Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Amos Fortune, Free Man, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom and Slavery
Dignity and Racism
Hard Work and Good Character
Providence and Faith
Summary
Analysis
The later years of Amos’s life pass quietly. As he grows older, the family makes more money through Violet’s and Celyndia’s weaving, and Amos takes on a second apprentice, Charlie Toothaker. Charlie’s father, a doctor, was a neighbor from Amos’s Woburn days, and he took care of Amos’s first two wives, Lily and Lydia, in their final illnesses. But his circumstances have changed. Now impoverished, Charlie’s father wants to place his children in homes where they will receive care and learn trades. He and Amos contracted an indenture agreement for Charlie until the boy turns 21.
Even when Amos himself grows too old and infirm to continue to work as he did in his youth, the family continues to demonstrate the value of hard work through their various enterprises. And in time, Amos becomes the benefactor of another’s low-cost labor in the form of his indentured servant, Charlie. The difference between his enslavement and Charlie’s, of course, is that Charlie’s father contracted the indenture of his own free will and Charlie has a settled date for his freedom while he is still young.
Themes
Amos often reviews Charlie’s indenture document to make sure he’s following through on his end of the bargain and raising Charlie to be a responsible person. The contract charges Charlie with learning Amos’s trade while avoiding wasting Amos’s goods, having sex or getting married, gambling, missing work, or indulging in excess drinking during the years of his service. In exchange, Amos provides room, board, and a basic education. Charlie doesn’t value book learning as much as Amos does, but Violet knows that Amos will teach the boy not just to be a tanner but also what it means to be a free man.
Amos takes on the role not just of the holder of Charlie’s indenture but of his teacher. And he doesn’t want to just teach Charlie how to tan hides—he also wants to show him how to use his freedom well. In this as in other moments, the book twines the idea of freedom with that of responsibility. And it suggests a parallel between indenture and enslavement that supports a worldview in which slavery, while problematic, also conferred benefits on its victims.
Themes
Violet’s comments make Amos think back over the decades of his life as a free man, in which he secured the freedom of Lily, Lydia, Violet, Celyndia, and Polly. Each of these acts arises out of his love and devotion to his sister, Ath-mun, in memory of whom he dedicated himself to helping the helpless. He has done all his good deeds so that when he meets his sister in heaven, she will be proud of him. He looks more and more forward to this meeting, which seems close at hand by the summer of 1801. He only has one task left to accomplish.
By any account Amos’s life and efforts have been remarkable; not only did he preserve his dignity and sense of self after being kidnapped and enslaved, but he worked hard all the while and purchased the freedom of six people in addition to making a good life for himself and his family. And, as his ruminations reveal, he has never forgotten his sister or where he came from.
Themes
Over the years, Amos has earned the respect of most of his neighbors in Jaffrey, but institutions still marginalize him based on his race. For example, it doesn’t matter that he’s been a member of the church for decades. He and his family must sit with the rest of the Black members in the back rather than being able to purchase their own pew. And while he’s used to segregation after a lifetime in America, he still wants something better for his people. Especially Violet and Celyndia, who face “taunting and abuse” outside of safety of the Fortune home. And he remembers the lesson of his captor’s whip across his back, which taught Amos that white men consider him “an object upon which […to] exercise power.”
No matter how hard Amos works or the degree to which the community accepts him as a valuable member, his personal achievements cannot undo the racism in American society. He and his family remain segregated in public institutions like the church and school. This is one of the few areas where the book considers the pervasive problem of racism, although Amos still tends to downplay the responsibility of white society for marginalizing and harming Black people like himself.
Themes
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Men still exercise power over Amos, like the customer who pays far less than he agreed to for a hide and then publicly humiliates Amos by grabbing the goods from his hands and throwing his payment on the tavern floor, forcing Amos to hands and knees to retrieve it. Amos burns with rage at the indignity. But on his way home, he sits on a rock and watches a forest fire climbing the steep slopes of Monadnock. He considers that hate could burn a man up from the inside, and he vows not to allow hate to put him back in bondage. And he walks home, thinking of Moses, who freed his people without giving in to hate. When he returns home, he puts the pitiful payment into the stone crock where he’s banking money for a special project.
This episode provides a rare example of violent racism directed at Amos; the book otherwise tends to present the white people around Amos as generally decent and benevolent people, even when they are actively enslaving other humans. Notably, however, the racist customer remains anonymous and nameless in a way that suggests he either comes from outside the Jaffrey community or doesn’t represent broader society. Amos refuses to compromise his personal sense of dignity and humanity by indulging in anger in a way that confirms his morality. But by casting Amos as the bigger person, the book loses an opportunity to take the man to task or consider the implications of a society where people systemically enslave and marginalize groups.
Themes
As his strength wanes, Amos begins to feel “heart-hungry” for heaven, although he keeps this from Violet, because he knows how heartbroken she will be when he dies. He keeps quiet and prays for ways to “help free the white man and bless his own people.” Finally, Amos walks into town to draw up his will. He leaves his all his property to Violet and except some furniture, a spinning wheel, and loom, which go to Celyndia so she can make a living. He sets money aside for handsome headstones to grace his and Violet’s graves. And then he makes a generous gift to the two most important institutions in his life: the church and the school.
Amos looks forward to death since his Christian faith teaches him that the true reward for all his hard work will come in heaven, not on earth. But his earthly rewards continue to accumulate in the form of wealth and household goods. Amos’s bequests in the book are based on historical record, and the terms of his will are drawn from the actual document itself. This document shows Amos to be a relatively wealthy and conscientious man who has earned the right to be respected.
Themes
Amos gives the church half of his special fund to buy a silver communion service, and the rest goes to the school to “educate its sons and daughters,” even though his own daughter Celyndia has faced abuse and mistreatment there. He hopes that as the village’s boys and girls learn more, they will realize how their behavior affects others and choose to live upstanding lives, doing only what’s “worthy of men and women.” As he walks home, he tells God that he’s ready for death. He has accomplished everything he wished to do.
Amos wants to leave money to two institutions that he values but which have systematically excluded or marginalized himself and his family. In a way, he asserts his right to participate by these bequests. And in another way, he seems to hope that making them will improve the way the white world of Jaffrey treats him and other Black people. The wording of his bequest to the school, however, suggests the belief that racism is a personal failure rather than a systematic and pervasive set of conventions.
Themes
One hundred and fifty years later, a person can still see the headstones erected over Amos’s and Violet’s graves. Amos’s marker celebrates the legacy of a man born free in Africa but enslaved in America, who purchased his own freedom, professed the Christian faith, and died a well-respected man. Violet’s marker declares how Amos redeemed a woman born enslaved by purchasing her freedom and marrying her, and how she proved herself a faithful friend and solace in his later years. And Amos’s legacy lives on in the church’s silver communion service and the school’s endowment.
The very fact that Amos and Violet received burial in the main cemetery at Jaffrey—in other words, that they weren’t segregated in death as they were in life—points to the respect and regard Amos commanded in his community. His gifts reflect and claim this status at the same time. And they ensure that the world will remember and respect him long after his death.
Themes
