Forten, James, Sr.

By: Julie Winch

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Forten, James, Sr.

Sex:  Male

Born:  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
2 September 1766

Died:  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
4 March 1842

Activity/Profession:  Sailmaker, Social Reformer

1766–1842
African American businessman and social reformer.

James Forten was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Thomas Forten, a freeborn sailmaker, and Margaret (maiden name unknown). Forten's parents enrolled him in the African School of abolitionist Anthony Benezet. When Forten was seven, his father died. Margaret Forten struggled to keep her son in school, but he was eventually forced to leave at age nine and work full-time to help support the family. His family remained in Philadelphia throughout the American Revolution, and Forten later recalled being in the crowd outside the Pennsylvania State House when the Declaration of Independence was read to the people for the first time.

In 1781, while serving on a privateer, Forten was captured by the British and spent seven months on the infamous prison ship Jersey in New York harbor. After a voyage to England in 1784 as a merchant seaman, Forten returned to Philadelphia and apprenticed himself to Robert Bridges, a white sailmaker. Bridges taught Forten his trade, loaned him money to buy a house, and eventually sold him the business. Inheriting most of Bridges's customers and establishing a reputation as a master craftsman in his own right, Forten prospered. His profits were invested in real estate, loans at interest, and eventually in bank, canal, and railroad stock.

In 1803 Forten married Martha Beatte, of Darby township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. She died in 1804, and a year later he married Charlotte Vandine, a Philadelphian of European, African, and Native American descent. They had eight children; Margaretta, Harriet, Sarah, and James were all active in the antislavery movement.

Forten's emergence as a leader in Philadelphia's black community coincided with his growing prosperity. Well-read and articulate, he was often called on to draft petitions and to chair meetings. In 1799 he joined other black citizens in petitioning for an end to the slave trade and for legislation to prevent the kidnapping of free people. When Congress refused to consider the petition, Forten wrote to thank the one man, George Thatcher of Massachusetts, who had spoken in its favor. The letter attracted considerable attention.

In 1813, responding to an attempt by the state legislature to restrict the rights of black Pennsylvanians, Forten published Letters from a Man of Colour. Attacking the proposed legislation, he cited Pennsylvania's reputation as a haven for the oppressed. He also objected strenuously to a law that would reduce all black people, including “men of property,” to the status of felons.

Forten's role in the debate over African repatriation was pivotal. He was initially enthusiastic about the proposal of the African American shipowner Paul Cuffe to take American free blacks to Great Britain's colony of Sierra Leone. Forten had no intention of relocating, but he agreed with Cuffe that less fortunate members of the community might benefit from emigrating.

With the formation of the American Colonization Society in 1816, Forten moved from support of African resettlement to outspoken opposition. At first, when approached by an officer of the ACS whom he knew to be a dedicated abolitionist, he gave the organization a qualified endorsement. When others in the ACS spoke of the need to deport free blacks to the new colony of Liberia because of their “pernicious” influence on the slaves, however, Forten expressed alarm. The leaders of the ACS repeatedly urged him to set an example by emigrating. They offered him incentives to begin a packet service between the United States and Liberia. Forten was unmoved, and for the rest of his life he remained one of the most vocal critics of the ACS.

Freeborn, Forten was a lifelong opponent of slavery, and he worked with two generations of white abolitionists. He had many contacts with the “gradualists” in the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. He hired servants recommended by the PAS, sent his four sons to the PAS school, and even took into his home an African prince the society was educating. However, neither he nor any other African American was invited to join the PAS.

The extent of Forten's involvement in the antislavery cause changed with the emergence of the “new school” abolitionists in the early 1830s. William Lloyd Garrison became a close personal friend and often visited the Forten home. Forten advanced him money to begin publishing the Liberator. Thereafter he gave advice on sales and distribution and more money to tide Garrison over periodic crises. In 1832, when Garrison was preparing his Thoughts on African Colonization, Forten sent him his own collection of material on the ACS. He was elected a vice president of the new American Anti-Slavery Society and helped organize auxiliaries at the state and local levels.

Forten saw the abolition of slavery as one aspect of a moral crusade to transform society. Temperance, education, pacifism, and women's rights all had their place in his vision of America. In 1834 Forten and a group of like-minded black reformers founded the American Moral Reform Society, braving criticism from their own community that they were unrealistic, naive, and lacking in racial pride as they advocated the abandonment of terms of racial identification, promoted a sweeping reform agenda, and vowed to direct their efforts at all Americans, regardless of race.

In the last decade of his life Forten's faith in the power of reform to regenerate society was severely tested. As a wave of racial violence swept the country, he, his family, and the community institutions to which he belonged all came under attack, including mob violence and destruction of property. On several occasions he received death threats because of his opposition to colonization.

The violence was accompanied by an erosion of the civil rights of Pennsylvania's African Americans. In 1832 Forten and his son-in-law, Robert Purvis, protested a move by the state legislature to restrict the mobility of black Pennsylvanians. In 1838 Pennsylvania's constitution was revised. Blacks, regardless of wealth, were barred from voting, while most adult white men were enfranchised. On behalf of his community, Forten brought suit to establish his right to vote. After losing the case, he helped finance the printing of an appeal urging voters to reject the proposed constitution. Nevertheless, the constitution was ratified by a large majority.

In 1841 deteriorating health obliged Forten to curtail his business activities and his reform work. When he died in Philadelphia, the abolitionist press eulogized him, the local papers commented on the many prominent white merchants who attended his funeral, and the African Repository, the journal of the ACS, regretted that to the end he did not change his mind about colonization.

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