"Paul Cuffee or Paul Cuffee"(January 17,1759-September 9,1817)

Was a Quaker business,sea captain,patriot,and abolitionist.He was of  Aquinnah Wampanoag and West African Ashanti descent and helped colonize Sierra Leone.Pault built a lucrative shipping empire and established the first racially integrated school in Westpoint,Massachusetts.
A devout Christian,Paul often preached and spoke at the Sunday services at the multi-racial Society of Friends meeting house in Westpoint,Massachusetts.In 1813,Paul donated most of the money to build a new  meeting house.He became involved in the British effort to resettle freed slaves,many of whom had moved from the US to Nova Scotia after the American Revolution,to fledgling colony of Sierra Leone.Paul helped establish The Friendly Society of Sierra Leone,which provided financial support for the colony.
The future mariner was born during the French & Indian War,on Cuttyhunk Island,Massachusetts.He was the youngest son of Kofi or Cuffee Slocum & Ruth Moses.Paul's daddy,was a member of the Akan ethnic group's Ashanti subgroup,probably from Ghana,Africa.Kofi had been captured at age ten and brought as a slave to the British colony of Massachusetts.His owner,John Slocum,could not reconcile slave ownership with his Quaker values and gave Kofi his freedom in the mid 1740s.Kofi took the name Cuffee Slocum,and in 1746,he married Ruth Moses.She was a Native American member of the Wampanoag nation on Martha Vineyard.Cuffee  Slocum worked as a skilled carpenter,farmer & fisherman & taught himself to read & write.He worked diligently