Capt. Paul Cuffe; Chester Harding

MOST AMERICANS have never heard of the 18th-century figure Paul Cuffe (1759-1817), who was the son of a slave from West Africa. Despite the neglect of his legacy, Cuffe was an important visionary.

“Cuffe was born free on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts (near New Bedford) sometime around 1759. The exact date of his birth is unknown. He was the youngest of ten children. His father, Kofi (also known as Cuffe Slocum), was from the Ashanti Empire in West Africa. Kofi was captured, enslaved and brought to New England at the age of 10. Paul’s mother, Ruth Moses, was Native American. Kofi, a skilled tradesman who was able to earn his freedom, died when Paul Cuffe was a teenager. The younger Cuffe refused to use the name Slocum, which his father had been given by his owner, and instead took his father’s first name.” (Source)

Cuffe became an abolitionist and advocated for voting rights for blacks in Massachusetts. These efforts ultimately disappointed him and this disappointment changed his thinking.

A successful businessman, he had surveyed the prospects open to blacks in the developing country and the chances of fitting in with the new nation. He wanted instead to gather his fellow Africans and take them home.

“Cuffe, first a whaling ship captain, eventually became a ship owner, operating a number of vessels which sailed between ports along the coast of Massachusetts.  By 1811 he was reputedly the wealthiest African American in the United States and the largest employer of free African Americans.  Despite his commercial success, Cuffe became increasingly disillusioned with the racial status of African Americans, and believed the creation of an independent African nation led by returnees from the United States offered the best prospects for free blacks and for African modernization.” (Source)

The idea that African-Americans instinctively seek a homeland that cannot be found on the North American continent is verboten in the American mainstream. Cuffe represented and promoted that idea.

Many prominent Americans over the years shared his conviction. They included Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster, Francis Scott Key, John Randolph, Henry Clay and, most of all, Abraham Lincoln, who was adamant up until his death that the only chance of happiness and success for blacks lay in their return to Africa.

In 1811, Cuffe, in a ship staffed by a black crew, sailed to Sierra Leone and made arrangements for settlements of blacks from America. In 1815, he returned to Africa with a shipload of former slaves. His death two years later ended his project but his dream was embodied in the formation that very year of the American Colonization Society, which would ultimately have success in helping more than 10,000 former slaves return to Africa.

Other blacks would take up the dream that had captured Cuffe’s imagination, most prominently Marcus Garvey, a hero to millions of descendants of slaves.

Every people has a “soul,” an indescribable cohesion of purpose and direction given them by their loving Creator. Those rooted to excess in the material are not able to recognize this soul anymore than they can recognize other transcendent dimensions of existence. Those who never see the struggles of a people to have a home have left dreamers like Cuffe and Garvey in strange neglect on the pages of history.

— Comments —

Tony S. writes:

“Every people has a “soul,” an indescribable cohesion of purpose and direction given them by their loving Creator. Those rooted to excess in the material are not able to recognize this soul anymore than they can recognize other transcendent dimensions of existence.”

These lines and the sentiment they express are inspired.

Truth, Goodness, and Beauty characterize the divine. Truth is always beautiful and always a reflection of the ultimate Good.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

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