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
Amos’s Jaffrey neighbors help with construction so that before the winter of 1789 falls, he and his family have a comfortable, if simple, place to live. But his tanning business continues to thrive, and the coins Amos collects eventually go toward comforts like feather beds and other furniture, luxuries like a mirror, and the livestock and equipment necessary for farming. As people bring hides from far and wide to Amos’s tannery, his business grows until he has an indentured apprentice working for him in addition to Moses Burdoo and his brother. Amos even has enough money to make loans to his customers on occasion.
The hard work of the Fortune family bears fruit as they establish a comfortable home and eventually begin to fill it with small luxuries. The simpleness of these luxuries reflects their time and place—a large but semirural town in late 18th-century America. From this wealth, the Fortunes continue to help others, like the Burdoos—not just by funneling money to the family through the boys’ wages, but by teaching them the virtue of hard work.
Themes
Amos becomes a member of Jaffrey’s library, and he reads through the winters when business slows down. He subscribes to a newspaper to stay informed about worldly affairs. People seek his opinions, value his advice, and treat him as a fellow citizen. His hard work and good life have earned him a form of equality, unlike other Black community members. Even Celyndia finds herself marginalized at the local school because of her race.
In addition to his thriving business, Amos’s activities in the town indicate that his neighbors like and respect him—a fact that the book borrows from the historical records. Still, although his stature confirms Amos’s beliefs about the value of hard work and what it can earn a person, his family can’t fully escape racism and segregation.
Themes
The better things go for Amos, the more he pities those who live on charity. No matter how much help she receives, Lois never seems able to better herself; even her children waste away the gifts of clothing they’re given through carelessness. Finally, in 1793, the town grows tired of supporting Lois’s family and warns her that it intends to put Polly and Moses up for “Public Vendue.” This is an auction where the labor of those poor enough to require support from the village is put up for sale to the lowest bidder—the person who will charge the city the least for the poor person’s upkeep over the course of a year.
As if to prove Violet’s assertion that the more the town helps Lois Burdoo the more helpless she becomes, soon after the Fortunes complete the construction of their house, the Burdoos fall into poverty so deep that the town refuses to support them for free. If Amos believes that he earned his freedom through hard work and good living, the Burdoos and other poor people in the town represent the flip side of this idea: sloth and poor choices become the rationale for a solution that sounds a lot like slavery.
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When Celyndia brings news of the impending auction to her family, Amos can barely believe it. He worries that Lois’s daughter Polly won’t be able to stand the hard work her patron will demand. But when he visits the Meeting House himself, he sees Polly’s name on the list of eight people up for Public Vendue. On December 31, in the midst of a blizzard so blinding he can’t see the mountain, Amos goes to his first slave auction in years.
It doesn’t matter that Polly is sickly and perhaps already too ill to work; her family’s inability to support itself means that she deserves her fate in the eyes of the town. The blizzard, which obscures the mountain, suggests the perturbation in Amos’s soul knowing that Polly faces the loss of her freedom—even if only for a time.
Themes
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The eight “poor of the year” huddle fearfully near the auctioneer. Some of the villagers, mindful that they’re about to get unconscionably cheap labor, have the decency to look ashamed. Others gleefully anticipate making some easy money off the town. Amos’s presence surprises everyone since he usually holds himself above such morally questionable practices. Lois sits in a corner, sobbing, and her distress increases when the tavernkeeper bids four pounds for Polly. Other bids come in, but none drop much below two pounds, which seems to be the least a person would expect to spend on feeding the girl for the year. Finally, when it becomes clear that the bidding has almost ended, Amos stands and offers a little more than £1.5, winning the auction.
While the villagers have different levels of comfort with using the forced labor of their neighbors, none of them question the rightness of requiring some people to work in order to earn the town’s support. This, in turn, supports the book’s claim—which Amos himself stated just a few pages earlier—that hard work and good living earn a person citizenship while indolence deserves punishment. But the Public Vendue also gives Amos a chance to save Polly from a terrible fate in much the same way that he saved Lily, Lydia, Violet, and Celyndia—thorough the application of his hard-earned money.
Themes
Joseph Stewart buys the rights to two years of Moses Burdoo’s labor for the high price of fifteen pounds. Although Stewart is a “hard man,” Amos thinks that Moses will “profit by a firm hand” and the beatings he will likely receive might help him grow up. But Polly has a comfortable time with the Fortune family. Despite her dislike for Lois, Violet treats Polly kindly and Celyndia considers her like a sister. But despite a professed eagerness to help, Polly just can’t seem to bring herself to work. She often loses herself in reveries and neglects her tasks; when Violet tries to teach her to use the loom, her “hands […] slide off the shuttle.” And when the family tries sending her to school, she’s dismissed with a note explaining that she refuses to learn.
Even though Amos feels strongly that Polly doesn’t deserve to be forced into physical labor, he doesn’t extend the same thinking to her brother, Moses. In fact, he expresses the idea that hard work—and possibly even physical punishment from the man who is effectively his enslaver—will teach Moses Burdoo the value of hard work. In this instance, the book yet again puts forth arguments sympathetic to enslavement. And, at first, it seems like Polly’s time in the Fortune house proves that financial and other assistance ruins rather than helps people, since Polly can’t manage even simple tasks.
Themes
Amos convinces the schoolmaster to keep Polly on, but soon enough she can’t even get out of bed. The weaker her body grows, the lighter her spirit becomes. Celyndia reads to her; Violet brings her food; Amos tells her stories, especially the one about the African chief and the chariot. Before her year with the Fortunes is up, Polly dies a peaceful death in their presence. Celyndia weeps, while Amos thanks the Lord that Polly died free. Violet points out that Polly was never enslaved, but to Amos, poverty is just another form of captivity. His face glows with a heavenly radiance, and Violet feels overwhelming love for this man who has spent so much of his life working to ensure the freedom of others.
It turns out that Polly’s indolence wasn’t the result of bad breeding but of her illness. Close to death, her mind and soul seem more aligned with heaven than solidly on earth. She provides the Fortunes—and readers—an example of the good death a Christian believer can expect if he or she is right with God. And it reminds Amos of his own yearning for the ultimate freedom—which, in his Christian worldview—can be attained only in heaven. And, as readers look through Violet’s adoring eyes, they see a goodness that certainly deserves a place in heaven.
Themes
Violet thinks Amos would free everyone if he could, but he humbly replies that he’s content with just doing his part. He dismisses Celyndia on an errand so he can privately tell Violet about the night he was captured, when he considered breaking his bonds and killing his white captor to free himself and the others with him in the canoe. Now he’s glad that he didn’t, because his life has taught him that freedom is worthless unless a person knows how to live and “walk in step with God.” He’s telling Violet this story now because he used to see the past and sorrows of Africa in Polly’s eyes. Her death gives him a glimpse of his joyful future in heaven, too. The town pays Amos in full for Polly’s upkeep, and he tells Violet he’s saving the money for something special.
Amos never looks outward from his interest in the individual people around him to critique slavery as an institution. The book paints this as part of his trust in God—Amos only takes responsibility for his life and immediate vicinity, leaving the rest to God and Divine Providence, which he trusts to bring about "freedom day" at the appropriate time. Of course, the Emancipation Proclamation won’t be written until more than six decades after his death.
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