53 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth YatesAmos Fortune, Free Man
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1950A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Boston 1725-1740”
When Caleb Copeland arrives home with Fortune, his wife, Celia, is surprised. Caleb explains that he purchased Fortune. This further surprises Celia, who affirms that they are against slavery. Caleb explains that he bought Fortune to give him a Christian home and some education while also getting Fortune’s help around the house. They agree that they will free Fortune after they have civilized him. Caleb explains that Fortune cannot speak besides his name though Celia assumes he might say more when he is less afraid. Celia takes her two young children—Roger and Roxanna—with her to prepare a room for Fortune while Caleb attempts to teach Fortune how to use the loom. Fortune struggles to understand because of the language barrier. Celia commits to teaching him words in English. She shows him to his room where she teaches him some commands, like “come” and “sit.” Caleb expresses concern that Fortune cannot speak besides one sound—his name—but Celia senses that it is not a sound but a word in a language they don’t know.
At first, Fortune struggles to acclimate to the Copelands’ customs, such as using forks and sitting in chairs. He gradually learns this new way of life and adopts their style of clothing. He also goes to church with the Copelands and attends the children’s school that Celia runs in her kitchen. Eventually, Fortune learns to read and write. One day, he and Roxanna are reading from the Bible when the passage refers to followers of God as “Kings and priests unto God” (41). Fortune remarks, “Then I am a king” (41), which surprises Roxanna who has never heard him speak more than his name. From then on, he speaks more frequently and reads the Bible more often.
As the years pass, Roger becomes a weaver and moves away with his wife, and Roxanna grows very tall and becomes skilled in housework. Whenever Caleb mentions possibly manumitting Fortune, Fortune refuses it. He knows other Black people who gained their freedom and found it to be more difficult than when they were enslaved. He feels sorry for others in worse situations than his who have so desperately wanted to be free but have failed or been recaptured upon escape. His friends, other enslaved Black people, look up to him and appreciate that he still remembers Africa. However, he refuses to help them plot their escapes, instead encouraging them to wait for the “free day,” when enslavers would eventually give up slaveholding. Amos does not want his freedom yet because he did want to be alone or alienated from Caleb Copeland, who he had come to love and respect.
Fortune is always eager to go with Caleb to the harbor whenever ships come with cargo. He hopes to encourage the enslaved children that are put on the auction block as well as to search for his sister. He hopes to save enough to buy Ath-mun if she ever shows up at the wharf though he keeps this intention a secret.
Because of his good fortune in being treated well, Fortune’s friends nickname him “Fortunatus,” which soon becomes “Fortune.” He determines that he will adopt it as his surname when he is finally free. However, Caleb dies before Fortune can receive his free papers. Because of the Copelands’ debts, Fortune is sold along with other items of their property. Fortune is understanding and when it comes time for the auction, he even grins and throws in his own bids for himself. He is purchased by Ichabod Richardson, a tanner from Woburn.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Woburn 1740-1779”
Chapter 4 opens describing Ichabod Richardson as a good but stern man. He frequently purchases African people to enslave, train in a trade, and teach about Christianity while he pays them a small amount. He eventually gives them their freedom before they become too old. Richardson takes Fortune home, shows him his living quarters, and explains the rules of the house. Fortune thanks him and asks if he would ever be allowed to take leather to the wharf at Boston whenever ships are announced to be coming in. Richardson agrees, but only in return for Fortune’s good behavior. During his time with the Richardsons, Fortune is agreeable, often singing as well. Fortune lives with the Richardsons for years, becoming a skilled tanner. Fortune also develops into a devout Christian.
As Fortune is reliable, Richardson regularly allows him to go to the wharf when slave ships come into port. However, Fortune struggles to communicate with enslaved African arrivals, as he cannot even recall the At-mun-shi language. He still goes to at least offer some encouragement in facial expression and gestures. For 20 years, he continues as a tanner and keeps visiting the wharf in search of his sister. In late 1763, Fortune arranges with Richardson to be set free in several years. Afterward, he offers Mrs. Richardson a reflective tin sheet, one of many gifts he had brought back from the wharf for her over the years. When she shows him his reflection in it, he sees his sister’s face in his own and realizes that she must be much older than the girls he has been searching for at the wharf. Fortune sobs sorrowfully for his sister. Richardson draws up the terms of Fortune’s freedom, stating that he should be freed in several years or upon his death. Over that time, Fortune would also be required to pay for his freedom. By 1769, Richardson is dead, and, in May, Mrs. Richardson draws up new papers, immediately freeing Fortune rather than making him pay any further.
Nearly 60 years old, Fortune compares himself to Moses from the Bible, who was still full of life in his old age. Mrs. Richardson advises Fortune to find a wife, and he states that he will save his money again so he can marry the woman he desires. Mrs. Richardson also invites Fortune to continue working at her husband’s tannery until he can own it himself. Fortune agrees to this and spends several years working there while also learning carpentry. He pays nearly daily visits to a woman named Lily, whom he met years ago. Lily is still enslaved, and so Fortune waits until he can afford to buy her freedom before he asks her to marry him. When he finally buys her freedom, she is ill and dies within a year. Later, Fortune meets another enslaved Black woman named Lydia who uses a crutch because her leg was broken during her journey on the Middle Passage. Enjoying her singing and laughter, Fortune works for three years to earn the money to purchase and marry her.
Fortune is eager to join the Black soldiers in the Revolutionary War, but he is denied because of his age. He sees his resolve to purchase Lydia as his way of fighting for freedom. Over the years, he and Lydia discuss the trauma of the Middle Passage, his faint memories of Africa, and her nearing freedom. In 1778, Fortune purchases Lydia’s freedom at full price, but Lydia dies only a year later.
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
At the close of Chapter 2, the reader is introduced to Caleb Copeland, who purchases Fortune at the auction block in Boston. Yates’s mention of Copeland being a Quaker foreshadows the events of Chapter 3, in which Copeland is found not to be a violent enslaver. This is because of the history of 16th- and 17th-century Quaker anti-slavery activism. The novel frames Mr. Copeland as a benevolent figure who claims to purchase Fortune because they can both help each other: “[W]hen I saw him standing there and I knew we needed someone to help in the house, and I knew he would have a Christian home with kindly treatment and an opportunity to cultivate his mind, I could not help buying him” (35). By Copeland’s logic, in exchange for Fortune’s free labor, Fortune receives religious and civil education. Fortune’s life with Copeland in Chapter 3 introduces the reader to the theme Slavery as a Benevolent Institution, wherein slavery is represented as a benevolent opportunity for Black personal growth and white generosity.
In the beginning of Chapter 3, there is also a marked shift in the narrative perspective. While Amos Fortune, Free Man is written entirely in the third-person omniscient perspective, the narrator remains close to Fortune’s perspective in the first two chapters. For example, when the narrator describes the beautiful landscape along the banks of the river, it does so to illustrate what Fortune is seeing from his place in the canoe. Likewise, the narrator frequently focuses on Fortune’s thoughts, his intentions, and his actions. However, at the opening of Chapter 3, the narration begins with the feelings and thoughts of Mr. Copeland: “Caleb Copeland was not sure what he would say to his wife when he arrived home with no money for the cloth he had taken with him and a stalwart young Negro boy instead” (34). As the narrative continues, it centers around the dialogue between Mr. and Mrs. Copeland. Meanwhile, at this point in the story, Fortune is believed to not communicate verbally because he chooses not to speak to white people and cannot yet understand English. While the narrative enters the interiority of the Copelands—exploring their thoughts, words, and concerns—it also enters their perspective. While the narrative called Fortune “At-mun” in the previous chapters, in the beginning of Chapter 3, the narrative calls him “the boy” (36). While Fortune was characterized as a strong, bold, and confident young prince in the previous chapters, here he is characterized as weak, timid, and infantile. Mrs. Copeland must teach him simple words in English, and the narrator remarks on his awkward struggle to use forks and chairs. Whereas the narrative from his perspective might describe his fear in an unfamiliar place, his loneliness and sorrow without his family, and the foreignness of the Copeland’s household and customs, the narrative from the Copelands’ perspective simply describes him as silent, awkward, and childlike: “It was slow, but Amos learned as a child to do the things about the house that he was shown to do” (40).
This perspectival shift in the narrative continues until Fortune learns to read and speaks his first few English words. Following that, the narrator returns to a focus on his subjectivity and internal life. It is no surprise that the narrative suspends Fortune’s sense of personhood in the period between his arrival in the Copeland household and his arrival at literacy. Historically, literacy in the Western world has been a sign of intelligence, which defines the human according to French philosopher René Descartes’s famous statement, cogito ergo sum—“I think therefore I am.” In the Western world, then, the ability to read and write for enslaved people of African descent could signal their humanity; this was significant, given many white Western intellectuals throughout the 18th and 19th centuries doubted the humanity and, therefore, the equality of Black people. The relationship between literacy and subjecthood is a common theme in slave narrative literature, as slave narratives frequently mark the moment of obtaining English-language literacy as a turning point in the life of the enslaved person (see for instance Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass). When Chapter 3 of Amos Fortune, Free Man shifts the narrative perspective away from Fortune as a thinking and feeling subject, it enables the narrator to then mark Fortune’s moment of obtaining literacy also as his entrance into personhood. Chapter 3 becomes a second beginning for Fortune, in which his previous experience in Africa and on the Middle Passage—in Chapters 1 and 2—are nullified, and he must learn to be a person all over again.
