'A man for the people': Paul Cuffe movie filmed in Dartmouth
Director Anita Allison reviews the script. Photos by Abby Van Selous
Crew members go over a scene on the bank of the Slocums River.
Tyson Brown as Paul Cuffe films a scene for the upcoming film "Cuffe: Untaxed" on the bank of the Slocums River.
Salustiano Berrios as Michael Wainer with the grandfather clock.
Director Anita Allison gives actors Tyson Brown, right, and Salustiano Berrios directions.
A boat built by high schoolers in Brooklyn, New York.
Props of food.
Director Anita Allison reviews the script. Photos by Abby Van Selous
Crew members go over a scene on the bank of the Slocums River.
Tyson Brown as Paul Cuffe films a scene for the upcoming film "Cuffe: Untaxed" on the bank of the Slocums River.
Salustiano Berrios as Michael Wainer with the grandfather clock.
Director Anita Allison gives actors Tyson Brown, right, and Salustiano Berrios directions.
A boat built by high schoolers in Brooklyn, New York.
Props of food.
At 4 a.m. one mid-May morning when much of Dartmouth was asleep, a small group of filmmakers and actors were on the bank of the Slocums River, hoping to capture the perfect shot of the sunrise.
They set up their cameras and props near the river bank, but there was just one problem: a boat docked in the water where they hadn’t expected one to be.
“That boat was not here when we did the location scout,” said Product Designer Jeff Palmer, “And we had a whole shot that was in this direction, but we showed up this morning, there’s a boat, so we had to move things.”
Normally, a motorboat on the water is a common sight, except for when it’s the 1770s and they haven’t been invented yet.
Since January, the team has been working on “Cuffe: Taxed”, a short film about Paul Cuffe, a Black and Wampanoag man who was born on Cuttyhunk Island in 1759.
Cuffe, who lived in Westport, was the first Black captain of a fleet of whaling ships and was a prominent figure during the Revolutionary War.
“He was one of the richest Black men of his time, and he also was the first Black man to sit with an active president — James Madison,” said Producer Joy Walsh, “And he opened schools, and he poured that money back into his community.”
Walsh called Cuffe a “man for the people.”
“He did so many things for the future, and just was that figure, and we just don’t hear about our leaders in that time.” she said. “You don’t hear about black leaders … we barely hear about Indigenous leaders of that time.”
Tyson Brown, who plays Paul Cuffe in the film, said that Paul Cuffe is “definitely an absolute legend that I feel like a lot of people haven’t heard about. Hopefully this is the ending of that, and people will start to hear about him.”
After George Floyd was killed in 2020, director Anita Allison felt the need to tell stories that were more meaningful than the marketing videos she produced for her corporate job, and so she left her job to discover the story she’d like to tell.
Allison traveled to Sierra Leone, and when she returned home, she visited the New Bedford Whaling Museum, where she learned about Paul Cuffe for the first time.
She said she was “completely blown away” because she had never heard of him before, despite looking for interracial people like herself throughout history.
“Learning about Paul Cuffe, who was this successful man who was politically influential enough to be able to meet with the president and you know put his money back into his community, it resonated with me,” Allison said.
She said that the film isn’t a “dry historical drama” but a “fast-paced adventure story that’s irreverent and a bit satirical.”
In the short film, Paul Cuffe is 19-years-old and a British blockade runner, running supplies and food to Nantucket during the Revolutionary War, along with his brother-in-law Michael Wainer.
At the time and in a fight against taxation without representation, Cuffe was being taxed “really egregiously” by the government and more than what his property was worth, Allison said.
“[The colonists] are doing it to Black and Indigenous people — the same thing that the British are doing to them,” she said, which is an irony she explores in the film.
While the film is primarily an historical account, Allison added one fictional plot line: Paul Cuffe’s attempt to transport a grandfather clock to pay off his taxes.
Allison said that the film is meant to do a few things: encapsulate the feel of the South Coast, celebrate a local hero and get people excited about Paul Cuffe.
“While the foundations of America were being laid, there’s all these small stories of people that were also helping shape this country,” she said.
As a Marion resident, Allison said her intention with the film has always been to make it specifically for South Coast residents “first and foremost” so they can “see who we have.”
“I just think that these are super important stories to tell, because we don’t hear them, and I would like to see myself represented in history,” she said.
“Cuffe: Taxed” will be premiering at the New Bedford Whaling Museum on Thursday, Aug. 13 and will also be played on Monday, Aug. 17 when the Mayflower II Fuller Shallop is in Padanaram Harbor.
