James Forten was born to free Black parents, on September 2, 1766, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His great-grandfather had been brought to America as a slave, but his grandfather had obtained his freedom. In a city where the vast majority of Black people were slaves, and free people of color were generally confined to the most menial of occupations, the Forten family was exceptional. His father, Thomas Forten had a skilled trade. He was anxious to pass on his skills to his son. In 1774, he joined his father in the Philadelphia shipyards, working for Robert Bridges, a prominent local businessman and sailmaker. A free Black person, Forten attended a school that Quaker Anthony Benezet operated for Blacks. however, his love of reading and learning continued throughout his life. After his father died, it fell to his mother Margaret Forten to support herself and her children. James helped out by finding a job with a local grocer. Despite the family's desperate situation, she struggled to give James some formal education, sending him on a part-time basis to the Quakers' "African School.
James Forten ended his education and went to work to help support his family at age nine. It was at this age that James first heard the very words of the Declaration of Independence at its debut reading. James only had about two years of schooling, but he read everything he could get his hands on and educated himself. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Forten joined the Continental Navy in the summer of 1781, at age 15, and became a powder boy on the "Royal Louis", a privately owned ship that hunted British merchant vessels for their cargo. On the Royal Louis second outing, it encountered the Amphylon, a heavily armed British frigate, the crew were forced to surrender, and he was at risk of being enslaved. As a Black prisoner of war, Forten faced the common punishment of being sold into slavery in the West Indies. Ironically, given the desperate plight he was in, Forten could have done very well for himself at this point.
The commander of the Amphylon asked young James to watch over his young son, Henry. Over the next few days a friendship developed between James Forten and his young charge. The young boy begged his father not to sell James into slavery. The result was an invitation from the Captain o send Forten back to England to continue his education. Despite his desperate situation, he refused the captain’s generous offer, claiming that it would be a direct betrayal of his country to accept. He was transferred to a British prison ship called "The Jersey" where a total of about 11,000 persons died in an epidemic during the war. The British also held Continental Army soldiers on the ship, which had extremely harsh conditions. Thousands of men were crammed below decks where there was no natural light or fresh air, and few provisions for the sick and hungry. Forten’s friendship with the captain of the "Amphylon" spared him from being sold to slave traders with all the other Black prisoners. After seven months’ imprisonment, and his promise not to fight in the war he was able to return to his home.
Finally after being a prisoner at sea, Forten landed in New York, and had no other option for the long journey home but to set out on foot. He then returned to Philadelphia in the spring of 1782 to find his mother and sister had long since given him up for dead. When peace came, James Forten ventured off to sea again. His sister's husband, a merchant seaman, persuaded Forten to sign up with him for a voyage to England on Captain Thomas Truxtun's ship, the Commerce. When they reached London, Forten asked Truxtun to pay him off. He settled in London, where he found a sizable Black community and the chance of work. The war had left many shipyards and sail-lofts short-hand and they were looking for young men with knowledge of the elements of sail making. He lived and worked there for more than a year in a London shipyard. James Forten stayed a year in London.
In 1785 he returned to Philadelphia and started working as an apprentice for Robert Bridges, the man who had employed his father. However, this was no ordinary apprenticeship. At 19 Forten was older and more experienced than the majority of apprentices. Impressing Bridges with his skill and dedication, he was quickly promoted to foreman of the loft. He knew a lot about ships and sails, and he saw how improvements could be made. He is credited with inventing something to improve sailing. It was either a new kind of sail or a hand-cranked devise to make it easier to hoist the ship's sails. It is said he became the leading sailmaker in Philadelphia. Advancement came quickly. Within a year he was the foreman of the loft, with Bridges quelling a minor rebellion among the White men in the workforce to keep him in that position of authority. In 1792 James Forten became a homeowner. Robert Bridges bought him a small two-story frame house in Philadelphia. Forten was to pay him back in installments. Bridges' generosity was likely combined with a wish to bind closer to him a trusted junior partner.
Forten's years as Bridges' foreman were crucial to his future success in many ways. He mastered the technological aspects of his craft, and learned how to deal with suppliers, ships' captains, and shipowners. At Robert Bridges' retirement in 1798, Forten was left in charge of the loft. James Forten never forgot Robert Bridges's decision to stand by him. Nor did he forget his early labor troubles. Then he became a junior partner and in summer of 1798 Forten bought out Bridges after being employed there for thirteen years. He established the first major Black-owned sail making shop in Philadelphia. Since his business was near the water, on at least twelve occasions he was able to save people from drowning. Once secure as owner of the loft, he set about integrating the workforce.
Believing in equal rights, Forten remained dedicated to equal rights and demonstrated this in his hiring of laborers. As a first step, he brought his relatives into the business. He lamented the fact that there were so few employers of Robert Bridges's staff prepared to train Black men in skilled trades. In 1805, on the recommendation of White friends in the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, Forten took on a Black teenager, Samuel Elbert, as an indentured servant. Then he sought out other young men of color eager to learn a trade. Although a strong advocate of Black employment opportunities, at no point did Forten consider dismissing his White workers. He kept those who had worked for Bridges and hired more. Deeply committed to integration, he wanted a workforce in which Black men and White men worked harmoniously together. If they obey his rules and subscribe to his values, then race made no difference in his sail-loft.
Forten had made his sail-loft one of the most successful in Philadelphia. Because of his business acumen, Forten's sail loft made him one of the wealthiest Philadelphians in the city, Black or White. Over time, Forten became interested in politics and his fortune enabled him to become one of the leading figures in the radical abolitionist movement. Now, in his forties, Forten devoted both time and money to working for the national abolition of slavery and gaining civil rights for Blacks. They were severely discriminated against in the North, and generally could not vote or serve on juries. He felt a sense of obligation to work on these issues of his community. Forten also became an outspoken critic of Pennsylvania’s 1780 Gradual Emancipation Act. Although Pennsylvania passed the first emancipation act in the United States, it was so gradual and incremental that there were still some slaves held in the state at the start of the Civil War.
James Forten married twice, his first wife, Martha Beatte, died after only a few months of marriage in 1804. In 1806, he married Charlotte Vandine. The couple had nine children. He could not enroll them in the White schools, so he hired tutors to educate them. Three of his daughters, Margaretta, Harriet, and Sarah, when they were adults, were active in the abolitionist movement. One of his granddaughters, Charlotte Forten, published a famous diary of her experiences teaching ex-slaves in South Carolina’s Sea Islands during the Civil War. James Forten formed the Free African Society to help Blacks when they were out of work or ill, and he helped to buy freedom for slaves. During the War of 1812, he collaborated with prominent Black leaders Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent Black denomination in the United States, and Absalom Jones to organize a volunteer regiment of Black men to defend Philadelphia against British attacks. This act exemplified his commitment not only to the abolitionist cause but also to the broader welfare of his community.
In 1813, Forten wrote and published a pamphlet titled "Letters From a Man of Color", denouncing a bill in front of the Philadelphia legislature that demanded all newly arrived African American be registered with the state. The bill was the result of many White Pennsylvanians' complaints about the large number of former slaves moving up from the south, competing with White laborers. In addition, they knew fugitive slaves often used Pennsylvania as a destination or byway to other free areas, as it was bordered by slave states to the south. Forten saw the bill as a step backward for Black Pennsylvanians. He reminded members of the Pennsylvania legislature: "Many of us are men of property, for the security of which, we have hitherto looked to the laws of our blessed state". He feared a proposed change in the law would "wrest" from an individual like himself "those estates, which years of honest industry have accumulated."
In the pamphlet, he outlined his beliefs that free Blacks in Pennsylvania should be allowed to establish themselves without the setbacks of racial discrimination. Forten wanted the many respectable citizens of the Black community to be recognized and valued in Philadelphia Forten’s pamphlet eloquently expressed his belief that all Americans were entitled to equal treatment under the law. The bill did not pass, in large part due to his efforts, and James Forten became known for his succinct and passionate pamphlet. Forten believed strongly that there should be a safe and equal place for Black people in America. He was a man of principle. Forten refused to provide sails for ships involved in the slave trade, aligning his business practices with his moral convictions.
It was sometime in the early 1800 that James Forten and New Englander Captain Paul Cuffe met each other through business ventures. He and Forten forged a deep bond of friendship. They discussed the ending of the slave trade, their religious faith, and their vision of America. Forten fitted out Cuffe's vessels, loaned him money, got loans from him, kept him informed about the state of the market, and helped him sell property in Philadelphia. Through letters and conversations Paul Cuffe involved James Forten in a vast undertaking that he hoped would accomplish goals both men shared - the complete abolition of the African slave trade, the Christianization of Africa, and the alleviation of the suffering of slaves and free people of color in the United States. Forten's enthusiasm for the "African undertaking" can be attributed to the depth of his friendship with Cuffe, and to Cuffe's ties with the London based African Institution.
Cuffe and the African Institution proposed to take to Britain's recently established colony of Sierra Leone anyone who wanted to begin a new life in West Africa. Under the auspices of the African Institution, emigration would be strictly voluntary and it would be overseen by men of staunch antislavery principle. A key goal would be the elimination of slavery. He wrote to report that he had been busily recruiting emigrants for Sierra Leone from among the free people of color in Philadelphia. Then, in the fall of 1817 Forten received word of Paul Cuffe's death. The vision of an African homeland for such people of color as volunteered to emigrate became something rather different under the direction of the newly-established American Colonization Society. Sierra Leone was abandon and the ACS absorbed the broader colonization conversation and reshaped it—often in ways Black leaders like Forten came to oppose. Also, in 1817 Forten petitioned Congress to amend the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, which permitted the capture and detention of suspected runaway slaves without due process.
Forten became one of the most outspoken opponents of the all-White American Colonization Society, or ACS. The American Colonization Society (ACS) was formed in December 1816, to "resettle" free Blacks on the colony of Liberia in West Africa. It offered to help Blacks to go there voluntarily, with provisions of aid for supplies, housing and other materials. The ACS was made up of abolitionists, slaveholders, and missionaries. Forten strongly believed that shipping Blacks out of the country only perpetuated and validated racism and discrimination. Sometime in 1817 Forten joined with Richard Allen to form the Convention of Color in Philadelphia to respond to the growing threat of the American Colonization Society, which aimed to send free Black Americans to Africa. His financial support was instrumental in sustaining abolitionist activities, including the publication of William Lloyd Garrison’s influential newspaper, The Liberator.
Forten found new subscribers in Philadelphia to increase circulation and wrote letters to the paper under the name “A Coloured Philadelphian". With substantial financial backing provided by Forten, Garrison was able to research and run extensive reports on the African settlements in Liberia that were being promoted by the ACS. Contrary to the ACS’s propaganda, conditions in these settlements were proven to be very poor, and many African Americans died from starvation or disease soon after arriving there. They wanted others to know that the ACS was not necessarily working in the best interest of Black Americans. Garrison continued to publish articles about the ACS throughout the 1820s and 1830s. Forten affirmed African Americans’ claims of a stake in their nation of the United States, arguing for gaining civil rights in the country. In 1830, he participated in the first National Negro Convention held in Philadelphia. The convention sought to address the challenges faced by free African Americans and develop strategies for their social and economic advancement.
In 1833, he was a founding member, along with William Lloyd Garrison, of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Forten also served as president of the American Moral Reform Society. The American Moral Reform Society attempted to promote general aims such as educating Blacks, establishing a Black press, temperance, peace, gender equality—values aligned with Garrisonian ideals and printing histories of the Blacks. Forten strongly advocated for women’s full participation in anti-slavery activism and societal affairs. Forten’s altruism extended beyond activism. The city of Philadelphia recognized him for saving multiple individuals from drowning near his sail making shop—a testament to his courage and commitment to helping others. Despite his significant contributions to society, Forten faced systemic discrimination. Around 1838 his efforts to secure voting rights for African Americans were ultimately unsuccessful. James Forten stayed active in the abolitionist movement, managing his business and composing articles for publication until very late in his life. When he passed away in 1842, thousands of people, both Black and White, attended his funeral, underscoring the profound impact he had on his community.