Famous in his time — and maybe still along this stretch of swampy coastline — Paul Cuffe has largely been snubbed from the country’s list of great patriots, adventurers, businessmen, philanthropists, educators, and civil rights icons. Yet his remarkable life could be on the shortlist of greatest Americans in any of these categories.

The revolutionary imprisonments of Paul Cuffe

Both the British and the Americans jailed him for believing in the tenets of the Revolution. A ship’s captain and the son of a slave, he defied a British blockade — then refused to pay taxes without representation.






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