I prepared this for the current Banjo Hangout Tune of the Week, and thought it might be appropriate to post here. Cuffy, like many tunes, has a number of interesting threads that when woven together make the tune richer than its melody alone. The sources for the information below come from internet searches and from correspondence with Kerry Blech, and Armin Barnett Armin Barnett. My appreciation for the cited and uncited authors from whom I pilfered, and to both Kerry and Armin. My interest in the tune was recently reawakened by the fiddle playing of my friend Mike Stapleton. After playing with Mike, I found myself playing the tune on the banjo incessantly, until it settled in to the version presented here. My version has drifted some distance from the original. I fear that there is some contamination from the memory of another tune, perhaps Magpie. My apologies as always. Whenever I play this, my thoughts are drawn to the incredible plight of enslaved Africans in the Americas, and, how their labors created so much wealth for others, and the complicated legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade that reverberates still. The source of the tune is fiddler Nicky (N. H.) Mills of Boones Mill, Virginia. Seattle Violin Maker and old-time and Cajun fiddler, Armin Barnett visited and recorded Mr. Mills playing Cuffy in 1972. Armin learned about Mr. Mills from Dave Milefsky. who had visited Mr. Mills a bit earlier than Armin, perhaps by a year or two. Mills has been described as a rather taciturn individual, who did not want to encourage other visits. He told Armin If anyone asks about me, tell them Im dead. Armin honored this wish. It is generally agreed that Armin became the vehicle through which the tune was spread to a new generation of old-time music enthusiasts. The Highwoods String Band recorded Cuffy on their influential Rounder album, No.3 Special (1976). Whenever I play this, my thoughts are drawn to the incredible plight of enslaved Africans in the Americas, and, how their labors created so much wealth for others, and the complicated legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade that reverberates still. Cuf´fy (k f`f) n. 1. A name for a negro. Websters Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co. “Sometimes Cuffy Idle, Then He Catch fum-fum Sometimes Cuffy work hard, then he drink good rum! Then he dance and caper to the shake-shake’s sound Then the banjoe make frisk the antic round!” From “Cuffy The Negroes Progress Of Sugar (1823)” (This is an amazing source, an illustrated book that can been read and downloaded for free at https://archive.org/details/cuffynegrosdoggr00unkn ) Runaway slave advertisement,1779: “a negro lad Cuffy, about 16 years old, very well known in Charlestown… had on when he went away a blue jacket, white shirt and breeches, and a good handkerchief on his head.” South-Carolina and American General Gazette, March 18, 1779, ibid., 552-553 (from Shlomo). According to wildgoose.co.uk/SleeveNotes.asp?PRODUCT_ID=112 The name ‘Cuffy’ has a long history in America as a slave name, especially on the minstrel stage where it was regularly employed by blackface dancers and musicians. “For example,” says Hans Nathan (Dan Emmett and Negro Minstrelsy, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1962, pg. 44), “{the period actor} Edwin Forrest lent his great talents to a personification of Cuffee, a Kentucky Negro, opposite the black Miss Philisy, in the play The Tailor in Distress; or, A Yankee Trick. Performing in Cincinnati in 1823, Forrest probably enlivened his act with singing and dancing.” It is a custom with the Ewe people of the Volta region of Ghana to name a child after the day of the week on which it is born, and Cuffy is a variation of the Ghanaian Kofi the name given to boys born on a Friday. Think of Kofi Annan, the Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations (January 1997 to December 2006). (Other common slave names were Kwaku (Wednesday) and Kwasi (Sunday) which became anglicised as Quack and Quash). There are at least two slave rebellions linked to Cuffy: The New York Slave Insurrection of 1741, and the rebellion in Guyana in 1763. According to Peter Linebaugh & Marcus Redikers book The Many-Headed Hydra The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. (Verso 2000), two men called Cuffee were among thirteen slaves burned at the stake following the New York insurrection of 1741. One of them had been spotted leaving a building that had been set on fire by the insurgents. The uprising turned out to have been a conspiracy of Irishmen, Caribbeans, and Africans who were accused of plotting to burn New York to the ground and murder its white citizens. The leading cell was composed of Gold Coast (Ghana) slaves, the Irish cell mainly of soldiers with a grudge against Protestant England, and hatred for the army. Fiddle music was an integral part of the conspiracy, socially and militarily. Cuffee’s group, The Long Bridge Boys, met regularly at a waterfront tavern run by a John Hughson, well known for its subversive clientele, its connections with the underworld, and its raucous fiddling, dancing, and singing. The conspiracy resulted finally in the hanging of sixteen blacks, and four whites (publican John Hughson and his wife amongst them), as well as the burning of Cuffee and the other twelve black, so-called, conspirators. Interestingly, included in the judge’s list of White Persons taken into Custody on Account of the Conspiracy was one John Corry, Dancing Master Cuffy was also the leader of the Guyanese Slave Rebellion of 1763 It was because of Cuffy’s (Kofi, Coffy) immense contribution and leadership that nearly led to one of the most successful slave rebellion in Guyana. For this reason a statue has been erected in his honor for the struggle against slavery. His story is quite a unique one. Cuffy was captured from his native land West Africa. The revolt took place in 1763 at the time the Dutch was occupying Guyana. Cuffy was a slave in the Berbice colony on a plantation called Lilienburg. He was a house slave for barrel maker. The revolt originally broke out at the Madgalenenburg plantation. It quickly spread to other plantation where the slaves acquired guns and gun powered from the plantation they conquered. Eventually they conquered the plantation that Cuffy was a slave on. Because Cuffy was house slave he was more educated, and the rebels accepted his as their leader. Cuffy appointed his trust worthy friend Akara as his general. The Rebellion had by then grown to a number of over five hundred. Cuffy strove to establish order and discipline in his troop. Cuffy tried to avoid bloodshed by writing to the governor proposing a partition of Berbice where the Dutch would get the coastlands and the rebels would occupy the interior. The governor however was very clever and kept writing back and forth to Cuffy in order to stall him until reinforcement arrived. Cuffy realized this too late and when he did decided to attack it was too late and they were driven back. This defeat brought disunity in the ranks and Akara broke became the leader of the group that was opposing Cuffy and fight broke out between the rebels. In the end Cuffy lost and took his life in belief that by taking his own life his soul would return to Africa. on every 23rd of Feburay Guyana celebrates it Republic day in memory of Cuffys struggle. This is a rich part of Guyana that shows the will and might of the Guyanese people to secure their freedom at any cost.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 13:34:17 +0000
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