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
Ichabod Richardson is a stern, silent man who believes that he treats his slaves well. He expects them to work during the week and attend church on Sunday. He pays them wages—although less than he would pay a white man for the same labor—and he aims to set them free before they are too old to enjoy the gift.
Ichabod Richardson considers himself a good man despite being an enslaver because he treats the people he enslaves at least as well as others in the community, or perhaps better. And the fact that he requires the people he enslaves to attend Church and practice the Christian faith is in line with the “civilizing” arguments that claim enslavement offers benefits to its victims.
Themes
When Mr. Richardson and Amos arrive at Richardson’s home, Amos puts away the wagon and cares for the horse before he goes into the house. Richardson instructs Amos to report at 5:30 a.m. for prayers and the day’s work. Before withdrawing, Amos asks to be sent into Boston to conduct Richardson’s business when slave ships arrive in port. Richardson agrees—if Amos behaves. Amos expected this response; his life as an enslaved person has taught him that nothing good happens to him except as a reward for good behavior.
When Amos considers that nothing good comes to him except as a reward for good behavior, he articulates a truth about the way enslavers exercised total control over their victims—in large part because the law granted them the right to do so. But he’s also articulating a version of the American work ethic and bootstraps mythology, which claims that people who work hard will always be rewarded while those who are subjugated or downtrodden haven’t worked hard enough. But the fact that white men kidnapped Amos and enslaved him raises questions about the relationship between good (or bad) behavior and good (or bad) life circumstances.
Themes
Mrs. Richardson gives Amos a plate of food and a candle. He takes these to his living quarters. The Richardsons listen to Amos singing to himself late into the night. Mrs. Richardson listens with appreciation, remarking that the songs of enslaved people sound like those of caged birds. Mr. Richardson tells her that he will free Amos—in time. First, he must earn the family at least as much money as Richardson has invested in his purchase and upkeep.
Like Celia Copeland, the book portrays Mrs. Richardson as a more enlightened human being in her awareness that the institution of slavery deprives people of their freedom and human dignity, like birds in a cage. But Mrs. Richardson’s conscientious feelings—like Celia’s—don’t translate into actions, as she willingly participates in Amos’s enslavement, regardless of whether she treats him well or poorly. Notably, Mr. Richardson blurs the line here between enslaved laborers and indentured servants. Both work for no or small wages, but indentured servants do so as a form of repayment for a monetary gift or for the advantage of learning a trade. And while Amos learns how to tan hides from Mr. Richardson, he’s not an indentured servant, because he didn’t enter into this employment of his own free will.
Themes
During the years he lives with the Richardsons, Amos learns the tanner’s trade and makes himself an indispensable and valued member of the family. Mr. Richardson especially appreciates Amos’s willingness to profess Christianity and attend Sunday services without complaint. For his part, Amos doesn’t understand Richardson’s emphasis on Sunday observance; after he accepts the Christian religion, he finds opportunities to practice it daily, no matter where he is. This insistence on Sunday performance seems to him like the white world’s insistence on the importance of skin color—it puzzles him, but he doesn’t let it bother him.
Readers should be alert for instances like this, where the book employs familial language to describe the relationship between an enslaved person like Amos and his enslavers. Terms like this blur the harsh reality that law and custom consider Amos a piece of property—remember that the Copelands sold their dear “friend” when they needed money. Amos also shows himself to be a model Christian, perhaps even better than the white people around him who don’t worship God as devoutly as he does. While his faith brings him comfort and demonstrates the importance of faith as a guiding principle, readers may also interpret Amos’s model conversion as evidence of the book’s stance that Amos’s enslavement has been good for his soul, even if it deprived him of his freedom and his real family. And, notably, here as elsewhere in the book, Amos recognizes issues of racism, white supremacy, enslavement, and abuse but lets them slide off his back in a way that allows the book to sidestep the implications of its argument that slavery is less a brutal human rights abuse than an important means of bringing civilization to the world.
Themes
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Many changes happen in the Colonies during Amos’s time with Mr. Richardson and Mrs. Richardson: chafing under unjust taxation and tyrannical rule by faraway colonial authorities, the fledgling country of America begins to assert its independence.
Because Amos’s journey from enslavement to freedom roughly coincides with the American Revolution, the book metaphorically presents Amos’s story as a quintessential American story. But the metaphor remains incomplete because it fails to question the hypocrisy of a country asserting independence while denying freedom to enslaved people.
Themes
During these years, Mr. Richardson keeps his word to send Amos into Boston—with a note explaining that Amos has his enslaver’s permission to be at large—when slave ships arrive at harbor, and he soon learns that Amos drives a better bargain than he himself does. Amos also reads the advertisements in the papers for private sales of individual slaves. He always wants to talk to newly arrived Africans, but they often don’t yet understand English, and he barely remembers any of the At-mun-shi tongue, despite his best efforts. He wishes he could communicate, not just to ask about Ath-mun, but also to tell these newly arrived captives that they might still have a chance for a happy life, but he knows that they probably wouldn’t believe him, even if they could understand him.
The book’s assertion that Amos makes better business deals than Mr. Richardson indicates his growing reputation in the community as he matures. It’s also unlikely, given the prejudice and racism in the colonial and Revolutionary periods—and which the book describes in other chapters. Yet again, Amos becomes an apologist—or at least a tacit supporter—of enslavement when he wishes he could assure enslaved people that their lives can still be happy. But even if his experience of kind and respectful enslavers were the rule rather than the exception, it ignores the enslaved person’s loss of freedom, which the book upholds as a precious right.
Themes
During 20 years of service, Amos never fails to make a good sale or return to the tannery without news from town and a gift for Mrs. Richardson. In December of 1763, he brings her a mirror. He gives it to her after negotiating with Mr. Richardson for his freedom after six more years of work. Mrs. Richardson looks at her face in the mirror, resigned to the changes the decades have made, then offers it to Amos, who looks at his own 50-year-old face and realizes how much time has passed since his captors separated him from his beloved sister, Ath-mun. He begins to sob. He runs to his quarters, where the Richardsons hear him singing spirituals to himself late into the night.
During the years of his enslavement, Amos earns the respect of his enslavers by working hard. Mr. Richardson’s offer of freedom seems to confirm Amos’s belief that hard work will earn him good things. But looking in the mirror reminds Amos of all that his enslavement has cost him—not just the family he left behind in Africa, but also his youth and the prime years of his life. Still, as a person who adopts his religious faith as a guiding principle, he finds comfort in singing spirituals.
Themes
Mr. Richardson hypothesizes that the mirror upset Amos because it showed him that he isn’t white. Mrs. Richardson recognizes that Amos’s yearning lies in his faraway homeland, and she worries about the morality of bringing captive Africans to the colonies and enslaving them. Mr. Richardson sharply defends the colonialists’ treatment of enslaved people. He’s more worried about freedom for the colonies than freedom for enslaved people. Still, he follows through on drawing up the manumission paper that will free Amos, feeling very generous and righteous as he does so. But when he comes to bed and tells Mrs. Richardson that he will make arrangements with a banker to be sure that Amos pays a full indenture—something that will keep him in Richardson’s service for more than the agreed-upon six years—she criticizes his hard-heartedness and selfishness.
Mr. Richardson requires Amos to pay for his freedom out of the wages that Mr. Richardson himself pays Amos—a circular economy that returns a lot of Richardson’s money back to its original owner—as if Amos voluntarily entered into an indenture agreement with him. Amos never agreed to this when he negotiated for his freedom with Richardson—offering a grim reminder of the power imbalance between the white enslaver and his Black enslaved laborer. But because the book portrays Amos as naturally respecting the authority of white men, even when they take advantage of him or abuse him, Amos doesn’t dare to disagree.
Themes
Having to pay for his freedom doesn’t bother Amos, however, since it means he will have achieved it through his own effort, not anyone’s kindness. Fortunately for him, Mr. Richardson drew up the papers before his death, unlike Caleb Copeland. And when Mr. Richardson passes away, Mrs. Richardson quickly files a quitclaim, releasing Amos from the rest of his indenture three years early, on May 9, 1769.
The book presents Amos’s readiness to buy his own freedom as a reflection of his inherent dignity; he won’t bargain over the value of his life with others, and he will take responsibility for himself. But he was free—before he was kidnapped and enslaved. Mr. Richardson thus offers him a charity that would not be necessary without the implicit and explicit support of white colonialists like himself for the slave trade.
Themes
On that May morning, Amos gathers his scant possessions—a Bible, a change of clothes, a pair of silver shoe buckles. Then he breathes in the fresh spring air, watches birds flying overhead, and considers that he last tasted freedom in the spring. That was a lifetime ago; now nearing 60, he is finally ready to live his life. He still feels strong, and he remembers that in the Bible, Moses lived to the age of 120 without losing his strength of body or mind. As he tells Mrs. Richardson, he plans to go somewhere where he can work and establish a home for himself. But, she replies, he will never have more than half a home unless he finds a wife. Amos assures Mrs. Richardson that he has his eye on a wife, whom he will marry as soon as he saves up enough money to buy her freedom.
In the last snatches of his original freedom—before Caleb Copeland bought his perpetual labor—Amos watched the seagulls flying over Boston Harbor. Now in the first moments of his second freedom, he watches the birds again. But this time, he is as free as they are. When the obvious fact that he lost his youth and middle age to his enslavers occurs to Amos, he leans into his faith to find comfort, reminding himself that Moses lived for nearly twice as many years as Amos has yet been alive. Importantly, although Moses led the Israelites out of enslavement in Egypt, according to the book of Genesis in the Bible, God never allowed him to set foot in the promised land. In this way, Amos hopes his own life will surpass Moses. But his promised land still lies a long way off. And if he wants to have anyone to share it with, he must buy her freedom as well, because chattel slavery and racism ensure that Amos and other Black people remain second-class citizens in the colonies.
Themes
Mrs. Richardson offers Amos the opportunity to continue at the tannery, which Amos accepts, but only as a transitional arrangement while he builds a homestead and establishes his own business as a carpenter. Every Sunday during the four years this takes, he visits the woman he loves, Lily, at the home of Jonathan Twombly, where she is enslaved. Lily agrees with Amos to wait to marry until she has her freedom, even though enslaved people can sometimes get permission to marry from their enslavers. While Amos and Lily wait for Amos to save enough to purchase Lily’s freedom, the newspapers carry accounts of frustrated colonialists dumping tea into Boston Harbor to protest high taxes, and of Boston’s Black community agitating against enslavers breaking up families through selling individual members.
Refusing to haggle over the prices demanded by his wives’ enslavers is a point of pride for Amos; he seems to feel that trying to get a bargain would compromise his dignity and further suggest the dehumanization of enslaved people. The book briefly juxtaposes his efforts to gain freedom for Lily with other agitations for freedom, suggesting that Amos’s, colonists’ and Black people’s efforts all contribute to the same noble story of growing American freedom. This hints at—but doesn’t fully explore—the marginalization and enslavement of millions of Black people in the colonies and the early United States.
Themes
Finally, Amos presents himself to Twombly and buys Lily from her enslaver for twenty pounds. Sadly, she dies within the year, although Amos feels satisfaction that she died free. Soon after her death, Amos meets Lydia, an enslaved woman in the home of Josiah Bowers. Her captors broke her legs on the voyage from Africa, so she now walks with a crutch and a limp. That same day, Amos arranges to buy her freedom from Bowers, who insists he will accept no less than fifty pounds for Lydia, a “well-trained servant” with a “good disposition.” Like Twombly, Bowers finds it amusing that Amos wishes to marry an infirm enslaved woman.
Amos demonstrates his work ethic, good character, and his abiding faith when he expresses no bitterness over Lily’s untimely death. But plenty of bitterness remains in the world, especially in this institution of enslavement, as Lydia’s body demonstrates. Permanently disabling their captives demonstrates the depravity and greed of the slave traders and points to the ways that enslavers devalued the lives of their victims. Twombly sees Lydia as an asset while Amos recognizes her human dignity. And he keeps his own dignity intact no matter that white men like Twombly consider his actions childish.
Themes
During the three years it takes Amos to save up fifty pounds, the colonies declare their independence from Britain, and the Revolutionary War takes place. It isn’t lost on Amos—and the Black men who join the ranks of the Revolutionary Army—that many of the same people anxious to break the bonds of colonial restriction and tyranny don’t care to break enslaved people’s bonds. Amos wishes he could join the fight, but he’s in his late 60s. So he fights for freedom in his own way, with “hard-earned coinage.”
The limitations that segregation and racism impose come to the forefront when Black people—both free and still enslaved—join the ranks of the Revolutionary Army and discover that their sacrifices for the fledgling country aren’t valued in the same way as their white counterparts’. And while the book claims a sense of pride for Amos as he fights for freedom through hard work, it skirts the fact that he fights to earn a basic human right—freedom—in ways that further enrich white enslavers.
Themes
Once a week, Amos visits Lydia and tells her how he wants to make her free. She can’t remember her life in Africa and wants to know if freedom makes the air sweeter or the sun warmer. She weeps as she describes how the crew on her ship broke her legs—and the legs of all the other captives—after some of them sought freedom by leaping into the sea to their deaths. It takes a painfully long time for Amos to save the fifty pounds. But he refuses to bargain over human flesh, and he doesn’t consider it his right to question Bowers’ asking price. But finally, the day comes when he presents himself to Bowers, hands over the money, and receives Lydia’s manumission paper. Sadly, like Lily, she too dies within the year.
Unlike Amos, the extreme mistreatment that Lydia suffered has forced any memories of freedom or her life before enslavement from her mind. The captives who leap from the boat to their watery deaths rather than face the grim abuses of enslavement demonstrate the value of freedom—they would rather die than face a life of captivity. Still, although Amos’s refusal to bargain points to the dignity he confers on Lydia’s life, the prejudicial and racist treatment he’s received throughout his life has taught him that he cannot question white men, even when they do things like deprive people of their freedom and dignity.
Themes
