For Paul Cuffe, a native of Cuttyhunk Island off the coast of Massachusetts, to join the crew of a whale ship as a teenager in 1773 wasn’t that unusual. Nor was it out of the ordinary for the young mariner to be captured by the British during the Revolutionary War and be held captive for three months.
Perhaps more notable was Cuffe’s plucky entrepreneurial spirit. As the war escalated, the British built a blockade cutting off the supply route between New Bedford and Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Cuffe (whose name also appears in records as Cuffee) and his older brother built a small boat and used it to outrun the British at night to get supplies to the islands from the mainland.
Pirates came one night in 1778, as waves lapped against the sides of the boat. The brothers lost everything — including their vessel — and were lucky not to have been taken as well. Undeterred, Cuffe built another boat and continued with his business, trading with the mainland, the modest beginning of a career during which he would become an exceptional whaling captain and successful businessman, even meeting with the president of the United States.
What makes Cuffe’s story remarkable is that he accomplished all this as a Black and Native American man before the abolition of slavery in the United States (slavery did not formally end on Nantucket until 1773, in the rest of Massachusetts until 1783, and throughout America until almost 50 years after he died). The first known sea captain of color, he opened the door for others like him who freely worked the waters and became wealthy at a time when, in many places, they would have been enslaved if they set foot ashore.
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Cuffe’s whaling business included at least 17 trips using eight ships, 14 with captains of color. In all, 52 men of color are known to have become whaling captains during the lifetime of the industry, which straddled the Revolutionary War. Their story is an overlooked chapter in the history of Massachusetts, once the center of the whaling industry. A story in which a Black man could reach the highest rank at sea — and fight for freedom on land.
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LIKE OTHER WHALE MASTERS OF COLOR who came after him, Cuffe was born to an African father and Indigenous mother, in 1759. Such interracial marriages meant the progeny were born free, but without tribal benefits. Scholars often interpreted this arrangement as a systematic attempt to wipe out Indigenous populations.
Cuffe began his whaling career at the age of 13, learning the trade on trips to the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indies that were an education in the hardships of the high seas. How bad was whaling? It featured boredom, inadequate clothing, desertion, disease, poor food, odors from hell, bad and inexperienced management, barbaric medical care, poor pay, and, in some extreme cases, even cannibalism, to name a few odious conditions.
Along with the employment of these men, whales provided bristles for brushes and brooms, ingredients for soap, candles, and corsets — and, of course, oil that became light and heat. Sperm whales were the most valuable; right whales were the most frequently caught because they didn’t sink when harpooned.
After his early years on whaling ships, Cuffe returned in the 1780s to Westport, where his family had settled, and began a mercantile business with his brother. At 25, he invested in his own ship, the Traveller. Around that time, the Massachusetts Legislature crafted an article in its constitution that every male could vote — except those who were Black, Indigenous, or interracial. Cuffe was all three.
Unable to vote but still required to pay taxes, Cuffe was part of a group that petitioned the state government for equal treatment of Black Americans. The petition failed but Cuffe continued his fight, at one point going to jail to protest having to pay unpaid back taxes.
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Naturally gifted with a sense for navigation and the ocean, Cuffe and his friend and partner Michael Wainer acquired the Mary, a schooner they would use for whaling, in 1792. That season, white captains of four other ships refused invitations to join them on a trip to Newfoundland. Undeterred, the Mary took six whales — two captured by Cuffe himself. The four other captains came back from their own missions empty-handed. Cuffe traded the oil from those whales for bolts and iron, which he used to build a 69-ton vessel, the Ranger.
With each successful trip, Cuffe built up his assets. His vessels, manned by all-Black crews, made trips to Africa and Europe. With investment from Wainer, he opened the P. & A. Howard retail store with his son-in-law; Cuffe partnered with his friend on real estate and other ventures as well.
Steadily, Cuffe had transformed himself from a young mariner to one of the wealthiest men of color in the country.
BETWEEN 1715 AND 1924, some 175,000 men went whaling. The industry was so awful that most people only went once; voyages averaged three to four years apiece. This created opportunity — opportunity with immense risks, to be sure — for men who were legally and socially marginalized to gain experience and develop the skills to be successful. Some 20 percent to 40 percent of whalers were people of color. They included free Black men, formerly enslaved people, West Indians, American Indians, Maori, Portuguese, South Sea Islanders, and Cape Verdeans.
New Bedford, with its deep harbor and prime location, became the center of the whaling industry. Known as the “city that lit the world” — for the whale oil it exported for use in lamps — it gained a reputation among men of color because abolition-minded Quakers created opportunities for them to work as free men.
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The Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 allowed white people to accuse any Black person of being an escaped slave; whether they were or not, those people would be imprisoned. This drove many to escape to the relative freedom of whaling, where they could advance to captain. Although they couldn’t look a white man in the eye on land, at sea, as a captain, they were able to flog or shackle him.
Whaling brought together an improbable cast of characters, including free Black men, formerly enslaved people, gamblers, and criminals. For a person of color to rise in the ranks, they had to earn a promotion from a pool of first, second, and third mates, boat steerers, and harpooners. Should they earn the rank of captain, they would lead a group of men on journeys of 10,000 miles or more, seeing the world in the process. But back home, hostility awaited.
IN THE HUNDRED YEARS after Cuffe’s first trip as captain in 1784, around two dozen men of color went on to attain that rank. Two of them, Paul and Thomas Wainer, were the sons of Michael Wainer, Cuffe’s business partner.
Paul Wainer captained at least eight whale trips. Thomas Wainer, meanwhile, captained whale and merchant ships; his ship-handling expertise made him a frequent choice for trading voyages to hostile Southern slave states.
In 1799, a Maryland slave owner posted a notice alleging that Thomas Wainer helped his slave Harry and Harry’s pregnant wife escape on a northbound trip, offering a $40 bounty for Harry. There is no record of what happened to the newly freed couple, but narratives written before the end of the Civil War discuss the use of waterways and vessels as means of escape.
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In May of 1822, Captain Absalom F. Boston departed the Massachusetts coast on the Industry. The mission was historic not because of the destination — the Cape Verde Islands — but because it was powered by Nantucket’s first all-Black whaling crew. And it was not the first time the Boston family had made history. In 1773, Absalom’s uncle, Prince, became the first enslaved person to sue for his freedom, effectively ending slavery on Nantucket.
Although not a financial success, Absalom Boston’s venture was part of a career on the seas that made him rich enough to invest in other business ventures. With proceeds from whaling, Boston acquired land, a store, and an inn on Nantucket.
Whaling offered a path to ownership for mariners, including Richard Johnson, who climbed the ranks to become a captain. He eventually invested in 20 whaling trips, becoming one of the wealthiest Black Americans at the time.
WHALING MASTER JOSEPH BELAIN, a member of the Wampanoag community on Martha’s Vineyard, had an eventful life as a seaman — including an incident in 1892 aboard a ship in the frozen Pacific Northwest. As the vessel was being crushed by ice, its captain hurried, screaming “Every man for himself” — leaving his own wife aboard. Belain led the woman to safety and received much press coverage for his actions.
In his career, he led 20 whaling trips. When he died in 1926, his obituary in the Vineyard Gazette reported that during his funeral, a carrier pigeon “flew in from the sea and alighted on the hearse and stayed until the service was done.”
Other notable figures included Pardon Cook, known to have commanded eight ships, with ownership in others. On one voyage, Cook’s ship the Elizabeth was struck by lightning and 11 of the crew were killed. Collins A. Stevenson, a Provincetown captain, made 16 trips that generated a total of $3.5 million in revenue. William Shorey, a sailor who got his start in Provincetown, climbed the ranks to become one of the most successful Black whaling masters, leading voyages out of San Francisco. His career, during which he made 20 trips, produced an astounding $7.8 million in today’s dollars.
DESPITE AMERICA’S HISTORY of enslavement, each of these captains of color earned an average of $150,000 in today’s dollars over their careers from their journeys before, during, and after the Civil War. But their legacies, largely overlooked in New England history, go far beyond the money they brought home.
A revered Quaker, Paul Cuffe founded what was possibly the nation’s first integrated school. In 1812, when his ship the Traveller was seized by a local customs officer on Block Island — and former slave ship owner — Cuffe was determined to get it back. Thanks to officials throughout New England who vouched for him, Cuffe secured a meeting with President James Madison, who arranged to have the ship returned.
Absalom Boston, in addition to his business ventures, helped build a church and a school on Nantucket. When his daughter was barred from attending public high school, he ran for public office. In 1845, he filed a suit against the school, paving the way for the public schools in Salem, New Bedford, and Nantucket to accept Black students by 1850. Richard Johnson, meanwhile, had become the New Bedford agent for the Liberator, a publication that advocated for the end of slavery.
Despite these achievements, whaling captains of color were often just “colored” when they returned to land. A mere few received investment opportunities despite whaling voyages that led around the globe and contributions to mapping the world’s oceans.
When Cuffe died in 1817 at the age of 58, no one was in place to take over his business ventures. His business partner, Michael Wainer, had died two years earlier. Cuffe’s son, a common sailor, lacked the acumen of his father. As with other whaling families of color, Cuffe’s wealth soon disappeared.
Adventurous, tenacious, fearless, and ruthless, these mariners honed their skills in a dangerous occupation. Unlike their white counterparts, they left no glistening waterfront homes on Nantucket and the Vineyard; to their families they left only pride.
TODAY, THE LEGACIES of these men live on, but tenuously. A replica of a part of Paul Cuffe’s home sits in the New Bedford Whaling Museum. There is a painting of Joseph Belain in the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, and William Shorey’s small home in Oakland, California, is open to the public as a museum. A statue of the Black man who vastly improved the harpoon, Lewis Temple, stands outside the main branch of the New Bedford Free Public Library and the Providence Public Library has developed an exhibition around William Martin, a whaling master from Martha’s Vineyard whose great-grandfather, Sharper Michael, was the first Vineyarder killed in the Revolutionary War. Their significance, however, far outstrips the few known public acknowledgements of these men, who overachieved professionally despite racial conditions that could have easily cost their lives.
Consider the happenings of a hot day in 1796, more than six decades before the Civil War, when the 62-foot Ranger slowly sailed up the Nanticoke River en route to Maryland’s eastern shore to trade a cargo of corn. Captain Cuffe and the ship’s entire complement were men of color who couldn’t help but note the stares of enslaved people working along the shoreline.
Once they docked, it was white people staring at them, astounded to see a ship operated by free men of color. The local authorities had procedures that grudgingly allowed Cuffe’s trip to be treated like any other. Despite residents’ concerns about the optics of a ship staffed by free Black men, by the time the crew departed, Cuffe had been invited to dine in town.
Cuffe had come a long way from his days evading the British and shuttling supplies between the islands on a boat he had built with his own hands. Along the way, he and others like him made history — and their legacy should not be forgotten.
Skip Finley is a writer and former broadcasting executive who resides on Martha’s Vineyard, and author of Whaling Captains of Color: America’s First Meritocracy. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.