Amos Fortune, Free Man

In June of 1779, Fortune sets out on a journey to Keene, New Hampshire, on a horse named Cyclops (it only has one eye). It is now about 10 years since he obtained his freedom. Fortune wishes he could have enjoyed a sense of home with his own family, and he is disappointed that neither of his previous wives lived long enough for him to experience that. Now, however, Fortune has found another woman, also enslaved, whom he hopes to marry. Her name is Violet, and the cost of purchasing her includes the cost of her four-year-old daughter, Celyndia.

As Fortune travels, he thinks of himself like Joshua from the Bible. Joshua was an ancient Hebrew man who also searched for a new place to live and work. When Fortune arrives atop a hill overlooking Keene, he compares the town to the promised land. The “promised land” is what the Judeo-Christian God called the land he had promised to give the ancient Israelites after he rescued them from captivity in Egypt. Fortune dismounts and kisses the earth as he once did when he was a young prince in Africa. Fortune then prays to God, asking for a sign as to whether or not he should settle in Keene.