author

Paul Cuffe

b. 1795

A 19th-century sailor and traveler, he left behind a firsthand life story shaped by years at sea and encounters with many places and people. His narrative offers a rare voice in early American autobiographical writing.

1 Audiobook

Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian, During Thirty Years Spent at Sea, and in Travelling in Foreign Lands

Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian, During Thirty Years Spent at Sea, and in Travelling in Foreign Lands

by Paul Cuffe

About the author

Paul Cuffe was a Pequot author and seaman born in Westport, Massachusetts, in 1795 or 1796. His best-known work, Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian, During Thirty Years Spent at Sea, and in Travelling in Foreign Lands, was published in 1839 and presents his life in his own words.

According to library and archive records for the book, Cuffe began going to sea as a boy and wrote about decades of maritime work and travel. That firsthand perspective makes his narrative especially valuable as an early Native American autobiography and as a record of 19th-century seafaring life.

Some catalogs appear to confuse him with the better-known merchant and abolitionist Paul Cuffe (1759–1817), but the author of this narrative is identified separately as a man born in 1795 or 1796. No suitable confirmed portrait image was found from the pages reviewed.