‘I FEEL THE need of the help of friends”: this quotation is from the April 24, 1812, journal entry of Captain Paul Cuffe, a black New England sea captain. He called for aid from a white group composed primarily of former slave traders when his ship, Traveler, was seized by the U.S. customs collector upon his return to the U.S. after an African voyage. While I have not been able to prove unequivocally that the captain himself was a slaver, his friends—blacks as well as whites—certainly were. And Captain Cuffe had earlier been intercepted by Captain Tildwell of the British Anti-Slavery Squadron off the coast of West Africa on suspicion that he was an agent of slave traders, although Tildwell had had to let him go for lack of evidence. The prime witness was a ten-year-old African boy taken by Cuffe as an “apprentice.”
Dr. Brooks teaches African—American history at the Austin Community Academy High School in Markham, Illinois.
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