"James Forten"(September 2,1766-March 4,1842)

Wan an African American abolitionist and wealthy businessman.A native of Philadelphia

Pennsylvania,he was the prosperous owner of a sail loft and spent almost all of his life in or near the Philadelphia waterfront around what is now called Penn's Landing.Never elected to political office,and effectively disenfranchised,James was shrewd political operator.Year by year he grew in stature as a public figure.By the 1830s,he was one of the most powerful African American voices,not just for men and women of color in his native city,but for many thousands more throughout the North.He knew how to use the press forwards with his agenda.His rise to prominence,his understanding of the nature of power and authority,his determination to speak out and be heard are object lessons in the realities of community politics.Disfranchised he might have been,but voiceless he never was.James used his wealth from the industry to advocate for temperance,women's suffrage,and above all,equal rights for African Americans.He believed African Americans should work to improve their situation in the U.S. and should be granted equal protection under the law.Back in 1801,he was among the signers of a petition to the U.S. Congress calling for the abolition of the slave trade and the modification of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793.In 1813,he authored a pamphlet,"A Series of Letters by a Man of Color,"opposing a Pennsylvania Senate bill that restricted African American immigration into the state,often the first refuge for freed people,as well for runaways.He and Bishop Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal Church worked together to establish the first Convention of Color in 1817.This organization argued for the settlement of escaped slaves in Canada but strongly opposed plans for repatriation to Africa.James did not believe African American should leave their "own"land and therefore stood against the agenda and activities of the American Colonization Society.James was an integral part of many protests against the Society.Just before Abraham Camp spoke about wanting to leave America,James and Richard led a protest against the American Colonization Society and acted as chair of the protest held at Bethel Church in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania.They organized 3,000 African American Philadephians to speak out against the activities of the American Colonization Society.James also opposed the British policy of resetting black loyalist veterans of the Revolutionary War in Sierra Leone.The Haitian Revolution created support for African Americans to emigrate to Haiti after it achieved independence,as it was a black-led republic.Its independence introduced many complex issues for free African Americans in the U.S.James was one of of the important African American leaders who were entirely against any emigration movements.He firmly believed that African Americans should be allowed to play an equal role in the U.S.,proposing that it was far better to fight for an egalitarian US society rather than flee the country.James had not always stood against emigration and the American Colonization Society to" ...send free African Americans to Africa.On one occasion,he had even given money to the ACS .He also supported Paul Cuffee who transported thirty-eight people to Sierra Leone in 1815."Later he changed his mind.James came to consider the ACS as working against the interests of African Americans,and became a fierce opponent of re-Africanization.In 1833,James helped William Lloyd Garrison and Robert Purvis form the American Anti-Society.He gave it generous financial support over the years.He also contributed occasional articles to William abolitionists newspaper The Liberator.James was born free in Philadelphia Pennsylvania,one of two children of Thomas and Margaret Forten (or Fortune) Thomas was the grandson of a slave who "had freed himself." After his father died,James started working at age seven to help out his mother and sister,first as a chimney sweep and then as a grocery-store clerk.He also attended the African School,run by abolitionist Anthony Benezet,which established by Quakers for free African American children.His mother insisted that he still go to school for at least two more years.By age nine,James left school to work full-time.He used his early experience at work as measuring stick for the rest of his career and life.At age 14,during the Revolutionary War,he served on the privateer Royal Louis,captioned by Captain Stephen Decatur,Sr.Upon the ship's capture by British forces,James friendship with the son of the British captain who had captured the Royal Louis,Captain John Beazley,enable him to be treated as a regular prisoner of war rather than being forced into slavery.He was sent to the English prison ship HMS Jersey,moored in Wallabout Bay,(later the site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard).When the American Revolution began,the British used her as a prison ship for captured Continental Army soldiers,making her infamous due to the harsh conditions in which the prisoners were kept.Thousands of men were crammed below decks where there was not natural light or fresh air and few provisions for sick and hungry.Political tensions only made the prisoners' days worse,with brutal mistreatment by the British guards becoming fairly common.As many as eight corpses a day were buried from the Jersey alone before the British surrendered at Yorktown on October 19 1781.James was blessed;he was able to survive seven months before he was freed in a prisoner exchange.He walked from Brooklyn to Philadelphia to his mother and sister.He would soon sail to Endland as a sailor,and stay there for over a year,working in a London shipyard.When returned t Philadelphia in 1786,he was apprenticed to a sail-maker named Robert Bridges his father's former employer and a family friend.James learned quickly in the sail loft,where the large ship sails were cut and sewn,and before long became foreman.at Robert Bridges' retirement in 1798,James bought the loft and by 1810 made it one of the most successful sail lofts in Philadelphia.Believing in equal rights,James continued to employ both African American & White laborers.Because of his business acumen,James sail loft was a great success and over the years made him one of the wealthiest Philadelphians in the city,African American or white.With his financial blessing,he could now afford to concentrate some of his energy on working towards the abolition of slavery,which he took to be one of his most important responsibilities as a prominent free African American man in Philadelphia.In 1813 he wrote an anonymous pamphlet,his authorship was never truly a secret,called Letters From A Man of Colour.The Pamphlet denounced a bill the Pennsylvania legislature tried to pass requiring all African American emigrants to Pennsylvania to be registered with the state.The bill was the result of many white Pennsylvanians' and used his pamphlet to explain why.In his letters,James argued that the bill would violate the rights any free African American entering the state as well as enforce the general opinion that African Americans were not equal to whites.James wanted many respectables citizens of the African American community to be recognized and valued in Philadelphia.In the end,the bill was not passed,and James became known for his succinct and passionate pamphlet.Years later he met Lloyd Garrison,who would give him another outlet for his opinions.Lloyd's abolitionist paper,The Liberator,was constantly in need of funds but always seemed to get what it needed from James Forten.He not only helped to keep his friend's paper afloat,also found subscribers in Philadelphia for Lloyd,circulated the paper around the city,and wrote letters to the paper that Lloyd would publish under the name "A Colored Philadelphian."James favorite topics were prejudice,abolition,and the American Colonization Society,or ACS.James worked against the ACS almost as soon as it had been formed.It was an organization composed only of whites members that sought to send African Americans to a colony,Liberia,in Africa where they might find better lives.James,like many other free African Americans,believed the ACS was trying to simply get rid of free African Americans under the guise of helping them.The ACS advertised Liberia as a place of opportunity for free African Americans,the truth was that the colony struggled to survive and many of the colonist were dying.James and Lloyd published as much as they could in in the Liberator to expose the poor living conditions in Liberia that the ACS never revealed.They wanted others to know that the ACS was not necessarily working in the best interest of African Americans.Despite the work of James and Lloyd,free African Americans continued to move to Liberia.James actively opposed the ACS his entire life.James wrote letters to the Liberator,worked in his sail loft,met with his abolitionist friends,and stayed active in the abolitionist movement until very late in his life.He lived in Philadelphia with his wife and eight children until he died.Thousands of people, both African American and white,attended his funeral.James married twice;his first wife,Martha "Patty Beatty died after only a few months of marriage and in 1806,he married Charlotte Vandine (1786-1886).Their children were Robert Bridges Forten,Harriet Forten Purvis,Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis,Charlotta Forten,William Deas Forten,Mary Theresa Forten,Thomas Willing Francis Forten,and James Forten,Jr.,who, with his brother Robert,succeeded their father in the family sail-making business.Like his father Robert was vigorous anti-slavery activist.James Sr., daughters Harriet and Sarah married the abolitionist brothers Robert and Joseph respectively.Margaretta was an officer of the female Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia in 1845 and lifelong educator.