Paul Cuffe Makes Preparations for His Last Voyage to Africa

Westport, Massachusetts, November 30, 1815. Single sheet, 9 3/4 x 7 3/4 in. (248 x 197 mm). One-page autograph letter, signed by Paul Cuffe to Joseph May: "Capt A[bner] Davis, & the passengers seem not vitely to understand the agreement for their passages from Boston to Westport, Capt davis charges 60 dollars for their passages and 40 dollars for the freight of their fourniture--the passengers say they convinced that $60 were the whole for them selves children & fourniture, all except cart wheels barrels of provisions that they were to take with them to Africa &c,--I wish a correct statement from them--Capt Davis says he was to take them with beding & provisions sufficient to bring them to Westport, all the residue of their bagedge he expected to be paid for the freight of at the custom freight & as I have to pay their same from Boston to Westport and then to be at their whole exspence to africa it will be rather heavey, yet I wish Capt Davis to be well rewarded for his Services, and thy des____ will be atended to I expect to Sail in 4 or 5 day thru Gods permission..." Docketed on verso; creasing from old folds, a few small holes along same; scattered soiling.

A very rare autograph letter, signed by Paul Cuffe, Black abolitionist, early Pan-Africanist, sea captain, and entrepreneur, who spearheaded the first back-to-Africa movement in the United States, penned in relation to preparations for his final trip to Sierra Leone to transport free Black settlers.

Born free in 1759 to a formerly enslaved Black father, Kofi Slocum, and a Wampanoag mother, Ruth Moses, Paul Cuffe was raised on Cuttyhunk Island, situated at the western tip of Massachusetts' Elizabeth Islands. He entered the whaling trade at fourteen, where he learned navigation and taught himself to read and write. By the early 1770s, Cuffe and his brother-in-law, Michael Wainer, launched their own shipping enterprise operating along the southern coasts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Their venture flourished, trading across the length of the Atlantic seaboard and with Europe and in the Caribbean, and as a result, making Cuffe the wealthiest person of color in the early United States.

In 1808, Cuffe converted to Quakerism, and through the trans-Atlantic network of Friends learned of colonial settlements in Africa intended to resettle freed Black slaves. Sierra Leone, established in the early 1790s to resettle formerly enslaved Black Americans who had been displaced by the Revolutionary War, as well as others, captured his attention, as it promised a place free from racial injustice, as well as a place for Blacks to gain economic independence. Encouraged by Quaker and abolitionist associates, Cuffe embarked on the first of three voyages there in 1810 to evaluate the colony's social and economic conditions, with the aim of improving the young settlement's prosperity. Although the outbreak of the War of 1812 hindered his return to Sierra Leone, Cuffe traveled the Atlantic coast advocating on behalf of the colony and raising capital for it. In connection to this he met with President James Madison as a guest at the White House, likely the first free Black person to do so. Cuffe envisioned fostering Sierra Leone's self-sufficiency and planned to dispatch at least one vessel annually to the colony, carrying Black families and goods while returning with marketable products. It was in this light that he declined to support the American Colonization Society, who favored similar plans of African resettlement, but whose underlying principles were racist and whose membership was largely composed of slaveholders.

On December 15, 1815, Cuffe, largely at his own expense but with some financial assistance from Col. Joseph May (the present letter's recipient) and others, undertook his final trip to Sierra Leone. He carried 38 African Americans (comprising nine families), including 20 children, aboard his 109-ton brig Traveller, at a cost of $5,000. The passengers ranged in age from six months to sixty years, and according to a letter by Col. May dated November 15, 1815, included, "William Guinn with his wife and two Children, Perry Lockes with his wife and three Children, Samuel Hewes with his wife and four Children, Thomas Jarvis with his wife and five Children, Peter Wilcox with his wife and five Children, and Robert Rigsby with his wife and one Child, all free black people now resident in Boston". (Reed, "Financing an Early Back-to-Africa Scheme", p. 104, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1978). Other passengers included Prince Saunders, Peter Williams, Jr., and Edward Jones. They arrived in Sierra Leone on February 1816, becoming the first African Americans to voluntarily return to Africa through an African American-led initiative. The present letter, written two weeks prior to Cuffe's departure, pertains to preparations for this voyage. Addressed to Col. Joseph May, father of the reformer, abolitionist, and American Anti-Slavery Society leader Samuel J. May, the letter details the various expenses involved in transporting the families from Boston to Westport (their point of departure for Africa), a task handled by a Captain Abner Davis. In early 1817, Cuffe's health deteriorated, and he died on September 7, 1817. He never returned to Africa following the completion of this voyage.

Very rare. According to RBH, only four other documents or letters signed by Cuffe have ever come to auction.