A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten [Paperback]

Julie Winch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2003

Winch has written the first full-length biography of James Forten, a hero of African American history and one of the most remarkable men in 19th-century America.

Born into a free black family in 1766, Forten served in the Revolutionary War as a teenager. By 1810 he had earned the distinction of being the leading sailmaker in Philadelphia. Soon after Forten emerged as a leader in Philadelphia's black community and was active in a wide range of reform activities. Especially prominent in national and international antislavery movements, he served as vice-president of the American Anti-Slavery Society and became close friends with William Lloyd Garrison to whom he lent money to start up the Liberator. His family were all active abolitionists and a granddaughter, Charlotte Forten, published a famous diary of her experiences teaching ex-slaves in South Carolina's Sea Islands during the Civil War.

This is the first serious biography of Forten, who stands beside Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Martin Luther King, Jr., in the pantheon of African Americans who fundamentally shaped American history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Less than a decade ago, Forten remained a footnote in books on U.S. and African-American history. This new critical biography, the first serious work on his life and legacy, not only restores him to his rightful place in American history, but also presents readers with an invigorating and challenging new portrait of pre- and post-Revolutionary race relations and identities. Forten was born in 1766 into a free-born African-American family in Philadelphia, and his ideas and politics were formed by ideals of freedom espoused by Thomas Paine and other colonial writers. He went to sea as a privateer under Stephen Decatur, was captured by the British and, after a stay in London, became apprentice to a sail maker; in 1798, he took over the business, which prospered. His obituary in 1842 noted that he was "the leading sailmaker in the city." But Forten was also noted for his role in public life, particularly his intense involvement in the abolition movement, his close association with William Lloyd Garrison and the 1813 publication of his influential book, Letters from a Man of Colour. Winch, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, has done a masterful job of researching and piecing together Forten's life from family and business records, newspapers, tax rolls, letters and journals. But the strength of the book aside from rediscovering Forten is the careful and often surprising research into the complexity of African-American life in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Winch never skirts difficult issues: Forten's aunt owned slaves and may have even been involved in the slave trade. And whether she is explicating the role of black freemasonry or how intermarriage with whites and Indians created endlessly complicated social and racial identities for "black" Americans, her scholarship is both outstanding and vital.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Winch (history, Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston), author of Philadelphia's Black Elite and other works on African American life, presents a life-and-times biography of James Forten (1766-1842), an entrepreneur, social reformer, Revolutionary War patriot, and gentleman, who stood as one of the most influential and well-known African Americans of his day. Winch casts Forten as persistent in his pursuit of justice and steady in his habits, turning his masterful sail-making skills into a small fortune that allowed him to hire whites and blacks, educate his family in letters and a life of social service, and promote various reform efforts, especially antislavery. Because of a lack of primary sources for much of Forten's life, Winch inventively uses historical context to find her subject's place in 19th-century Philadelphia and goes deep inside Forten's social and intellectual world to explain his quest for respect as a citizen and a man. Winch offers no new sweeping readings on African American history, nor does she explain why Forten's life dropped from the American historical narrative until now. But this first biography of Forten does much to reveal a complexity and range of experience among 19th-century blacks. Recommended. Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; First Trade edition (June 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195163400
• ISBN-13: 978-0195163407
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,094,033 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An American Hero, No Longer Unknown, March 24, 2002

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten (Hardcover)

There was a Revolutionary War sailor who was captured by the British and was offered British citizenship instead of being a prisoner. He insisted he was a loyal American. He went on, as if in a Horatio Alger story, to become a successful Philadelphia businessman, but he was nonetheless encouraged, because of his heroic service in the war, to apply for the pension that he deserved from the country he had helped make. He replied that he did not want money from his country. He wanted only one thing from America, and if any American deserved it, he surely did. What James Forten wanted was to become an American citizen, and he never in his long life got his wish. The simple reason was that he was black. Forten has largely been forgotten, which is too bad, since as a war hero, businessman, and abolitionist, he played commendable roles which one doesn't have to be of any particular race to admire. He is now rescued from obscurity by a large, detailed, and well-researched biography, _A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten_ (Oxford University Press) by Julie Winch. Winch has dug deep inside such ephemera as the social history of Philadelphia, the economic forces of the time, and even the trade of sailmaking by which Forten made his living, to give the first complete picture of one of the first outstanding black Americans.

After his service in the war, Forten was apprenticed by the white, slave-owning sailmaker who had employed his father. He did so well that upon retirement, the owner left him the business. He branched out into real estate and money-lending. As a successful businessman, he became a civic leader, helping to administer his church and assisting in creating schools for black youth. He administered a mixed-race workforce, with some black managers supervising white workers. He could not vote, but he had no compunction about telling his workers how they were to vote and making sure they did so. He knew that he had an easier life in Philadelphia than he would in other parts of the nation, but he endured the contempt of many white people, a contempt that cycled inversely with prosperity; when times got tough, it was easy to blame blacks for taking jobs. Such blame could easily take the form of violence against the person or the property of blacks. There was a kidnapping ring that could spirit black children to Delaware and ship them into slavery in the south. Forten served in the American Anti-Slavery Society and lent his considerable finances and managerial skill to various abolitionist causes. He lent Garrison the money by which the famous abolitionist paper _The Liberator_ was begun. He wrote for the paper. He campaigned against the use of alcohol. He had a lifetime fight against blacks and whites who were pushing to move black people back to Africa, for he wanted America to be a nation without regard to color. He was not without controversy, even among blacks, but when he died in 1842, thousands of black and white mourners turned out to the funeral of an American original. Winch's biography, hefty and academic but not ponderous, brings that original back to us in his proper place in history.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A forgotten face of American history, September 8, 2009

By 

Kevin G. Lowther - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten (Paperback)

This is a well-researched and absorbing account of an important African-American figure in the formative decades of independence. Because his prime years and influence came well-before the Civil War and the end of slavery, James Forten is largely forgotten except by those who make it their business to know and understand the African component of American history and culture.