(BUSINESS CUFFEE PAUL) Report of the Committee of Commerce

Sale 2239 - Lot 208

Price Realized: $ 1,680

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

(BUSINESS--CUFFEE, PAUL.) Report of the Committee of Commerce and Manufactures, On the Bill from the Senate to Authorize the President of the United States to permit the Departure of Paul Cuffee from the United States with a Vessel and Cargo for Sierra Leone, in Africa, and to Return. (caption title.) 4 pages, removed; paper evenly toned. Washington: A & G Way, 1814.

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Paul Cuffee (!759-1817), merchant, Atlantic trader and colonizer, was born on Cuttyhunk Island off the southern coast of Massachusetts. One of ten children of Kofi (an African name) Slocum, a freed slave and Ruth Moses, a Wampanoag, native American. The young Cuffee went to sea at thirteen, working the whaling ships and rapidly learned navigation and seamanship. He saved his money and was eventually able to buy his own small ship. By the end of the century Cuffee had married and become quite successful, trading up and down the American eastern seaboard. Through contacts in Maryland, Cuffee became aware of the British colony of ex-slaves at Sierra Leone. In 1811, he loaded his brig, the Traveler with merchandise from Philadelphia and sailed for Freetown, Sierra Leone his first voyage to Africa. His plan was basically the same one that Marcus Garvey was to propose 100 years later: bring goods and free blacks to colonize the African coast, and return with African products and produce. In January of 1814, he petitioned the U.S. Government to allow him to begin this regular trade route. Unfortunately, the war with Great Britain made it impossible for the government to allow Cuffee to trade with people who were officially our enemies. Quite Scarce.