Cuffee

Not to be confused with Coffee, Cuffee (Jamaica), Cuffe, Coffy (person), or Original Koffee.

Cuffee, Cuffey, or Coffey is a first name and surname recorded in African-American culture, believed to be derived from the Akan language name Kofi, meaning "born on a Friday". This was noted as one of the most common male names of West African origin which was retained by some American slaves.^[1]

Cuffee Cuffey Coffey
Current region	United States and Jamaica
Etymology	Kofi (born on Friday)
Place of origin	Ashanti Empire of Ashanti

Racist connotation

A racist depiction of a scene in the Catherine market of New York titled; "Cuffee dancing for eels" (1857).

The name was used in the United States as a derogatory term to refer to Black people.^[2] For example, Jefferson Davis, then a US Senator from Mississippi who later became the President of the Confederate States, said that the discussion of slavery in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case was merely a question of "whether Cuffee should be kept in his normal condition or not."^[3]

Notable people

Guyana

• Coffij, leader of the 18th century Berbice Rebellion in Guyana.

Jamaica

• Cuffee, a maroon who waged a slave rebellion against plantation owners in Jamaica in the early 1800s.

United Kingdom

• William Cuffay (1788–1870), Chartist leader, the son of a former slave.

United States

• Cuffee Mayo (1803–1896), minister, laborer, and politician in North Carolina.
• Ed Cuffee (1902–1959), a jazz musician born in Norfolk, Virginia who moved to New York City in 1920 to pursue his career as a jazz trombonist.
• Paul Cuffee (1759–1817), a Massachusetts freeman and shipping magnate. Cuffee rejected the surname of his former owner, Slocum, and replaced it with his father's Akan name.^[4]
• Paul Cuffee (missionary) (1757–1812), Native American (Shinnecock) Christian minister, missionary, and preacher.

See also

• John Coffey, fictional character
• Quander family, oldest documented African-American family in the United States whose surname is of Fante origin.