SYMHC Classics: Paul Cuffe

Summary

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Stuff You Missed in History Class – SYMHC Classics: Paul Cuffe

Hosts: Tracy B. Wilson and Holly Fry
Episode Date: January 17, 2026

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Overview of the Episode

This episode spotlights the remarkable life and legacy of Paul Cuffe, a man of African and Wampanoag descent who rose from humble beginnings in colonial New England to become one of the wealthiest people of color in early America. The hosts explore Cuffe’s multifaceted roles as a sea captain, entrepreneur, philanthropist, Quaker, educator, and forerunner to the Pan-African movement, tracing his personal journey and the broader historical context in which he lived.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Paul Cuffe’s Family Background and Early Life

• Birth and Heritage ([01:13]–[02:28])
  • Born January 17, 1759, on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts, to Kofi Slocum (African, from present-day Ghana) and Ruth Moses (Wampanoag).
  • The name "Kofi" indicates Friday birth in the Akan (Chui dialect).
• Kofi Slocum’s Story ([02:55]–[03:32])
  • Enslaved as a child, freed about 25 years later via either manumission by a Quaker owner or by purchasing his own freedom.
  • Married Ruth Moses, reflecting common marriages between African men and Indigenous women due to demographic realities.
• Multiracial Identity ([04:24])
  • Paul and his siblings, considered Black by white society, acknowledged both African and Indigenous roots, sometimes using “musty” (multiracial, African/Indigenous term specific to coastal Massachusetts).
• Name Change and Early Hardship ([04:53]–[05:18])
  • Family changed surname from Slocum (slave owner’s name) to Cuffy/Cuffe.
  • Paul lost his father at 13, inherited a debt-laden farm, and had no formal education.

2. Maritime Career and Education

• Going to Sea ([05:18]–[06:18])
  • Joined maritime industry at 14, as whaling and seafaring were among the few industries more open to Black and Indigenous men.
  • Learned navigation, reading, writing, and arithmetic at sea.
• Indigenous Maritime Tradition & Exploitation ([06:18]–[07:11])
  • Wampanoag drift whaling expertise predated European presence; Indigenous knowledge was foundational but often exploited.
• Imprisonment and Blockade Running ([07:29])
  • Captured and imprisoned by the British during the Revolution; later ran supplies through blockades to support family ([07:29]).

3. Advocacy and Taxation Protest

• Taxation Without Representation ([09:33]–[10:55])
  • “They had to pay taxes, but they did not have the right to vote at all.” — Holly Fry ([09:59])
  • Paul and John Cuffy protested: “We apprehend ourselves to be aggrieved in that while we are not allowed the privilege of freemen... yet many of our color...have cheerfully entered the field of battle in the defense of the common cause.” — Petition excerpt ([10:55])
  • Their 1780 petition for tax relief ultimately failed, but credited with leading to Black male suffrage in Massachusetts by 1783 ([11:22]).

4. Entrepreneurship, Community Leadership, and Philanthropy

• Business Ventures ([12:08]–[12:56])
  • Built a successful shipping, trading, and whaling business, ultimately owning ships, a mill, and multiple properties.
  • Made a point of hiring Black and Indigenous captains and crews, even when it increased danger.
• Wealth and Community Support ([12:56])
  • Used wealth to assist others; founded schools and supported hospitals with his own funds:
    • “Cuffey built the school on his own property with his own money...any child who wanted to attend, regardless of their race.” — Tracy B. Wilson ([13:26])
• Quaker Involvement ([14:01]–[14:47])
  • Became a formal member of the Westport Quaker Meeting in 1808; oversaw construction of a new Meeting House; first Black attendee at New England Yearly Meeting.

5. Personal Character and Reputation

• Principles and Ethics ([15:10])
  • Revered for integrity: “He would sooner sacrifice his private interests than engage in any enterprise, however lawful or profitable, that might have a tendency either directly or indirectly, to injure his fellow men...He would not deal in ardent spirits nor in slaves...” — Rev. Peter Williams, Jr. ([15:10])

6. African Colonization Initiatives

• Vision for Pan-Africanism and Sierra Leone Resettlement ([17:21]–[23:33])
  • Engaged in the movement to resettle free people of African descent in Sierra Leone.
  • Traveled there in 1811 to assess colony needs and connected with both settlers and local Africans.
  • Founded the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone to promote mutual economic support.
• Obstacles and Opposition ([24:14]–[25:59])
  • Faced opposition from British merchants; apprentice imprisoned in Liverpool.
  • Goods seized under U.S. Embargo Act; petitioned President Madison for their release and became first African American to meet a sitting president ([25:37]).
• First Black-led Emigration Voyage ([27:12]–[28:03])
  • Sponsored and funded 38 emigrants to Sierra Leone in 1815; largely paid costs himself — “This is believed to be the first time that a group of African Americans emigrated...run by and for black people.” — Tracy B. Wilson ([28:03])

7. Rise of the American Colonization Society & Decline of Cuffe’s Project

• Contrasting Visions ([28:03]–[29:24])
  • American Colonization Society (ACS) formed in 1816; included members who were motivated by racism, sought to “rid our country of a useless and pernicious...portion of its population.” — Henry Clay ([28:48])
  • Levi Coffin criticized forced colonization: “To compel them to go as a condition of freedom was a movement to which we were conscientiously opposed...slave power had got the ascendancy in our society.” ([29:24])
• Loss of Black Support ([30:29]–[31:29])
  • By 1817, Black leaders and communities (notably in Philadelphia) opposed colonization as a form of banishment.
  • James Forten: “The plan of colonizing is not asked for by us. We renounce and disclaim any connection with it.” ([31:09])

8. Paul Cuffe’s Death and Legacy

• Final Days ([31:29])
  • Died September 7, 1817, after gathering family to say goodbye.
  • Buried at Westport Friends Meeting House.
  • Memorialized as “Patriot, navigator, educator, philanthropist, friend, a noble character.” ([31:29])
• Historical Impact ([32:19])
  • Regarded today as a prescient figure in the Pan-African movement — preceding figures like W.E.B. Du Bois and Henry Sylvester Williams by nearly a century.

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• “I sort of took a cursory look... and was like, oh yeah, he does seem pretty interesting. Months later...I became so fascinated that I took a field trip to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where there is an exhibit on him at the New Bedford Whaling Museum and the park next to the museum was named in his honor.”
  — Tracy B. Wilson ([01:13])

• “He would sooner sacrifice his private interests than engage in any enterprise, however lawful or profitable, that might have a tendency either directly or indirectly, to injure his fellow men.”
  — Rev. Peter Williams, Jr. ([15:10])

• “This is believed to be the first time that a group of African Americans emigrated from North America to Africa through a venture that was run by and for black people.”
  — Tracy B. Wilson ([28:03])

• “The plan of colonizing is not asked for by us. We renounce and disclaim any connection with it.”
  — James Forten ([31:09])

• “In memory of Captain Paul Cuffey. Patriot, navigator, educator, philanthropist, friend, a noble character.”
  — Inscription on Cuffe’s memorial ([31:29])

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Cuffe’s early life, family, and background: [01:13]–[05:18]
• Education at sea and Revolutionary War blockade running: [05:18]–[07:29]
• Taxation protest and push for Black suffrage: [09:33]–[11:22]
• Business success and philanthropy: [12:08]–[14:01]
• Quaker involvement and community leadership: [14:01]–[15:43]
• Sierra Leone and Pan-African vision: [17:21]–[24:43]
• Disputes with colonization societies and legacy: [28:03]–[32:19]

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Overall Tone and Takeaways

The hosts use thoughtful narration and scholarly storytelling to highlight Paul Cuffe’s agency, entrepreneurship, and commitment to justice amid a racially charged colonial and early American context. They admire his forward-thinking, Pan-African ideals, his principled stands against injustice, and his unsung influence on both local communities and global movements. The episode challenges listeners to recognize how much can be missed in mainstream histories—and to appreciate the broader legacies of figures like Paul Cuffe.

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Transcript

[Tracy B. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

Happy Saturday. Paul Cuffey was born January 17, 1759, or 267 years ago today on the day this episode is coming out. Our episode about him came out on February 12, 2020, and that is today's Saturday classic.

[Holly Fry]

Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Today's topic was suggested by a friend of mine who was raised Quaker and who grew up attending meetings at the same meeting house that today's subject helped rebuild in the 18 teens. That subject is Paul Cuffy. Sometimes you will see his name spelled with two E's at the end of Cuffy and sometimes with just one. I had never heard of Paul Cuffey before this conversation, and when my friend told me about him, I sort of took a cursory look at things. I was like, oh yeah, he does seem pretty interesting. Months later, after finally moving him up to the top of the list and getting into actual research, I became so fascinated that I took a field trip to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where there is an exhibit on him at the New Bedford Whaling Museum and the park next to the museum was named in his honor. It was not that I needed additional information. I was just so intrigued by the whole thing. I was like, I want to go see this exhibit. So we got in the car, we.

[Holly Fry]

Went, I love it. Paul Cuffey was born on January 17, 1759 on Cuttyhunk island, which is off the coast of Massachusetts in Buzzards Bay. This is on the far western end of the Elizabeth Islands, which are south of New Bedford, Massachusetts, on the mainland and northwest of the island of Martha's Vineyard.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Paul was the sixth child of 10 and the fourth son born to Kofi Slocum. He was an African man from what's now Ghana and Ruth Moses, who was Wampanoag. Kofi is a name used in the Chui dialect, which is spoken by the Akan people for boys born on a Friday. So. So if that was the name that was given to him before he was taken from Africa, he was most likely from one of the many, many subgroups that make up the Akhon people.

[Holly Fry]

Kofi Slocum was enslaved and transported to North America when He was about 10 years old, and in the 1720s, he was purchased by Ebenezer Slocum, a Quaker from Dartmouth, Massachusetts. It's not completely clear how Kofi was freed about 25 years later. Ebenezer sold Kofi to his nephew John in 1742, and according to some accounts, John freed Kofi about three years later as the Religious Society of Friends became more opposed to slavery. But in other versions of the story, Kofi was given permission to do additional work, and he used the money that he earned in that work to purchase his own freedom.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Regardless, on July 17th of 1746, which was a year or so after his manumission, Kofi Slocum married Ruth Moses. And it was relatively common in this part of New England for African men to marry indigenous women. Because of the demographics of slavery in New England, the enslaved and free African population usually included more men than women. Conversely, indigenous communities tended to have more adult women than men because indigenous men were more likely to be enslaved or imprisoned or forced into indentured servitude. This had been the case for decades by the time Kofi and Ruth married. For, for example, after King Philip's War in the late 1670s, the British enslaved roughly 1,000 indigenous men to Bermuda and other parts of the Caribbean while enslaving indigenous women and children and keeping them in New England.

[Holly Fry]

While the Slocum children had both African and Wampanoag ancestry, among the white community, they were usually considered to be black. For their own part, Paul and his siblings referred to themselves in a number of ways over their lifetimes, referencing both their African and their indigenous heritage. This included the term musty, which was a term used for people of multiracial ancestry in coastal Massachusetts. It was most often used to describe people who were both African and indigenous.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In 1761, Kofi Slocum bought a 116 acre farm in Dartmouth and the whole family moved there. Eleven years later, he died and left the farm to Paul and his brother John. It was also around this time that most of Kofi's children changed their last name from Slocum, which had been the last name of the people who had enslaved their father, to Cuffy, which is an Anglicization of his first name.

[Holly Fry]

Paul Cuffey was only about 13 when his father died. And even though he and his brother had inherited the farm, their father also had left some debts. So it was not really as though they suddenly had enough to support the whole family. The children also hadn't had access to any sort of formal education, either on Cuttyhunk island or. Or in Dartmouth. So Paul, with the hope of helping to support his family, decided to go to Sea in 1773, with his brother staying in Dartmouth to manage the farm.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Aside from jobs that mostly involved manual labor, there were not a lot of occupations open to people of color in New England at this point. But whaling and other seafaring work were something of an exception. These were exceptionally dangerous industries, which meant that ship owners, captains, and others were usually pretty eager to hire anybody who was willing to do the work at sea, away from society's expectations. Sometimes crews could be more tolerant. Plus, if members of the crew could not work together, they put everybody aboard at risk.

[Holly Fry]

To add to that, the Wampanoag people had their own maritime traditions that predated the arrival of European colonists in New England. This included drift whaling, which is butchering dead or dying whales that had washed up on shore, as well as fishing with harpoons. In the early 1700s, as English colonists were establishing a whaling industry in New England, Wampanoag and other indigenous people provided critical knowledge and labor, including teaching English colonists how to butcher and prepare whales.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Indigenous people's involvement in the early whaling industry in New England was often, at best, under coercion. This included things like being forced into indentured servitude on whaling ships in order to pay off debt debts. This could even extend to the indentured man's children, who were obligated to take on his indenture if he was killed at sea or if he incurred further debt.

[Holly Fry]

So the whaling industry was simultaneously exploitive, especially of indigenous and African labor, and also an incredibly lucrative industry in which it was possible for indigenous and African men to rise to a higher rank than they could in any other line of work. And that is what eventually happened to Paul Cuffey.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In his first voyages, he spent his free time at sea, teaching himself to read and write and do arithmetic, and he also studied navigation with the more experienced members of the crew. Shortly after the Revolutionary War started, a ship that Cuffee was on was captured by the British, and he was imprisoned in New York for three months. Once he got out of prison, he went back to the family farm for a while, but soon he built a small open boat of his own and then started using it to run supplies through the British blockade. He ran the blockade repeatedly between 1777 and 1783.

[Holly Fry]

Both sides in the Revolutionary War tried to recruit black soldiers and by that point, Cuffee was about the right age to join up, but he never took a side in the war, at least in terms of active fighting. What he did do was protest taxation and we're going to get into that after we first have a sponsor break.

[Evan Ratliff]

Hi Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link.

But there was no link.

There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one person billion dollar company which would have been like unimaginable without AI. And now will happen.

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people.

Oh, hey Evan, good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses.

Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

As we've talked about on the show before, one of the issues involved in the American Revolution was taxation, including taxes that British colonists in North America found to be egregious. And the idea that colonists were being taxed but they didn't have any representation in Parliament. And that second idea had another application to black people in Massachusetts. They had to pay taxes, but they did not have the right to vote at all.

[Holly Fry]

Paul and John Cuffy were of the opinion that under the Constitution of Massachusetts, taxation and the rights of citizenship were inextricably connected. If they couldn't vote, they were not being treated as citizens, so they also should not be taxed. Paul Cuffey stopped paying taxes in 1778, and by 1780 he owed more than £150 in back taxes.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

That year, John and Paul Cuffy filed a petition along with three other free black men. And it read in part quote, we being chiefly of the African extract, and by reason of long bondage and hard slavery, we have been Deprived of enjoying the profits of our labor or the advantage of inheriting estates from our parents as our neighbors, the white people do, we have been and are now taxed both in our polls and that small pittance of a state which, through much hard labor and industry, we have got together to sustain ourselves and families.

[Holly Fry]

The petition went on to say that without tax relief, these circumstances would reduce them to begging and cause them to be a burden on others before saying, quote, we apprehend ourselves to be aggrieved in that while we are not allowed the privilege of freemen of the state, having no vote or influence in the election of those that tax us, yet many of our color, as is well known, have cheerfully entered the field of battle in the defense of the common cause.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Their petition for tax relief was denied, and Paul Cuffey was briefly jailed. Walter Spooner, who was a member of a prominent family in Dartmouth, helped arrange the terms of Cuffey's release and a reduction in the amount of tax that he owed. So this petition was not immediately successful, at least in terms of getting some tax relief for them, but it is credited with black men getting the right to vote in Massachusetts under the same terms as white men in 1783.

[Holly Fry]

On February 25, 1783, Paul Cuffey married an indigenous woman named Alice Abel Pequit, or Pequot, who had been previously widowed. They went on to have several children together. Sources mention seven or eight, including two sons and four daughters who were still living when their father wrote his will.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Alice is normally described as being Wampanoag. Her late husband had been pequot also. In 1783, Paul Cuffey established a shipping business with his brother in law, Michael Wainer. Weener was Wampanoag and was married to Cuffey's Sister Mary. In 1789. As their business grew, Wayner bought some riverfront property and they established a shipyard there.

[Holly Fry]

At this point, Cuffey was wearing a lot of hats, including building ships, trading and whaling. He eventually started captaining his own vessels, and while his first voyages were beset by hazards like pirates and shipwrecks, he persevered until he started to turn a profit. He also bought a farm in Westport, Massachusetts, where he and his family lived, and over time, he bought other homes and farms elsewhere in New England.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Over the next decade or so, Paul Cuffey became one of the wealthiest people in Westport. He may have been the wealthiest person of color anywhere in the United States while he was living, and he consistently used his wealth to help other people, especially other people of color. The Captains and crews of his ships were always black and indigenous men. And that was actually something that made their work even more dangerous because they were trading with parts of the world where slavery was still being practiced, including the American South.

[Holly Fry]

In 1797, Cuffee proposed the establishment of an integrated school in Westport. When the town leadership couldn't come to a consensus about it, something that was probably influenced by racism. Cuffey built the school on his own property with his own money. And that school opened in 1799 with its students, including about 15 children who were part of Cuffey's immediate and extended family, as well as any other child who wanted to attend, regardless of their race. Cuffey also supported a smallpox hospital in Westport, and in 1800, he bought a grist mill.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In 1808, Cuffey formally joined the Religious Society of Friends by becoming a member of the Westport Monthly Meeting. His family had been connected to Quakers ever since he was a child. The Quakers had enslaved his father. Like, that's complicated, but, like, they had been part of the Quaker community in a lot of ways. This was the first time that he was documented as actually becoming a member of a meeting. To be clear, though, Quaker meetings had not been integrated when he was a child. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was the first to formally allow black members in 1796. A few years later, after joining the Meeting, Paul became part of the committee that planned and oversaw the construction of the new Meeting House. Eventually, he also became the first black person to attend the New England Yearly Meeting.

[Holly Fry]

Throughout all of this, Cuffey was still working as a sea captain, traveling all around the Atlantic. Along the way, he made extensive connections among the black, white, and indigenous communities of New England, as well as with British abolitionists. And in all of his work, he was focused on providing jobs, support, and opportunities for other people of color, along with overall philanthropy.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

He also had a reputation for being incredibly scrupulous in all of this. In the words of the Reverend Peter Williams, Jr. In a tribute to Cuffy that he wrote after his death, quote, he was so conscientious that he would sooner sacrifice his private interests than engage in any enterprise, however lawful or profitable, that might have a tendency either directly or indirectly, to injure his fellow men. For instance, he would not deal in ardent spirits nor in slaves, though he might have done either without violating the laws of his country and with great prospects of pecuniary gain.

[Holly Fry]

By 1806, Cuffy's property was valued at about $20,000, which made him the wealthiest person in Westport. By 1809, when he turned 50. He owned multiple sailing vessels, including a ship and two brigs, as well as multiple houses, farms, land and the mill. And he turned some of that wealth to an even more ambitious focus, making it possible for people of African descent to immigrate to Africa.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

We'll have more on that after another quick sponsor break.

[Evan Ratliff]

Hi Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.

Hey, just finish drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link.

But there was no link.

There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one person billion dollar company which would have been like unimaginable without AI. And now will happen.

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people.

Oh, hey Evan, good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses.

Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In the early 1800s, Paul Cuppy started thinking about the idea of making it possible for Africans and people of African descent in the United States to resettle in Africa, specifically in what was then the British colony of Sierra Leone.

[Holly Fry]

As a super quick recap, which means we gotta back up a little bit, there were free and enslaved black soldiers on both sides of the American Revolutionary War. People chose sides for a variety of reasons, but when it came to enslaved people, it often involved a promise of freedom in exchange for their military service.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

For the most part, though, this did not work out as planned. On the patriot side, many enslaved people were not given their promised freedom after the war ended. And on the loyalist side, people were free. But they were also regarded as traitors to the United States. They could not stay in the US and were forced to leave. Many of them wound up in Nova Scotia or in British territory in the Caribbean.

[Holly Fry]

At the end of the war, there were at least 14,000 black loyalists seeking refuge in British territory. And Britain did not really have a plan for this. Most black loyalists arrived with nothing. Those who hadn't been enslaved generally lost all their property due to confiscation laws. Widespread racism also meant that Britain's white society was not generally open to the idea of integration. Whether black Loyalists wanted to assimilate with British society is a whole other question. Much of this also applied to enslaved people in Britain who had been freed after Lord Mansfield's decision in Somerset versus Stuart in 1772.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

So in 1786 in Britain, a plan was proposed to resettle all these people in Africa under the idea that it would be removing a burden from the British public. This plan was approved by the British government and by the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor. That organization had initially been established to provide relief for people from the Indian subcontinent, but that work had been expanded to also include people of African descent.

[Holly Fry]

The first attempt to establish a colony in Sierra Leone failed for many reasons, including illnesses and deaths during transport, bad weather once they arrived in West Africa, a lack of preparation and supplies, and the fact that the British hadn't made any kind of treaty or other arrangement with the local people of Sierra Leone regarding this colony.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah, they really were kind of like, we want to remove all of you from our society. We're dropping you off in Africa. Like, that was nearly the extent of it was not planned. Well, even so, though, in 1791, the Sierra Leone Company was established to try again. This time around, abolitionists did travel to Sierra Leone to try to establish good relationships with the local people and then also to mediate between the locals and the colony. But the British government was really viewing this as a chance to make money, basically to start a plantation that used free Africans and people of African ancestry as labor, with the Sierra Leone Company in charge of it.

[Holly Fry]

More than 1,000 free people were transported to Sierra Leone the following year, and Britain had to offer a lot of incentives to convince most people to go. Overall, the people that were being resettled had never been to Africa before, and many had justifiable concerns about the possibility of being captured and sold back into slavery in Africa.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

At the same time, there were for sure some people who either genuinely wanted to go to Africa or who thought that it was their best option. This included some people who had been born somewhere in Africa and wanted the chance to go back home. It also included people who thought that racism and white supremacy were so entrenched where they were that they might have a better chance at a good life somewhere else in the US One of.

[Holly Fry]

The people of color interested in this idea was Paul Cuffey. In 1810, he discussed it with the Westport friends meeting, saying that he had been thinking about it for a few years at that point. In 1811, at the encouragement of British abolitionists, he visited the colony of Sierra Leone for himself to see what conditions were like and to make recommendations for how to improve it.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

By the time Cuffey got to Sierra Leone, the Sierra Leone Company had been dissolved. To sum it up, there had been problems. They were removed of that responsibility. The colony was under British control. It had a population of about 3,000 people. There were nearly a thousand black loyalists who were usually referred to as Nova Scotians. There were more than 800 Jamaican Maroons and about 1,000 people who had been taken from captured slave ships. There were also about 100 local Africans living in the colony.

[Holly Fry]

Although all of these people were African or of African ancestry, otherwise many of them didn't have much in common. Black loyalists and Jamaican Maroons had both arrived from the Americas, but they had vastly different backgrounds and experiences. People who had been on captured slave ships represented a diversity of African nations and languages. So on top of ongoing issues with things like organization, supplies, weather, and relationships with the local people, there was also a big cultural and language barrier issue among the people being resettled at the colony.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Some of the descriptions of Cuffey's work in Sierra Leone really focus on its missionary angle, and the idea of spreading Christianity in Africa was a factor in all this. But a much bigger part of it was Cuffey's very consistent focus on trying to elevate and provide opportunities for other people of color. The transatlantic slave trade had devastated the existing social structures and economies of hundreds of African nations and peoples. And Cuffee thought that through things like agriculture, whaling, lumber and other industries, the nations and peoples of Africa could try to undo that damage and that all of them collectively could become a global economic power. And he thought that a colony made up of people of African ancestry could be an important part of that economic system, bringing in labor and resources to help everyone involved lift each other up.

[Holly Fry]

He spent his time in Sierra Leone talking to people who were actually affected by immigrating, both the colonists themselves and the local people. He also did practical work, like surveying sites for a sawmill and figuring out how the colony could harvest their own salt, rather than buying it from white merchants. And he also founded the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, which was a mutual aid society headquartered in Freetown, to assist, quote, the black settlers of Sierra Leone and the natives of Africa generally in the cultivation of their soil by the sale of their produce. He also worked extensively to build connections among all the different Colonists and the leadership of the local African nations.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Although Cuffee had the support of British abolitionists in all this work, British merchants, who effectively had a monopoly on trade with Sierra Leone, saw it as the threatening. They started spreading false and negative propaganda about him, and when he arrived in Liverpool from Sierra Leone In August of 1811, his apprentice, Aaron Rogers, was arrested and imprisoned, something that this same group of merchants had conspired to have done.

[Holly Fry]

As a side note, before Britain abolished its participation in the slave trade, Liverpool had been a major slave port. The arrival of Cuffee's ship, which, with its captain and crew entirely made up of free men of African descent, caused enough comment and curiosity that it was covered in the newspapers.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

With the help of prominent British Quakers, Cuffey eventually got his apprentice released from prison and he returned to the United States. However, back in 1807, President Thomas Jefferson had signed the Embargo act into law. This came out of the Napoleonic wars when both Britain and France had each implemented punitive trade restrictions and were both harassing American ships at sea. When Cuffee arrived back in the United States on April 19th of 1812, carrying a cargo of goods from Sierra Leone, he was found to be in violation of that act and his ship and goods were seized.

[Holly Fry]

Cuffey's response was to petition President James Madison for its release. On May 2, 1812, he met with both Madison and the Secretary of the treasury, making him probably the first African American to meet with a sitting President. His goods were ultimately released, and he also discussed his ideas for African colonization with the President while he was there.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Cuffey's plan at this point was to start arranging a round trip voyage between New England and Sierra Leone. About once a year. It would carry Africans and their descendants to Sierra Leone and it would return with African goods to trade with North America and Europe. But The War of 1812 started not long after that meeting with the President and interrupted that plan. Apart from the inherently more dangerous sea travel during the war, there was no way he could make this three pronged trade route work if two of the prongs were at war with each other. He tried to get exceptions to the various embargoes that were in place and carry on with this project, but that was denied.

[Holly Fry]

So for a time, he turned his attention more toward advocating for colonization from within the United States. In 1812, he visited major cities in the U.S. including Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City, to establish branches of the African institution. This was what had replaced the Society for the Abolition of Slave Trade in Britain after slavery had been abolished there, he Was really focused on getting a movement for colonization started, led by Africans and people of African descent for themselves, to allow people who wanted to immigrate to do so.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

At first, his efforts looked pretty promising. Prominent black leaders in the cities that he visited supported his plan and became involved with the African institution. Then, on December 10, 1815, he departed for Sierra Leone aboard his brig called the Traveler. On board The Traveler were 38 people, including two families that were headed by people who had been enslaved and taken to the United States from what's now Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

[Holly Fry]

Cuffee was supposed to have some funding from the African institution in London for this, but that didn't pan out, and only 8 of the people aboard the Traveler were able to pay their own way. So Cuffey paid for the rest himself at a cost of about $5,000. This is believed to be the first time that a group of African Americans emigrated from North America to Africa through a venture that was run by and for black people.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In spite of this promising start, though, Cuffee's efforts to fell apart pretty quickly. The American Colonization Society was established in the United States in 1816. On its surface, this organization had some of the same goals as what Cuffee was doing. But while Cuffee was focused on giving people choices and on empowering both the colonists and the local people of Sierra Leone, A lot of the people who were involved with the American Colonization Society were not. Some of the organization's leaders were of a mindset similar to Cuffy's, but others included people like Henry Clay, who thought that the colonization movement would, quote, rid our country of a useless and pernicious, if not dangerous, portion of its population.

[Holly Fry]

There had always been supporters of this colonization idea who were motivated by racism. Even among staunch abolitionists, There were people who thought that free black people could never be part of white society, and so removing them to Africa was the best for everyone concerned. But as the colonization movement grew, it also drew the attention of slave owners who found the free black population to be a threat to the institution of slavery. Some in the colonization movement, including both abolitionists and slave owners, Started to advocate for the idea of freeing people only if they agreed to emigrate.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Quaker abolitionist Levi Coffin summed the situation up this way, Quote, many of us were opposed to making colonization a condition of freedom, Believing it to be an odious plan of expatriation concocted by slaveholders to open a drain by which they might get rid of free negroes and thus remain in more secure position of their slave property. They considered Free Negroes, a dangerous element among slaves. We had no objection to free Negroes going to Africa of their own free will, but to compel them to go as a condition of freedom was a movement to which we were conscientious, opposed and against which we strongly contended. When the vote was taken, the motion was carried by a small majority. We feel that the slave power had got the ascendancy in our society and we could no longer work with it.

[Holly Fry]

Cuffee really tried to distance his project from the colonization movement's racist elements and motivations. But in spite of those efforts, by 1817, he had lost a lot of his support in the black community in the United States.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In January of 1817, attendees at a meeting of the African Institute in Philadelphia were nearly unanimous in their opposition to the idea of colonization. They issued a resolution that read in part, quote, whereas our ancestors, not by choice, were the first successful cultivators of the wilds of America, we, their descendants feel ourselves entitled to participate in the blessings of her luxuriant soil which their blood and sweat manured, and that any measure or system of measures having tendency to banish us from her bosom would not only be cruel, but in direct violation of those principles which have been the boast of this republic.

[Holly Fry]

Philadelphia businessman James Forten, who had supported Cuffee's work earlier on and had been part of the African institution there, also withdrew his support. He co authored a statement in August of 1817 which said, quote, the plan of colonizing is not asked for by us. We renounce and disclaim any connection with it.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

By this point, Cuffey had become seriously ill and he knew that he was dying. He gathered his family on August 17th of 1817 to say goodbye and he died on September 7th of that year. His funeral was held the following day at Westport Friends Meeting House, and he was buried in its burial ground. Today there's a monument to Paul Cuffey at the Westport Meeting House which reads, quote, in memory of Captain Paul Cuffey. Patriot, navigator, educator, philanthropist, friend, a noble character.

[Holly Fry]

Although the idea of colonization had fallen out of favor with most of the black community when Cuffee died, the American Colonization Society continued on and Liberia was established as a colony for Black Americans in 1847. Some of the people who had gone to Sierra Leone aboard the Traveler eventually moved there.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Today, Paul Cuffey is often described as a forerunner in the Pan African movement. This movement is rooted in the idea that everyone of African descent has some common interests and is united by their African ancestry, regardless of whether they're living in Africa or elsewhere. It's not an idea that can really be credited to one individual specific person, but it's often traced back to people like Henry Sylvester Williams, who established the Pan African association at the end of the 19th century, and W.E.B. du Bois and his contemporaries, who organized the first Pan African Congress in 1900. So he was kind of presaging their ideas by almost a century. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is historypodcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

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