Talk:Paul Cuffe

Overkill
The page repeats "free Blacks" and "African Americans" excessively. The people were called free Negroes. There is no reason to change free Negroes into "free Blacks." Simply employ the true wordage.HeyYallYo 22:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Getting people to use the word Negro with a capital "N" was something that had to be fought for and justified. It took most of the 20th century to get newspapers, publishers and editors to stop using the term nigger or colored folks. A similar fight ensued over the use of the terms Black and African American. So, I'm unclear what is meant by the term "true wordage." As far as I can see there is no "true wordage," only currently accepted wordage and outdated wordage. The terms nigger, Negro and colored folks are all equally outdated. Kkhemet (talk) 04:52, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Edits for Grammar and spelling
I started to standardize the spelling of 'Cuffee'. Lorenzo Johnston Greene cited his spelling as found in the 'Memoir of Paul Cuffee a Man of color to Which is Subjoined the Epistle of the Society of Sierra Leone'. I can't change the name in the title, though. Some of these contents in the article look pretty spurious. I'll do some research and check back. I believe he fronted the $4,000 to start the Society of Sierra Leone alone. Certainly, the man's life was incredible, but I doubt he built his boats himself and crewed them alone. I changed a lot of usage of 'Black' to the terms of the day - especially 'Free Negro' to help anyone trying to look further into the topic in the primary sources of the day. LTC David J. Cormier (talk) 20:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I later adjusted some sentences for structural regularity. If the word "Blacks" is used to denote Africans and African-Americans, it should be capitalized. I'll see if Black Yankees has more source info for citations available.

Bernet's Kirchenlexicon has a lot of the information that is marked in the text as needs citation, but the source site itself doesn't say from where it got this information. LTC David J. Cormier (talk) 14:14, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Most of the works cited agree that his name was Paul Cuffe - only one e - but that phonetic spelling was common in the day, even among the well educated. He signed his letters with one 'e'. See particularly Wiggins, p. ix LTC David J. Cormier (talk) 14:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Since the article is entitled "Paul Cuffee", it seems awkward to have the repeated spelling of "Cuffe" in it, even if that was how he signed his name.Parkwells (talk)

18:05, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

There are plenty of people who have AKA's including Sojourner Truth, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King,Jr., Stokeley Carmichael, etc. on Wikipedia. As for Cuffe Slocum and the spelling of his first name or the spelling of Paul Cuffee's last name it could be spelled Coffey, Coffee, Cuffee, Cuffe or any of a number of ways, but it's still referencing a male child born on a Friday to male children of the Akan language group. There's no such thing as standardization when it comes to names of any language, including English. This is especially true with names from other languages. Cuffe Slocum was of the Ashanti tribe of Ghana, West Africa. His first name is currently spelled Kofi and pronounced Co-Fee. It's a commonly used last name of Africans all over the U.S. and a common first name in other parts of the Americas and West Africa. Kkhemet (talk) 04:08, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

References and Fleshing Out
I've cited heavily from Thomas, but the information is repeated in Wiggins and Harris. The works are very consistent. I haven't seen a source for the quote in the middle, but I'm loath to delete it just yet. LTC David J. Cormier (talk) 21:44, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

This is a bit odd. I've found a webpage that cites the quote about "I have these many years...", but I am suspicious of where it found the quote. I'd rather hate to think they took the quote from this article, which is now citing that webpage as the source. Certainly, more research into his documents are required. If I can contact the webpage's author(s) I shall. LTC (Ret.) David J. Cormier (talk) 15:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Paul Cuffee (missionary)
I have created Paul Cuffee (missionary) to cover the man who is celebrated on the Episcopalian calendar instead of Paul Cuffee. We should consider setting up a disambiguation page or a hatnote. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 22:49, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I just put a sentence in this article referring to that still-uncreated page, to which the Episcopal liturgical calendar still links, since most people (myself included) don't normally look at talk pages. I plan to clean my sandbox and create a quick page tonight.Jweaver28 (talk) 12:48, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Preparatory to the new article, I standardized the spelling of Paul Cuffe throughout this article to reflect how he himself signed his letters (available for viewing at the Providence Historical Society's library). Now we just need to change the name of this article somehow.LTC (Ret.) David J. Cormier (talk) 14:03, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Edward Coles
I don't have time to look up the links now or at any time in the near future, but Madison's secretary Edward Coles probably attended the meetings in DC. A slaveholder at that time, Coles opposed slavery and freed his own slaves shortly after leaving Madison's (or federal, which seems quite overblown for the time period) service.Jweaver28 (talk) 16:27, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

The General Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Paul Cuffee's marriage?
Quote from Paul Cuffee Wikipedia - "Cuffee married Alice Pequit on February 25,1783. Like Cuffee's mother, Pequit was also Wampanoag." According to historical accounts of Captain Paul Cuffee's life that I read many decades ago, Paul's wedding to Alice was filled with a great deal of political drama involving the Massachusetts legislative body of the 1780's. In 1705 Massachusetts passed a law making marriage and sexual relations between blacks and whites illegal. This same law also prohibited marriage and sexual relations between blacks and Indians illegal. According to the story Cuffee had planned a very costly wedding and gala reception only to discover that although his mother was Indian (from the same tribe as his mother) because his father was African, he was considered to be a Negro or black and hence could not marry Pequit. Paul's brother spent considerable time attempting to get the legislature to amend the law to allow Indians and blacks to marry. According to the story Cuffee spent a sizable sum of money lobbying the members, however it actually took two separate attempts before the final amendment passed allowing Cuffee and Pequit to proceed with their marriage.

I think the document that provided this account of Cuffee's battle with the Massachusetts legislature might have been included in a publication by the Massachusetts Historical Society. I currently cannot verify this. However I offer the above "talk" as a rather important footnote to your Wiki on the life of Captain Paul Cuffee. Jazzbeck (talk) 01:21, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Cuffee and Cuffe
We should make clear the two ways of Paul's spelling of his last name. There should be a redirect page to "Paul Cuffe," to this one. Paul referred to himself more often as Cuffe. Historian (talk) 08:51, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

I just added a comment to the section on Paul Cuffee's name above. It just so happens that my first name and his last name are the same name. The name is from the Akan language group of Ghana, West Africa. In English the name has been Anglicized in numerous different ways. In the U.S. it's usually used as a last name, but in West Africa it's typically used as a first or middle name. The current manner of Anglicization, in West Africa, is Kofi. All told I agree with your point, but want to take it a step further, because the connection being made to Paul and his father's West African roots is much more tentative than their connection to their African roots. Kkhemet (talk) 04:29, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Sierra Leone?
This statement is incorrect: "helped colonize Sierra Leone." To bring a few US Blacks to settle in Sierra Leone by the time when the colony was already well established is not to "help colonize" it. If the intent was to say that he helped the colonization movement with the transportation of these few families, a different wording should be used, one that should not imply that Cuffee was some sort of founder of Sierra Leone. 71.63.91.85 (talk) 16:45, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

The family business
The following paragraph appeared, and seems like a fine addition to the article except it needs any kind of citation. Can we get some sources on this? LTC (Ret.) David J. Cormier (talk) 12:56, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

His relatives and descendants developed familial ties with other black participants in the shipping industry. His sister Mary Cuffee married Micah Quaben Wainer, and their sons Paul, Michael, Thomas and Jeremiah accompanied Paul Sr. on voyages and bought or inherited interest in Paul Sr.'s ships. His daughter Alice married Captain Pardon Cook, a black seaman, in 1820, and Paul Jr. married Cook's sister, Polly in 1812. Paul Sr.'s youngest son, William, became a skilled seaman in his own right, captaining the Rising States; he and three others died on board in November-December 1837 during an accident in the midst of rough weather on route to Cape Verde.

Paul Cuffee's Racial Designation
It seems odd that Paul Cuffee is considered multiracial. Why is that? Thomas Rolfe, the son of John Rolfe and Pocahantas is from a much more famous family, yet he's not considered to be the part of a multiracial family. Apparently, their marriage is the first of a full blooded Native American to a full blooded White person, in America. Yet, their children are not considered to be from a "multiracial" family. There's an entire section on standardizing the Cuffee family name, but nothing said about the Rolfes and their multiracial family.Kkhemet (talk) 02:58, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

"Life rights" link dead?
At the beginning of the page there's a link saying that Cuffe's mother had "life rights", which links to a page that talks about film copyright. Was that page changed from its previous content? I don't understand how it would make sense in its current form. Gnubison (talk) 00:30, 9 November 2023 (UTC)