Cuffy (slave)

Cuffy, also known as Kofi Badu,[1] also spelled as Coffij, Coffy, Cuffy, Kofi, or Koffi (died in 1763), was an African Akan man who was captured in West Africa and stolen for slavery to work on the plantations of the Dutch colony of Berbice in present-day Guyana.

Cuffy lived in Lilienburg, a plantation on the Berbice River, as a house-slave for a cooper (barrel maker).

[3] On 23 February 1763, slaves on plantation Magdalenenberg on the Canje River rebelled, protesting harsh and inhumane treatment.

They torched the plantation house,[4] and made for the Courantyne River where Caribs and troops commanded by Governor Wigbold Crommelin [nl] of Suriname attacked, and killed them.

[7] They agreed to allow the whites to leave the brick house, but as soon they left, the rebels killed many and took several prisoners, among them Sara George, the 19-year-old daughter of the Peerenboom Plantation owner,[9] whom Cuffy kept as his wife.

Doing so he named Captain Accara as his deputy in charge of military affairs, and tried to establish discipline over the troops.

Accara attacked the whites three times without permission from Cuffy, and eventually the colonists were driven back.

[16] He was waiting for support from neighboring colonies; a ship from Suriname had already arrived,[7] and reinforcements from Barbados and Sint Eustatius soon followed.