Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian, During Thirty Years Spent at Sea, and in Travelling in Foreign LandsCuffe, Paul
History
Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian, During Thirty Years Spent at Sea, and in Travelling in Foreign Lands
Cuffe, Paul
Cuffe, Paul, 1795 or 1796-
There is an Englishman by the name of Hunter, who has a sugar
plantation on this island, and employs seventy five hands, all natives
of the country. He has about one hundred and seventy five acres under
improvement. The sugar manufactured here is of good quality. There is a
kind of root that grows here called tarrow, which resembles a potatoe.
This is the only vegetable that I saw cultivated on the island. To
raise these, the people burn over a spot during the dry season, and sow
the seed, and get it in with sticks, where the land is not very mellow.
It generally will sprout, and grow without any labor being bestowed
upon it after sowing. The roots are fit for use in three months. These
are cooked by roasting as we roast potatoes.
There is a missionary on this island, and the people are more
intelligent than most of the other islanders in that vicinity.--They
are one of the most peaceable and happy people with whom the writer was
ever acquainted. They seem to be peculiarly the favorites of our Great
Father. Possessing one of the most salubrious of climates, with every
thing formed in nature, and growing spontaneously for their support,
they are well fitted to enjoy life and all its attendant blessings.
They are happy in their poverty, and contented in their simplicity; and
I assure my readers, that it was not without many painful sensations,
that I left this ocean isle, and its peaceful inhabitants. May God ever
be with, and preserve them for their many acts of benevolence, shown to
the writer of this narrative, when a stranger thrown among them, and
more than fourteen thousand miles from the land of his nativity.
One day, after I had been on the island about five months, I
accidentally found a ship at the harbor which belonged to Martha's
Vineyard, in the United States. This was the first vessel which I had
seen since I had been here. The Captain's name was Toby. After getting
acquainted with this man, he proposed my going home with him. He said I
had not better stay among the natives any longer--that my folks at home
would be glad to see me, I finally concluded to go with him.
We sailed from this place sometime during the latter part of 1835, and
arrived at the vineyard in the spring of 1836.
While on our homeward bound passage, we lost three men, by being struck
by a whale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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