Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) malignity, perversity, cantankerousness, contrariness.

1862		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers 2nd series (1898) 248: Cussedness, meaning wickedness, malignity.
1875		Atlantic Monthly 544: The depraved mule rejoices in his heart if he can make someone miserable. It is a trait for which in the West they have a specific term. They call it cussedness.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 22/4: The chaste Lucrece was in bed when her avengers came to hear the sad story of her wrongs, and it is said that her refined deportment and appropriate get-up on this occasion did more to inflame the wrath of Brutus than even the dreadful tale of Tarquin’s cussedness.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Aug. 22/2: Now, whether it was the perfumery, or some trick on the part of the ranting Scots, or Tumpeter’s own cussedness, I never knew.
1894		Forest Repub. (Tionesta, PA) 4 Apr. 3/2: Of all the box-ankled, brandy-shanked, flea-bitten, lob-eared, mangy, courageless, brainless jackasses that ever assembled [...] I think for pure downright cussedness the present Congress [...] beats them all.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 1 Dec. 134: It is ‘pure cussedness’ on your part to persist in these visits when there is no need for them.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Aug. 10/2: Though He could tell His purpose clearly it seems that, out of pure cussedness, He won’t do it, but simply kills a lot of people and leaves the community to guess why He did it, and how to prevent Him killing a lot more.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl. 13: cussedness, general. General mischievousness.
1928		C. McKay Home to Harlem 22: Strong like a bull, yet just knocked off in the dark through raw cracker cussedness.