Paul Cuffe: Sailor, Whaler, Privateer, Prisoner of War, Fleet Owner…
It is easy to get Paul Cuffe and James Forten mixed up in my mind:
Both were Americans of African descent. Both were interned as prisoners of war by the British during the American Revolution. Both built prosperous businesses and retired as wealthy men. Both went to sea --
Cuffe to eventually own a shipyard and a substantial fleet, Forten to eventually own a sail-making shop where advanced designs were based on his own experience sailing wooden ships. Cuffe spent most of his life in Massachusetts, Forten in Philadelphia.
Perhaps the greatest difference is that Cuffe endorsed and funded efforts to colonize freed slaves on the African coast, while Forten resolutely opposed these colonial schemes. This may reflect the fact that Forten was a fourth generation American, two of those generations born free. At the beginning of African Founders, David Hackett identified Cuffe's father, named Kofi when he was born around 1717 among the Akan speaking peoples of what is now Ghana.
Akan children were often named for the day of the week when they were born --Kofi meaning Friday. Kofi was a slave in Asante society, and was sold at the age of ten to a Fante trader. The rising Asante kingdom considered the Fante, closer to the coast, to be inferior to themselves. An agent of the Royal Africa Company bought him, and sold him to a Yankee ship captain, who carried him to Newport, Rhode Island.
Kofi became the property of Ebenezer Slocum, who sold him to a nephew, John Slocum, who allowed Kofi to buy his liberty in 1745. Slocum was a Quaker, and while this may have given him some scruples about slavery, many Quakers in fact owned slaves. The newly freed man took the name Coffe Slocum, and married a Wampanoag Indian named Ruth Moses. After 20 years he had made money in whaling and trade and purchased some property. In 1767 he bought a 116 acre farm, paid for with 650 Spanish silver dollars.
His ten children took Cuffe as a family name, acquiring farms, running retail stores, and developing a shipyard in Westport. Akan customarily had two names which could be given in either order. Adopting Cuffe as a family name, signified that the family now had property and status, inheritable from one generation to the next. Born in 1759, Paul Cuffe signed up for a whaling voyage in 1773 at the age of 14, followed by a voyage to the West Indies, both as a "common man at the mast."
His third and subsequent voyages were on a privateer commissioned by the Continental Congress to raid British ships -- procuring essential supplies for the revolutionary armies and navy, while providing the crew with various shares in the profits from selling the cargoes. He was captured and imprisoned for three month on a British prison barge in New York. After being freed by a prisoner exchange, he delivered supplies to Nantucket through a British naval blockade in small ships at night -- sometimes being intercepted by bands of local pirates.
He married Alice Abel Pequit, a woman from the same tribe as his mother, in 1783. He began a shipping business, with the husband of an older sister as business partner. In 1789, Paul Cuffe opened his own shipyard, building whaling ships in partnership with other family members, and owning larger ships such as the 162-ton Hero and the 268-ton Alpha. He, his sons, other relations, sailed these ships on whaling voyages, and in trade to Eurpe and a good part of the Americas. He also owned a grist mill and a 200 acre farm.
When Cuffe's brig Traveller arrived in Britain with a cargo for sale, the London Times covered it as "perhaps the first vessel that ever reached Europe, entirely owned and navigated by negroes." In fact, Cuffe had a number of people who would be classified as "white" among his crews as well. But a ship with a crew who were all his complexion made quite a stir when they delivered a cargo to Maryland.
