Amos Fortune, Free Man

Amos Fortune, Free Man provides three general pictures of a state of enslavement. First, there is what is understood as chattel slavery, in which Africans and people of African descent are bought, sold, and possessed by other humans as property for forced and unpaid labor. This is the version of slavery that Fortune, as well as his three wives and daughter, experience. In the 21st century, the institution of slavery is decried as a human rights violation. However, as is outlined in the Slavery as a Benevolent Institution theme entry, Yates downplays the negative aspects of institutionalized slavery, focusing on its potential as a means of formal and religious education to overall better the lives of the enslaved. Slavery is framed as the greatest fortunes that Fortune encounters in his life; he even expresses gladness that he did not break free from his captors in Africa, as “the years between have shown me that it does a man no good to be free until he knows how to live, how to walk in step with God” (162).

Having already established this distorted positive representation of slavery, Yates introduces the “Public Vendue” in Chapter 9. She writes, “Vendues were auctions at which townspeople could bid for the privilege of affording care to the indigent” (150). While this practice is worded as the town’s generous way of providing for the poor, there is essentially no difference between this and chattel slavery. As even the narrator puts it, the buyers “get labor in the cheapest way” (153). The reader recognizes the vendue as slavery because Yates uses the same rhetoric to present it as charity; her descriptions echo Chapters 3 and 4, in which both Copeland and Richardson are considered generous saviors for buying Fortune.

Finally, the novel introduces white indentured servitude through the person of Charlie Toothaker. This complicates the racial dynamics that we see in slavery, as white people become the victims of forced labor. While indentured servants differ from slaves in that the condition is temporary, both institutions punish poverty and exploit the labor of those who are most vulnerable. Part of Charlie’s contract reads, “During all which term the said apprentice his said master faithfully shall serve, his secrets keep, his lawful commands gladly everywhere obey” (166-67). The term “master” and the demand for complete obedience evoke the language of slavery. And yet, in this case, Fortune, a Black man, is Charlie’s benevolent supporter. 

Complementing these various euphemized iterations of enslavement are Yates’s multiple definitions of freedom in the book. On the one hand, there is freedom defined as manumission, in which a person is legally released from their enslavement. Typically, this is a positive change of legal and social status. However, if slavery, as defined in the world of Amos Fortune, Free Man, is good, then how can freedom from it also be good? In order for this to be the case, Yates must shift the definition of freedom as well. As Fortune assumes his duty with Charlie, Violet assures Fortune that Charlie will learn from him “what it is to be a free man” (168). Charlie, a white boy, is already free in the sociopolitical sense. However, Violet’s remark defines freedom not as release from enslavement, but as an identity of confidence and self-assuredness that only hard work and faith can impart.

Amos Fortune, Free Man offers a third iteration of freedom through the progression of Polly Burdoo’s life with the Fortunes. When she dies in bed at the Fortunes’ house, Fortune expresses gladness that she died free. This confuses Violet who says, “She wasn’t ever a slave. [...] She was born free” (160). Fortune responds, “She wasn’t free when she was so poor” (160). Here, Fortune redefines freedom again, equating the Burdoos’ poverty with slavery.  

In placing the institution of slavery on par with—and therefore no worse than—spiritual, financial, or personal hardship, Yates reinforces the apologist view that minimizes the personal, generational, and historical impacts of Black enslavement: For historically enslaved Black people, freedom and slavery are matters of life and death. The legacy of slavery included racialized violence, Jim Crow laws, and difficulty in Black families acquiring and retaining generational wealth. The text indicts those, like the Burdoos, who do not immediately financially recover from slavery, implying that once freed, Black people face few obstacles in acquiring wealth, and those they do face are considered natural and possible to overcome. The way Yates redefines freedom and blurs the lines between slavery, indentured servitude, and poverty undermines the severity and the injustice of institutionalized slavery and minimizes the significance of manumission for those who received it.