Exploring Paul Cuffe:
The Man and His Legacy

A Public Symposium
Saturday, October 3, 2009
8:30 AM - 5 PM

New Bedford Whaling Museum
18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford, MA.

This Event is open to the public free of charge.

In commemoration of the 250th anniversary of thebirth of Paul Cuffe (1759-1817) we come together to explore Cuffe's legacy including:

• Paul Cuffe and relationships with the black and white community
• Cuffe's entrpreneurial and philanthropic ventures
• Sierra Leone - rise to be a people
• Contemporary relevance of Cuffe and his legacy

The Symposium program will be posted shortly. For more information about this event, please go to Westport Historical Society

Call for Papers

Exploring Paul Cuffe: The Man and His Legacy

In anticipation of a conference dedicated to the life and works of Paul Cuffe(e) (1759 – 1817) and to commemorate the 250th anniversary of his birth, a call for lecture proposals is being circulated. The theme of the conference, Exploring Paul Cuffe: The Man and His Legacy, will examine Paul Cuffe, African American/ Native American, abolitionist, and Westport, MA entrepreneur. The conference will be held in New Bedford, MA in October 2009. The hosts for this conference are the New Bedford Historical Society, the New Bedford Whaling National Park, the Old Dartmouth Historical Society, the Rotch-Jones-Duff Museum, and the Westport Historical Society. Read more...

Introduction

The life of Paul Cuffe is an extraordinary historical narrative. Born on January 17th, 1759, the second son of Kofi Slocum, and Ruth Moses, Paul rose from obscure, humble beginnings to achieve a social, political, and economic status almost unknown to "persons of color" in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Because his varied achievements are so unique, many historians have chosen to focus their attention on "slices" of his life, but in doing so, I suggest that they miss the essence of this remarkable person. A historicity of Paul Cuffe that excludes the sociohistorical context of his local environment and his devotion to Quakerism may, in fact, squander the opportunity to fully understand and appreciate how rare an individual he truly was. This is not to say that these scholastic and popular works are not valid or important, for they are. It is to say, however, that events do not occur in a vacuum or manifest themselves through some sort of historical spontaneous combustion, but are part of a more complex circle of understanding.

What compels me, as a community historian, is my conviction that the past is present in our everyday lives. It is a continuous flow of non-linear cause and and effect relationships through time and space, interconnected in ways that may obfuscate even the most ardent devotee, but nevertheless, exists. After all, aren’t we all products of our environments? Or do we simply exist in the present, with no past and an uncertain future? I believe in the former assertion; we do not exist in a vacuum of egocentricity but rather as part of the human continuum of history. We are little different than those who occupied the same space before us; their lives inextricably intertwined with ours. Such is the life of Paul Cuffe, a man who significantly impacted the sensibilities of the Atlantic world, and Westport, the place that he called home. A life not separate from ours but integrated within our community, our history, and our everyday lives.

• Archives
• Locations
• People

Full Disclosure

Before I begin this journey, I should provide some context of myself. I was fourteen when George Salvador, my 9th grade American History teacher at Westport High School, first introduced me to Paul Cuffe. It was 1968, a time of racial and social tension, ignited by Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement, Bobbie Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Revolution was in the air. It was a time to throw off the past and embrace a new world order. Instead, I sat through seemingly endless lectures about a black man from Westport, and I was bored. His life did not connect with mine, or so I thought at the time. If only we could learn about “real history.” After all, wasn’t this was an American History class, the domain of Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Lincoln…. Lexington, Concord and Gettysburg? Where were the Pilgrims? History was “out there,” in some other, more exotic, place. Eventually, we did moved on and I tucked Paul away for good, relegating him to the bookshelf and the recesses of my mind, a footnote to my education. Little did I understand at that time how this black man from Westport would re-appear in my life and how he would re-ignite my interest in community history.

About this Project

This project traces Paul Cuffe backwards through time. Beginning with the material record at the time of his death in 1817, I will attempt to place him within the familial, domestic and social context of Westport, Dartmouth and New Bedford, identifying those persons whom, and those activities that he regarded most highly. Neither a positivist or constructivist, this is a view of Paul Cuffe seen through his own lens. Only physical and documentary evidence will be used, and where clarification or interpretation is necessary, I hope to be true to him and those around him. Development of The Life of Paul Cuffe forum is an organic process, one that will be under constant construction. Think of it as a notebook of my thoughts, hopes and dead-ends of this extraordinary story. Just as Cuffe's life was in a state of flux and growth, so too is this Wiki. Through this work, and your collaboration, my hope is that his life will be more fully understood and that fourteen year old history students will understand what I did not. As Representative Barney Frank (Massachusetts 4th District) stated on the floor of the House of Representatives, January 17th, 2009, "Madam Speaker, Saturday, January 17, is the 250th birthday of Paul Cuffe. He is not well known, but he should be." I couldn't agree more.

Contributors are invited to email me at Albert_Lees@brown.edu for access to this site.

Traces of Paul Cuffe

• Chapter 1: His Final Months

Symposium Program