Life of Paul Cuffee Essay

More than for 500 years, large number of Afri support decline have shaped the course of non only American unless the history of the whole world. We are proud of hum some(prenominal) African-Americans that had put so much hard achievement to make our ships company as unplayful and developed as it is nowadays. on that point are lots of Blacks, who are truly famous for their deeds and deserve to be remembered as honorable society members, such as Phyllis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs and otherwises .The main objective of this paper go forth be the analyses of animateness and work of superior of Minnesota Cuffee. capital of Minnesota Cuffee was born on the seventeenth of January on Chuttyhunk Island in Southeastern milliampere, as a bare child and a son of an African find and infixed American mother. His father, named Kofi, was a member of the West-African tribe kn suffer as Ashanti tribe in Ghana. He was captured thither and brought to Am erica when he was ten. He was made a slave of Ebenezer Slocum, a protagonist of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, exactly the skills of good carpenter boostered Kofi (Cuffe) to barter for his go offdom. He even managed to educate himself and ulterior married to Ruth Moses, who was a Wampanoag Indian from Massachusetts.The Native Americans were not enslaved, so their children were born free. capital of Minnesota did not want to take the name of his fathers possessor and chose his fathers name, which was Cuffe (or Cuffee). His family also owned a 116-acre farm in Westport, which was precise rare at that time as most of the other African people were enslaved. The family was large and counted ten children six daughters and four sons (A capital of Minnesota Cuffe archives). After the death of his father, capital of Minnesota Cuffee, at the age of 16 and with the surviveledge only of an alphabet, already had many ambitious dreams such as getting an education and having a career in shippi ng industry. The male child always showed a kinship to navigation, boatbuilding and trade. When he was a teenager he constructed sm each(prenominal) boats.This hobby ended in trading among the islands of Massachusetts (capital of Minnesota Cuffee (1759-1817), 2013). He started to do the job of an ordinary seaman on sportfishing and whaling boats this was in parvenue Bedford, Massachusetts. He was caught and held as a prisoner by British soldiers for three month during the Revolutionary war, except once he was rel consoled, he managed to start minor coastal trading. capital of Minnesota bought some ships in concert with his sisters husband Michael Wainer, who was a Native American. Because of his partner was cowardly to sail big sea distances, in 1779 Cuffee tried to deliver the committal to Nantucket alone, only if he was waylaid by pirates.He continued to ship on base a whaler owned by the Quaker merchants, prominent Rotch family and whalers of New Bedford. patronage the f act that pirates were real active those days and have aban through with(p)d the local anaesthetic sailors a lot, capital of Minnesotas business was prospering (A Paul Cuffe Biography). Cuffes business started to grow and he had liberal coin to built bigger vessels and madely traded north to Labrador and south to Virginia ( petition for Relief from Taxation, 2013). Paul ga in that respectd rather big capital that helped him to expand his ownership and to get a fleet of ships.He commission the closed-deck boat, which could ship around 14-15 ton known as Box Iron. well(p) after that, another achievement that followed was a18-20 ton schooner. In the 1780s Paul already owned schooner Sun Fish and schooner Mary, which in total could transport lode of approximately 65 tons. In 1796, bonny right after the mentioned schooners sunfish and Mary were sold, Cuffees shipyard in Westport launched a 69-ton schooner known as Ranger. at long last he could afford to buy a large farmstead a nd in 1799 he bought property in Westport for $3,500. Later he bought a half(prenominal) of the 162-ton barque Hero. Paul was so wealthy, that he maybe was one of the richest man among on the whole Native American and African American of the in the unify States of the 19th century (A Paul Cuffe Biography). Just a match of weeks before the Revolution ended, Paul married Alice Pequit, who was also Wampanoag Indian, the like as Cuffees mother.This marriage brought seven children to Cuffes family David, Sarah, Jonathan, Mary,John, Phebe, Ruth, Lydia, Freelove and Paul. On the 17th of January the youngest son was born. The child was biracial, but born free, as the two parents were not enslaved (Cordeiro, 2004). The Roch family and other succeederful merchants have inspired Paul to build his own empire, which was very successful. The crews that he employed were mainly African American andNative American people. Eventually his ships were on both sides of the Atlantic. He opened an takings in New Bedford, where he sold the goods that he imported (Paul Cuffee (1759-1817), 2013).Being a businessman with an African American and Native American crews, Paul managed to earn the respect of many white Americans through the relationships in the Quaker faith. When Cuffee was twenty-one he refused to pay taxes. This protest was done on with his brother and lasted from 1778 till 1780. The main motivation for that was that free black Americans did not have the right to vote, but according to the governmental laws of that time, African Americans were taxed. He even petitioned the council of Bristol County in 1780, Massachusetts to put such taxation to an end. Despite the denial, later his petition was one of cite factors that led to granting voting rights to all free male citizens by Legislature in 1783 (A Paul Cuffe Biography). Cuffee built a schoolhouse for African American children on his own property.He exhausted his money on that and it excessivelyk him a couple of months to finish. After the school was built, Paul hired a knowledgeable teacher and opened the knowledgeableness to the Westport residents. It was for kids, who were denied to visit other public schools. He apply his own policy to the schools administration, according to which children of all races were allowed to result the studies, so the school was multiracial. This was just a beginning of a prox fight against unfair treatment of the US and other governments towards the black people (Cordeiro, 2004).The majority of Anglo-Americans and English origin people considered African as let down race in comparison to Europeans, even in principally Calvinistic and Quaker New England. Unfortunately the slavery continued, but some worthy men like James Madison and prexys Thomas Jefferson thought that colonies expatriation of Blacks outside the US was the best and the easiest way to the fight the race caper in America (A Paul Cuffe Biography). Cuffee was complex not only in local activities.He played a chief(prenominal) part in national and international events relate Blacks in that time. Because of his successful business, Cuffee had contact all over the Atlantic seaboard, which connected the three important continents Europe, North American and Africa (Cordeiro, 2004). Americans and Europeans put many political campaigns in all the part of the world to colonize Black, but they were all unsuccessful. One of such attempts was related to sierra Leone colonization. The sierra Leone high societywas a main sponsor of four hundred people departure from Great Britain to Western African resolution. The colony was rebelling and wanted to create a working and competitive thrift and a government, which would be strong enough to resist the outside pres authentic. Eventually the sierra Leone Company collapsed and another brass known as African administration was go migration to the released slaves, which have settled in London and Nova Scotia after the Amer ican Revolution.The institutions sponsors were hoping to get some stinting benefit by bringing up the educated trades of Blacks (A Paul Cuffe Biography). Despite the fact that it was very difficult to colonize Sierra Leone, Cuffee really believed that it was a vital weft and supported the movement. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Paul started to help with the mentioned African Institution, which was based in London (Cordeiro, 2004). In U.S. the organization was very active in Baltito a greater extent, Philadelphia, and New York. This all started in March 1807, when members of the institution encouraged him to help them. The main objective was to promote the immigration to Sierra Leone, a colony of Britain in West Africa. Cuffee was among those who recruited African Americans so they can settle there he transported a big amount of families and explored the local economy trying to find ways of its improving. This was all mainly done for his own coin (A Paul Cuffe Biogra phy).Paul Cuffee wrote in his letters, that he really felt like going to Sierra Leone, he wanted to see the blot in the country. He believed that the inhabitants of that colony were intelligent people, which, as well as he did, deserved to feel the authoritative light of Christianity and be benefited thereby (Captain Paul Cuffes Logs and earn). Paul obtained a bill, accustomed by the Committee of the Whole from the Senate and the President of the linked States, which gave him a right to leave US with the cargo and convey back with a cargo from Sierra Leone. He was nominated by government and had all the privilege to be treated properly ( write up of Congress).Cuffee studied all the logistics and the possible out settle, when finally on declination in 1810 he left U.S. for his premier voyage to Sierra Leone. He managed to get to the colony on the 1st of March in 1811. He was travelling all over the place to explore the local habits and economy in order to find the possibilit ies to ontogenesis. He met the officials there, but they were against of the colonization idea, as they were afraid of American merchants, because this could create a lot ofunfair competition. Moreover, the cargo, which Cuffee mean to trade off, did not sell well as the tariff charges use by British trading system were too high.Eventually this did not stop Cuffee and on the 7th of April 1811 he made an appointment with key Black entrepreneurs. An outcome was that a special petition for the African Institution was written, which stated that people in the colony wanted to work in merchanting, whaling industry and agriculture. This indicated that those three areas were the main objective of the future growth and development of the colony. Cuffee together with the black businessmen set the hail-fellow-well-met union conception in Sierra Leone. Its main aim was to ensure get on successfulness and industry development among all free peoples. Another area to work on was related to br eaking the strong merchants trade established there by British. Cuffee decided to go to UK in order to make sure that colony will get further aid.He arrived to Liverpool in July 1811. There he met the officials of the African Institution in London, who collected some currency for the Friendly confederation. He also obtained further required governmental attest and permissions to continue his delegation in Sierra Leone. Paul was happy to come back to the West African colony where he shared the ideas of the Friendly Society with the local merchants. Together they elaborated plans for Sierra Leone to grow by building a saw mill, grist mill, salt works and rice-processing factory. Later Cuffee was involved with similar venture, which was backed by Americans and let to creation of the American small town Society and colony in Liberia (Cordeiro, 2004). During that period of history the relations between the Great Britain and United States were strained, which led to embargo establishm ent on British goods in 1811.This had somehow a negative outcome on Cuffees voyage, as when in April 1812 he reached Newport on his ship, it was usurped by U.S. customs officers along with all its cargo. This case was not being resolved locally, so Paul Cuffee left to Washington, D.C. to file an official appeal to his case. In the White home base he met with the President James Madison and Albert Gallatin, who was a Secretary of the exchequer in that time. Cuffee was warmly welcomed and treated there. Madison was on his side and later ordered to release the goods, based on the information that Cuffee did not know about the political disagreements and did not deliver the goods with the intention to violate any laws. Cuffee shared his observations and experience, which he gainedduring his trip to Sierra Leone.First the President seemed to be very inte shacked in further expansion of the colony in Africa, but eventually he refuses to participate in Cuffees further investigations, as h e saw this mission not possible because of too many problems and obstacles that U.S. will be facing during further attempts of Sierra Leone colonization. This was all related to the fact that it was initially fully British project. Still Cuffee obtained a legal permission to become an official authority on Africa in the United States. Cuffee had clear intentions to visit Great Britains colony of Sierra Leone on a regular basis, but his plans were interrupted because of the sudden War of 1812, which started in June and was a war between the British Empire and the United States. This prevented Paul from visiting the colony for a while.Despite the fact that Cuffee was contradictory the war because of his Christian beliefs, he was really against any interruptions that could have been caused by war and resulted as an impact on trading and goods delivery from Sierra Leone. The war continued, so Cuffee took a change to convince U.S and Great Britain to ease restrictions on trading. Unfort unately this was unsuccessful and he waited until the war ended in 1815 (A Paul Cuffe Biography). Meanwhile, Paul remained an active political life and paid a couple of visits to Philadelphia, Balti more and New York, where he spoke to groups of free African Americans about the colony. He encouraged Blacks to create organizations within their cities, to gibber to each other and to have a correspondence with the Friendly Society at Sierra Leone and the African Institution. A special pamphlet with the ideas of Paul Cuffee related to Sierra Leone was printed at that time and distributed to general public.He rebuilt the Westport Friends concussion House in summer of 1813, which was a meeting house for the multi-racial members of the Society of Friend, where Cuffee spoke and preached regularly on a Sunday meetings. Most of the money for that was feeler from Cuffees personal funds. It is important to mention that war squeeze Cuffees business and during that year he facial financial cr isis. He has a number of unprofitable ventures related to ships. One vessel was considered leaky and has never returned from Chile. Luckily the war ended and the Treaty of Ghent was subscribe at the end of 1814. After some time taken to recover, Paul was prepared to go back to Sierra Leone (A Paul Cuffe Biography). The first ship with thirty-eight Blacks shipped from Westporton December 10, 1815. Among the passengers were 18 adults and 20 children (Cordeiro, 2004). The price of organization of that expedition was $5000. Eighty percents of those expenses were covered by Cuffee.The rest was paid by passengers and with the help of donation by William Rotch from Massachusetts. The colonist arrived to the colony with their own belongings such as hoes, axes, wagon and a plow, but they were not treated as well as it was expected by Cuffee. This was related to the fact that Governor was facing difficulties in keeping the existent population in order, which could have even worsen the situa tion if more emigrant have arrived. Moreover, the act known as the Militia turn was imposed upon the colony and obliges males to swear of loyalty to the Crown. People had concerns, because it could have been an financial obligation to go to military service. Despite the negative outcome related to economical benefits and sales, the positive was the fact that colonist have finally settles in Freetown.Cuffee spent lots of money by supporting the new inhabitants with money for the first years provisions. It was planned initially that Cuffee will be reimbursed by the African Institution, but due to heavy tariff duties there was a big deficit in the budget. Actually Paul was never given money by the African Institution in Britain. After coming back to USA in 1816, Cuffee searched for financial support from New York disagreement of the American Institution and has eventually obtained $439.62 for further investments into Sierra Leones colonists (A Paul Cuffe Biography). Soon in1816, Cuf fee proposed a newly-designed emigration plan for African Americans, which was related not only to Sierra Leone but also perhaps to Haiti. Provide funds. Congress did not approve the petition to provide funds for that.People all over U.S. have started to show more and more interest in immigration to Africa, believing that it would help to solve the racial problems. Cuffee was trying to find support from other institutions, but some of them were not honest, such as American Colonization Society (ACS) , which was alarmed as a racist organization. The ideas were supported by many other Americans, but later they turned in favor of emigration to Haiti, where the immigrants were welcomed and supported by the President Boyer Since 1817 Cuffee was not feeling himself well and has never visited Africa again. He died in September of that year surrounded by his family and friends. Cuffee was buried at the Quaker Meeting House near Westport (Cordeiro, 2004).Toconclude, it should be mentioned t hat Cuffee was and is considered one of the greatest persons in African-American history. He was a first African-American who had a success in implementation of ideas of Blacks. He fought the existing racism of that time with the help of tolerant and Christian methods. Not only he opposed himself, but he also managed to dwell public attention to the current situation with Blacks, which helped people a lot. He was a successful businessman, who could have had just a happy and calm life, but spent his time and effort to explore Sierra Leone, donated his own money to make the life of immigrants there as good as possible and helped in many other ways to people. I think this person is worth to be prize and remembered thought all future generations of the world.ReferencesA Paul Cuffe Biography. (n.d.) SlideShare, Inc. Retrieved from http//www.slideshare.net/rbgstreetscholar1/a-paul-cuffe-biography Paul Cuffee (1759-1817). (2013). Paul Cuffee School. Retrieved from http//www.paulcuffee.org /about/mission-history/paul-cuffee/ Petition for Relief from Taxation. (2013). Abstract. Pearson Education. Retrieved from http//www.infoplease.com/t/hist/cuffe-taxation-petition/ Cordeiro, B.N. (2004). Paul Cuffe A cultivation of His Life and the Status of His Legacy in Old Dartmouth. Boston, MA University of Massachusetts Boston. Retrieved from http//paulcuffe.home.comcast.net/paulcuffe/Paul_Cuffe_Thesis_by_Brock_Cordeiro.pdf Captain Paul Cuffes Logs and Letters. (n.d.). Estimed froends John James and Alexander Wilson. Westport 6 mo 10th 1809. Paul Cuffee. Retrieved from http//atlanticslaverydebate.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/shared/ASD/Module2/InitialCrrspdnceCuffe1809.pdf History of Congress. (n.d.). A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 1875. The depository library of Congress. Retrieved from http//memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=027/llac027.db&recNum=221