Amos Fortune

Entrepreneur

• Born: c. 1710
• Birthplace: West Africa
• Died: November 17, 1801
• Place of death: Jaffrey, New Hampshire

Fortune was born in Africa and spent much of his life in slavery in America. After gaining his freedom, he became a successful and wealthy businessman and a leading citizen of his New Hampshire town.

Early Life

Amos Fortune (AY-muhs FOHR-chuhn) was born on the Gold Coast of West Africa around 1710. There is no available information about his childhood, African ethnicity, or early life as a slave in America. Many believe that the first known document referring to Fortune was a 1763 unsigned agreement for his future freedom issued by his owner, Ichabod Richardson. However, F. Alexander Magoun, the author of Amos Fortune’s Choice (1964), notes that an earlier document exists, from 1752, in which Fortune is listed as the slave of Richardson. Much of what is known about Fortune is based on receipts for items, documents for land he purchased, his will, and his tombstone.

Life’s Work

Fortune was an extraordinary African American businessman. His literacy may have contributed to his business savvy. Fortune is believed to have learned to read and write while living in Boston. Later on, he lived in Woburn, Massachusetts, after being purchased by Richardson. While living in Massachusetts, Fortune learned the tannery trade from Richardson. In 1774, Fortune started his own tannery and purchased a half-acre of land from Isaac Johnson.

Richardson agreed to free Fortune in 1779, according to an unsigned manumission. However, Richardson died a year before the set date. After paying off his bond to the heirs of Richardson’s estate, Fortune was freed in 1770. He was sixty years old.

In 1778, Fortune purchased the freedom of Lydia Somerset. The two married, but Somerset died soon after. The next year, the sixty-nine-year-old Fortune bought fifty-year-old Violate Baldwin from her master, James Baldwin, for a sum of fifty dollars. Fortune and Violate were married the next day. The couple moved and made Jaffrey, New Hampshire, their home in 1781. Later, the couple adopted a daughter named Celyndia Fortune. Celyndia is known as his adopted daughter only through Fortune’s bequests for her in his will. Some inaccurately believe that Celyndia was the daughter of Violate prior to their marriage, however there is no evidence to support this. Celyndia was about four years old when she was adopted, which would have meant that Violate would have been fifty years old at Celyndia’s birth, which was unlikely.

During 1781, the Fortunes were issued a warning-out warrant. As described by Magoun, warning out was a practice in which the town asserts that it would not be held responsible for the well-being of new residents. Despite this warning, Fortune and his wife lived on town-owned land for eight years. By 1789, Fortune purchased twenty-five acres of land from William Turner. Soon afterward, Fortune built a house, a barn, and a tannery on his land.

Fortune was among the first citizens of Jaffrey, and his tannery business was successful. He became well known and admired as a great tanner. As a result, he tanned hides for customers in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Fortune was so well established that he trained a minimum of two apprentices, according to local library documents. Historical documents show that he gave out loans to those in need, and he taught a white doctor’s son to read and write.

Fortune died in 1801 at the age of ninety-one, leaving his belongings to his wife and adopted daughter. Fortune had amassed a great sum of wealth through his business. His will was executed by Eleazer Spofford. Staying true to his Christian faith, Fortune left a favorable sum of money to his church and requested that any additional monies be used to maintain schoolhouse number 8. The school received $342. With this money, an educational trust was created and evolved into the Amos Fortune Fund, provided by the Jaffrey Public Library.

In his will, money was allotted for the erection of beautiful gravestones for Fortune and his wife, who died a year later. The gravestones of the Fortunes have been a pivotal aspect of their legacy. Fortune’s gravestone reminds onlookers of his inherent freedom as a man born in Africa, his experience as an enslaved man in America, his Christian faith, and his optimism: “Sacred to the memory of Amos Fortune, who was born free in Africa, a slave in America, he purchased liberty, professed Christianity, lived reputably, and died hopefully.”

The most famous historical book about Fortune is a children’s novel by Elizabeth Yates called Amos Fortune, Free Man (1950). Although Yates highlights the importance of Fortune as a historical figure, her work portrays Fortune as a somewhat docile slave character who becomes a Christian, and his professed Christianity is presented as a positive reason for slavery to exist. In Amos Fortune, Free Man, Fortune owns a satisfactorily submissive slave. Yates’s work may support an unintentional cultural superiority viewpoint toward slavery, Africa, and Fortune’s life. Still, Yates’s book is used as a starting point for teaching elementary school students about African American history. Yates won a number of awards, including the Newbery Award and the William Allen White Children’s Book Award. She also won the Herald Tribune Award.

Significance

Much of Fortune’s legacy is based on his success as a businessman and an upright citizen of Jaffrey, in fact, one of Jaffrey’s first citizens. He was a member of the local church, which he joined in 1789. Furthermore, in 1796 Fortune helped establish the Jaffrey Social Library. His story is a dramatic one, that of a young boy stolen from Africa to become a successful businessman in a new world. In addition, his story is a source of inspiration, showing the intelligence, business savvy, and dignity of an African American entrepreneur in the late 1700’s.

Bibliography

Kaplan, Sidney, and Emma Kaplan. The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. Profiles of African Americans who lived and worked in the days of the American Revolution.

Kranz, Rachel. African American Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs. New York: Facts On File, 2004. Kranz gives an overview of many different African American business leaders, presenting the life and times of Fortune.

Kuger-Kahloula, Angelika. “History, Memory, and Politics Written in Stone.” In Moments of the Black Atlantic: Slave and Memory, edited by Joanne M. Braxton and Maria Diedrich. Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction, 2004. Kuger-Kahloula explores the connection between gravestone descriptions and the lives of African descendants buried beneath them. She investigates the lives of Amos and Violate Fortune.

Magoun, F. Alexander. Amos Fortune’s Choice. Freeport, Maine: Bond Wheelwright, 1964. Magoun’s historical-fiction depiction based on the research he conducted of documents pertaining to Fortune.

Trousdale, Ann. “A Submission Theology for Black Americans: Religion and Social Action in Prize-Winning Children’s Books About the Black Experience in America.” National Council of Teachers in English 24, no. 2 (May, 1990): 123-129. Trousdale examines the ways in which the African American experience has been depicted in various children’s books, including Amos Fortune, Free Man.

Yates, Elizabeth. Amos Fortune, Free Man. New York: Dutton, 1950. Yates’s book about the life of Fortune won the Newbery Award.