an integrated school in Westport. 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.360 When the town leadership couldn't come to a consensus about 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.680 it that was probably influenced by racism. Cuffey built the 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:06.400 school on his own property with his own money, and 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.960 that school opened in seventeen ninety nine, with its students 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.040 including about fifteen children who were part of Cuffee's immedia 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.360 and extended family, as well as any other child who 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:20.760 wanted to attend, regardless of their race. Cuffey also supported 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.360 a smallpox hospital in Westport, and in eighteen hundred he 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:25.439 bought a gristmill. 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.160 In eighteen oh eight, Cuffey formally joined the religious Society 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.319 of Friends by becoming a member of the Westport Monthly Meeting. 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.280 His family had been connected to Quakers ever since he 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.480 was a child. The Quakers had enslaved his father like 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.240 that's complicated, but like they had been part of the 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.640 Quaker community in a lot of ways. This was the 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:46.960 first time that he was documented as actually becoming a 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.240 member of a meeting. To be clear, though Quaker meetings 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.960 had not been integrated when he was a child, The 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.480 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was the first to formally allow black 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.720 members in seventeen ninety six. A few years later, after 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.120 joining the meeting, Paul became part of the committee that 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:07.440 planned and oversaw the construction of the new meeting house. Eventually, 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.720 he also became the first black person to attend the 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.240 New England Yearly Meeting. Throughout all of this, Cuffey was 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.880 still working as a sea captain, traveling all around the Atlantic. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.920 Along the way, he made extensive connections among the black, white, 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.800 and indigenous communities of New England, as well as with 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.200 British abolitionists, and in all of his work he was 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:31.600 focused on providing jobs, support and opportunities for other people 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.199 of color, along with overall philanthropy. He also had a 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.680 reputation for being incredibly scrupulous in all of this. In 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.360 the words of the Reverend Peter Williams Junior, in a 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.319 tribute to Cuffey that he wrote after his death, quote, 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.520 he was so conscientious that he would sooner sacrifice his 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:52.040 private interests than engage in any enterprise, however lawful or profitable, 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.760 that might have a tendency, either directly or indirectly, to 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.079 injure his fellow men. For instance, he would not deal 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.360 in ardent spirit nor enslaves, though he might have done 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.240 either without violating the laws of his country and with 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:09.720 great prospects of pecuniary gain. By eighteen oh six, Cuffey's 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.960 property was valued at about twenty thousand dollars, which made 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.480 him the wealthiest person in Westport. By eighteen oh nine, 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.680 when he turned fifty, he owned multiple sailing vessels, including 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.520 a ship and two brigs, as well as multiple houses, farms, land, 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.280 and the mill, and he turned some of that wealth 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.200 to an even more ambitious focus, making it possible for 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.920 people of African descent to immigrate to Africa. We'll have 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:45.640 more on that. After another quick sponsor break in the 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:49.120 early eighteen hundreds, Paul Cuffe started thinking about the idea 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.560 of making it possible for Africans and people of African 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:57.480 descent and the United States to resettle in Africa, specifically 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.920 in what was then the British colony of Sierra. 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.160 As a super quick recap, which means we got to 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.000 back up a little bit, there were free and enslaved 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.440 black soldiers on both sides of the American Revolutionary War. 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.040 People chose sides for a variety of reasons, but When 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:16.040 it came to enslaved people, it often involved a promise 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.920 of freedom in exchange for their military service. 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:21.480 For the most part, though this did not work out 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:25.320 as planned. On the patriots side, many enslaved people were 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.600 not given their promised freedom after the war ended, and 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.040 on the loyalist side, people were free, but they were 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.400 also regarded as traders to the United States. They could 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:37.480 not stay in the US and were forced to leave. 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.600 Many of them wound up in Nova Scotia or in 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.480 British Territory in the Caribbean. At the end of the war, 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.800 there were at least fourteen thousand black loyalists seeking refuge 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.080 in British Territory, and Britain did not really have a 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:54.600 plan for this. Most black loyalists arrived with nothing. Those 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.680 who hadn't been enslaved generally lost all their property due 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:02.400 to confiscation laws. Spread racism also meant that Britain's white 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:06.200 society was not generally open to the idea of integration. 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:10.680 Whether black loyalists wanted to assimily with British society is 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.080 a whole other question. Much of this also applied to 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.880 enslaved people in Britain who had been freed after Lord 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:21.120 Mansfield's decision in Somerset versus Stuart in seventeen seventy two. 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.600 So in seventeen eighty six in Britain, a plan was 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.880 proposed to resettle all these people in Africa, under the 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.840 idea that it would be removing a burden from the 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.920 British public. This plan was approved by the British government 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.320 and by the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor. 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:42.120 That organization had initially been established to provide relief for 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.320 people from the Indian subcontinent, but that work had been 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.000 expanded to also include people of African descent. 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.440 The first attempt to establish a colony in Sierra Leone 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:55.880 failed for many reasons, including illnesses and deaths during transport, 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.120 bad weather once they arrived in West Africa, a lack 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.200 of preparation intos applies, and the fact that the British 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.119 hadn't made any kind of treaty or other arrangement with 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.680 the local people of Sierra Leone regarding this colony. Yeah, 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:10.480 they really were kind of like, we want to remove 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.720 all of you from our society. We're dropping you off 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:18.720 in Africa. Like that was nearly the extent of it. 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:20.360 Was not planned well. 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.520 Even so, though in seventeen ninety one the Sierra Leone 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:28.080 Company was established to try again. This time around, abolitionists 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.359 did travel to Sierra Leone to try to establish good 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:35.040 relationships with the local people and then also to mediate 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.320 between the locals and the colony. But the British government 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:40.679 was really viewing this as a chance to make money, 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.359 basically to start a plantation that used free Africans and 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:48.399 people of African ancestry as labor, with the Sierra Leone 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.320 Company in charge of it. More than one thousand free 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.919 people were transported to Sierra Leone the following year, and 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.640 Britain had to offer a lot of incentives to convince 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.040 most people to go. Over All, the people that were 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.200 being resettled had never been to Africa before, and many 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:08.479 had justifiable concerns about the possibility of being captured and 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.679 sold back into slavery in Africa. At the same time, 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.119 there were for sure, some people who either genuinely wanted 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.240 to go to Africa or who thought that it was 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.040 their best option. This included some people who had been 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.000 born somewhere in Africa and wanted the chance to go 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.400 back home. It also included people who thought that racism 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.919 and white supremacy were so entrenched where they were that 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.080 they might have a better chance at a good life 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:34.960 somewhere else in the US. 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.679 One of the people of color interested in this idea 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.359 was Paul Cuffey. In eighteen ten, he discussed it with 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.320 the Westport Friends Meeting, saying that he had been thinking 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.080 about it for a few years at that point. In 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.719 eighteen eleven, at the encouragement of British abolitionists, he visited 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:53.639 the colony of Sierra Leone for himself to see what 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.719 conditions were like and to make recommendations for how to 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:57.240 improve it. 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:00.280 By the time Cuffey got to Sierra Leone, the Sierra 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.440 Leonned Company had been dissolved to sum it up there 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:07.119 had been problems. They were removed of that responsibility. The 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.840 colony was under British control. It had a population of 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:15.480 about three thousand people. There were nearly a thousand black loyalists, 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.359 who were usually referred to as Nova Scotians. There were 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.919 more than eight hundred Jamaican Maroons and about one thousand 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.480 people who had been taken from captured slave ships, and 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.520 there were also about one hundred local Africans living in 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:29.120 the colony. 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:33.200 Although all of these people were African or of African ancestry, 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:37.080 otherwise many of them didn't have much in common. Black 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.480 Loyalists and Jamaican Maroons had both arrived from the Americas, 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:44.399 but they had vastly different backgrounds and experiences. People who 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.919 had been on captured slave ships represented a diversity of 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:51.920 African nations and languages, so on top of ongoing issues 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:56.240 with things like organizations, supplies, weather, and relationships with the 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.760 local people, there was also a big cultural and language 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.880 bear issue among the people being resettled at the colony. 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.360 Some of the descriptions of Cuffey's work in Sierra Leone 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.639 really focus on its missionary angle, and the idea of 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:13.240 spreading Christianity in Africa was a factor in all this, 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:16.400 but a much bigger part of it was Cuffey's very 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:20.439 consistent focus on trying to elevate and provide opportunities for 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:25.040 other people of color. The Transatlantic slave trade had devastated 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.200 the existing social structures and economies of hundreds of African 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:35.040 nations and peoples, and Cuffey thought that through things like agriculture, whaling, lumber, 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.800 and other industries, the nations and peoples of Africa could 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.680 try to undo that damage, and that all of them 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:46.320 collectively could become a global economic power. And he thought 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.359 that a colony made up of people of African ancestry 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.800 could be an important part of that economic system, bringing 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:56.440 in labor and resources to help everyone involved lift each 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.359 other up. He spent his time in Sierra Leone talking 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.840 to people who were actually affected by immigrating, both the 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:06.760 colonists themselves and the local people. He also did practical 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:09.840 work like surveying sites for a sawmill and figuring out 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.520 how the colony could harvest their own salt rather than 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.679 buying it from white merchants. And he also founded the 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.920 Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, which was a mutual aid 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:23.320 society headquartered in Freetown to assist quote the black settlers 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.520 of Sierra Leone and the natives of Africa generally in 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.840 the cultivation of their soil by the sale of their produce. 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:33.800 He also worked extensively to build connections among all the 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.200 different colonists and the leadership of the local African nations. 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:40.879 Although Cuffy had the support of British abolitionists in all 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:45.240 this work, British merchants who effectively had a monopoly on 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:49.040 trade with Sierra Leone. Saw it as threatening, they started 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:53.000 spreading false and negative propaganda about him, and when he 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:57.240 arrived in Liverpool from Sierra Leone in August of eighteen eleven, 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:02.520 his apprentice, Aaron Rodgers, was a rested and imprisoned, something 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:06.480 that this same group of merchants had conspired to have done. 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.960 As a side note, before Britain abolished its participation in 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:13.080 the slave trade, Liverpool had been a major slave poort. 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:16.119 The arrival of Cuffee's ship, which with its captain and 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.720 crew entirely made up of freemen of African descent, caused 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.760 enough comment and curiosity that it was covered in the newspapers. 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:27.639 With the help of prominent British Quakers, Cuffey eventually got 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:30.800 his apprentice released from prison and he returned to the 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:35.359 United States. However, back in eighteen oh seven, President Thomas 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:39.440 Jefferson had signed the Embargo Act into law. This came 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.600 out of the Napoleonic Wars, when both Britain and France 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:46.840 had each implemented punitive trade restrictions and were both harassing 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:50.520 American ships at sea. When Cuffee arrived back in the 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:53.800 United States On April nineteenth of eighteen twelve, carrying a 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:57.359 cargo of goods from Sierra Leone. He was found to 0:22:57.400 --> 0:22:59.840