James Forten: “I have been taken prisoner for the liberties of my country…”
“I have been taken prisoner for the liberties of my country, and never will prove a traitor to her interest.”
That was James Forten's response near the end of the Revolutionary War to a British captain named Bazely.
Forten had served on an American privateer, captured by a British ship. Bazely had the prisoners of war in his custody. Impressed by Forten keeping Bazely’s young son entertained and out of trouble, he offered to send Forten to England, when his son returned home.
Forten risked more than confinement on a British prisoner of war barge. When Americans of African descent were captured in Continental army or navy service, they were often sold into slavery in the West Indies -- regardless of their legal status before enlistment.
Forten had enlisted on the crew of the privateer Royal Louis, commanded by Stephen Decatur, whose son Stephen Jr. would rise to the rank of commodore in the U.S. Navy. At least 19 men of African complexion were among the 200 recruits aboard the ship.
Since their mission was to capture British ships, a large number were needed to sail captured prizes into American-controlled ports. The crew could hope to earn a good return from their share of the prize money for sale of the captured ships and cargo.
It is briefly mentioned in some history books that Forten developed a successful business as a sail maker in Philadelphia. The quality of his product was partly the result of having experience handling the sails at sea, and knowing how they responded. His sail designs made ships more maneuverable, and increased speed. The Life of James Forten: A Gentleman of Color by Julie Winch, provides a comprehensive biography.
Forten was 15 years old when George Washington marched the main body of the Continental Army through Philadelphia on the way to attack the British army commanded by General Cornwallis, at Yorktown, Virginia. "I well remember that when the New England regiments passed through this city ... there was several Companies of Coloured People, as brave Men as ever fought" he wrote fifty years later. Forten pleaded with his mother for permission to enlist on the Royal Louis. He returned safely from his first voyage, but the ship was captured by the British ship Amphion as it headed to sea a second time.
Bazely, captain of the Amphion, found a use for Forten, keeping Bazely's 12 year old son out of trouble on the ship. After Forten turned down Bazely's offer of freedom, the captain wrote a letter to the commander of the prison ships commending Forten and requesting he should not be forgotten on the list of exchanges. "Thus" Forten observed in later life, "did a game of marbles save him from a life of West Indian servitude." Forten was freed in a series of prisoner exchanges seven months later.
He returned to Robert Bridges' sail loft in Philadelphia, where he had worked since age 8, and where his father had also worked. He became foreman, and when Bridges retired in 1798, he loaned Forten the money to buy the business.
Forten provided funding for William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery paper, The Liberator. Both were strongly opposed to populating colonial experiments such as Liberia and Sierra Leone with free Americans of African heritage.