Paul Cuffe: Black America and the African return

Paul Cuffe: Black America and the African Return by Sheldon H. Harris examines the life and political vision of Paul Cuffe, an early Black American shipowner, abolitionist, and advocate of African resettlement. Harris situates Cuffe within the Atlantic world of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, emphasizing his economic independence, maritime expertise, and commitment to Black self-determination. The book traces Cuffe’s efforts to support free Black communities in the United States and Sierra Leone, framing his back-to-Africa initiative as complex transnational project shaped by commerce, religion, and racial politics. Harris avoids heroic simplification, addressing tensions between emigration, integration, and colonial influence. Through archival documentation, the book reveals how Cuffe navigated white power structures while asserting autonomous vision for Black advancement. Paul Cuffe positions early Black nationalism within global context, predating later Pan-African movements. The study ultimately affirms historical recovery as corrective, restoring Cuffe’s role in shaping debates about freedom, belonging, and Black political imagination across the Atlantic world.