1. Paul Cuffe (1759–1817), the Quaker son of a former slave, was a successful merchant and ship captain in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Through his Quaker connections, in 1808 Cuffe became interested in the movement to return former slaves to Africa, and by 1812 he had undertaken his first trip to Sierra Leone to explore the possibilities for legitimate trade in goods other than slaves and to judge the fitness of that colony as a home for American freedmen. Impressed with what he saw during this journey, Cuffe founded the Friendly Society with the triple purpose of promoting triangular trade among the U.S., Great Britain, and West Africa, spreading Christianity along the West African coast, and beginning American settlements there. Cuffe would make a second trip to Sierra Leone in December 1815, carrying thirty-eight American settlers with the intent to create a colony of former slaves (Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography [New York, 1982], pp. 147–48).

2. On 19 Apr. 1812 Cuffe’s brig, the Traveller, was seized by Newport customs officers on its return from Sierra Leone. Loaded primarily with cargo from Africa, the brig also carried British woolen goods that Cuffe had been unable to sell abroad. Under the provisions of the Nonintercourse Act of 1811, the entire cargo was impounded, and Cuffe, armed with letters of support and introduction from a number of prominent Federalists, was forced to make a trip to Washington to entreat with JM personally. He met with JM on 2 May and was informed by Gallatin on 4 May that his cargo was to be released. Cuffe was startled to learn at this meeting that the president approved of his colonization efforts so fully as to promise the complete support of the federal government, consistent with the Constitution, to advance his work (Lamont D. Thomas, Rise to Be a People: A Biography of Paul Cuffe [Urbana, Ill., 1986], pp. 72–75).