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Cuffe, Paul
5 articles on Cuffe, Paul
Cuffe, Paul
Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass
Word Count: 1502 Includes: Bibliography(b. 17 January 1759; d. 7 September 1817),
wealthy black sea captain and Pan-Africanist. Paul Cuffe was born as Paul Slocum on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts, the seventh child of the freed African slave Kofi and the Wampanoag Indian woman Ruth Moses. A member of the West African Ashanti tribe, Kofi had been a slave for fifteen years before the wealthy and influential Quaker John Slocum freed him. In the 1740s, spurred by the preaching of the Quaker prophet John Woolman, the Society of Friends began to question the institution of slavery. Many Quakers throughout the Eastern Seaboard started freeing their slaves and organizing in opposition to the institution. Paul Cuffe's African heritage and his experiences with Friends would decisively shape his life. In 1746the freed Kofi took the1766For ...
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Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 10711759–1817
Philanthropist, merchant, and sea captain who advocated the mass emigration of African Americans to Africa and is considered by some to be the father of Black Nationalism in the United States. At his death on September 9, 1817, Paul Cuffe had a rich life upon which to reflect. He and his wife Alice had seven children. His several family-run businesses had earned assets worth an estimated $20,000, making him the wealthiest man in Westport, Massachusetts, and the wealthiest black man in the United States. News of his death reached the other side of the Atlantic, illustrating how far his fame and influence had spread. Yet, his life of accomplishment had not eliminated the racial discrimination that was built into American society; ironically, following his funeral at the South Friends Meeting House, which his financial support had helped to build, Cuffe was buried in a remote cemetery corner, far away from the ...
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Source: African American National Biography
Word Count: 1306 Includes: Further Reading(17 Jan. 1759–7 Sept. 1817), Atlantic trader and early African colonizationist, was born on Cuttyhunk Island off southern Massachusetts, one of ten children of Kofi (later Cuffe) Slocum, a freed slave originally from West Africa's Gold Coast, and Ruth Moses Slocum, a Wampanoag Native American, both farmers. Kofi Slocum's Quaker master freed him in the mid-1740s and, although he was excluded by race from membership in the Society of Friends, Kofi and Ruth Slocum lived by Quaker principles—hard work, frugality, and honesty. This diligence paid off in the 1766 purchase of a 116-acre farm in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, on Buzzard's Bay. At his death in 1772 Kofi bequeathed the farm to his sons Paul and John.Taking his father's African name, Cuffe, and respecting his dual (Native American and African American) identity, the self-educated ...
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Source: Oxford Companion to Black British History
Word Count: 371( 1759 – 1817 ). Mixed‐race American sea captain who, as a champion of the abolition movement, journeyed to Britain in 1811 to meet sympathetic friends from the African Institution . Cuffee (also spelt Cuff, Cuffe, Cuffey) was born in Massachusetts to a manumitted slave, Cuffee Slocum, and a Native American, Ruth Moses. A committed Quaker, Cuffee was impassioned about the redemption of Africa: he aligned himself with the Colonization Society of America and the idea of a return to Africa of free African‐Americans. To this end, as a means of cutting off the slave trade at its source, Cuffee made two trips to Sierra Leone (see Sierra Leone settlers ). To discuss his views on abolition and ...
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Source: American National Biography Online
Word Count: 1314 Includes: Bibliographyentrepreneur and Pan-Africanist, was born Paul Slocum on Cuttyhunk Island near New Bedford, Massachusetts, the son of Coffe Slocum, a freedman from West Africa, and Ruth Moses, a Wampanoag Native American. Cuffe moved with his family from insular Cuttyhunk and Martha’s Vineyard to mainland Dartmouth, a bustling maritime community. After his father’s death, Cuffe shipped out on local vessels bound for the Caribbean. He was twice jailed, once in New York during the American Revolution, when the British blockade captured the vessel he was on, and later in Massachusetts, when Dartmouth selectmen ordered him and his older brother John confined for tax evasion. Unable to vote because of their color, they had unsuccessfully petitioned the Massachusetts legislature not to tax them. ...
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