Book Review… Rising from the Ashes of Despair

Apr 12, 2020 Book Review…, News

---

Book: Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six Africans Americans who survived Slavery and became Millionaires
Author: Shomari Wills
Critic: Glenville Ashby, PhD

Journalist-turned-author, Shomari Wills, delivers a substantively timely, imaginative, and seamless narrative of black achievers in the age of enslavement. It is the product of an in-depth research that offers granular insights into the racial dynamics that beset the United States in the mid-19th century.

At the outset, the author recounts the hurdles he faced in finding, securing and collating the information presented. He writes, “Researching the stories of these titans of industry was challenging…Few records exist concerning African Americans before 1865…I relied on extensive archival research. I painted the stories of these accomplished people by surveying their own writings and letters, newspapers clippings, oral accounts by their contemporaries that were documented. I labored over any available vital records.”
Black Fortunes is instructively weighty. It is a richly presented work from which emerges a slew of psychological and sociological enquiries, none more so than the independence and success of myriad black towns during the height of segregation.
Interestingly, while inopportune and dire circumstances derailed the hopes of many during the aftermath of slavery, others, like the fabled Phoenix, rose from the ashes of despair, their will ossified, their motivation unbridled.
In the echo of slavery, the racial dynamics of the Civil War (including the role of native Americans in the enslavement of blacks), Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, some ascended the economic ladder and became millionaires. Black millionaires.
We learn of Napoleon Bonaparte Drew, a possessor of “a zealous work ethic,” who was once enslaved in Virginia. After emancipation he “bought a farm in 1867 and became the first black person in Powhatan County to own property. A strong collective ego, a kind of family archetype impervious to social stressors defined the Drew family. His sons Simon and John also possessed the Midas touch.
Flittering from one investment to the next, John (the author’s great-great-uncle), amassed lucrative holdings, including a Bus Line and real estate. He was also a perceptive stock trader. We learn that he sensed the fragility of the stock market in the early 1920s, successfully urging his broker to redeem his shares. He walked away with $250,000 ($3.5 million) “just months before many other investors were wiped out by the Great Crash of 1929.”
Wills sets the tone in the prologue, relating the 1841 story of William Alexander Leidesdorff, a mixed race man who rose to prominence in the United States and Mexico. Here, the notorious and fusty one-drop rule of racial classification was evident.
Impugned, despised for having an almost imperceptible vestige of blackness, his marriage was viscerally cancelled by the father of his fiancée. Upon his death, the Leidesdorff estate was worth more than $1.4 million ($38 million). His mother who was the heir of his estate, was finagled, a common practice at that time. Wills asserts, “The fortune and legacy of America’s first black millionaire was stolen.”
The story of Jeremiah Hamilton, the richest black in New York and his brush with death at the hands of a lynch mob, speaks of the pernicious racial dynamics that fed the Civil War.
We learn of Mary Ellen Pleasant, an astutely insightful young woman who was raised in Nantucket when whaling became a lucrative deep sea industry in the mid-18th century. A century later, a prosperous black township stood in place.
Pleasant left for Boston where she married James W. Smith, a wealthy businessman whose identity as ‘Hispanic’ “allowed him to better navigate United States’ racial caste system.”
After his death, Pleasant returned to Nantucket and remarried, but not before settling her estate that was worth $45,000 ($1.2 million). She later moved to San Francisco at the height of the gold rush where she found her niche as an investor of worth.
“In addition to lending money, Pleasant peddled silver. She once said, “I always had friends in places where a good deal of silver was required.” She also stated, “I did an exchange business with Panama sending down $1000 of gold ($26,000) at different times and having it changed into silver.” In San Francisco at that time accessing gold was never difficult.
By 1858, she was worth more than $150,000 ($4.2 million).
Remarkably, Pleasant donned new lens, shifting her focus on liberating the enslaved. She sought out the incendiary John Brown in Canada, a man who swore to liberate plantations and establish free and safe territories. She handed over $45,009 ($1.3 million) promising to spread insurrection propaganda against oppression. Not long after, she wrote to Brown, “The ax is laid at the root of the tree. When the first blow is struck there will be more money and help.”
Brown was eventually hanged, changing the trajectory of Pleasant’s life in a manner unimaginable. But throughout, her resistance against racism and business acumen never failed her.
Intriguing is the life of Emmeline, a fair-skinned black woman who was called “the most beautiful type of creole.”
The author states that Emmeline “was on borrowed time,” that “she has surpassed the normal life expectancy for an enslaved person,” given that “in the 1850s, the average life span of enslaved African Americans was between twenty-two and thirty-six years. Upon Emmeline’s death, her son Robert was raised by his white father Captain Church, the latter once saying, “Don’t let anyone call you a nig–r, fight if necessary to protect yourself against such insults.”
Robert Reed Church was later made a steward in charge of the ship’s kitchen and dining room. He proved his salt, establishing connections while earning the trust of influential people. He went on to own a number of saloons that became places to convene for the politically ambitious, including “Blanche K. Bruce, one of the wealthiest black men in Mississippi…who was elected to the senate in 1875.”
On the heels of a yellow fever epidemic that saw families fleeing Memphis, Church made the judicious decision to buy property for a penny on the dollar, a move that made him a large-scale property owner. By 1879, he was poised to profit immensely from the redevelopment of the city. He increased his real estate holdings buying distressed property when fire destroyed a residential block years later. With a net worth of $300,000 ($8 million), Church, who oftentimes combated authorities, became one of the richest black men in America.
And worth every mention is Annie Malone, a creative visionary that revolutionized the black hair industry building a national network, “taking her company from a regional business to a global brand.”
Black Fortunes showcases other equally intriguing figures of grit, foresight, and perseverance.
The existential plight of the African American has been exhaustively documented. Black Fortunes, though, explores the political zeitgeist amidst the competing forces of abolition and slavery. In this climate, black millionaires thrived but were always vulnerable, always the victims of racism.
No doubt, there is an inexorable resilience shown by these former slaves-turned millionaires; an immeasurable tenacity that leaves little to the imagination. Moreover, they used their wealth to advance the well-being of their people.
The author’s message couldn’t be clearer: A people denied access to goods and services, a people hamstrung by antipathetic sociopolitical currents is a people destined to decay. The road to prosperity for African Americans has been torturous. But they have withstood many failures and disappointments, only to persevere. Theirs is an exceptionalism that can hardly be denied.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

Feedback: glenvilleashby@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter@glenvilleashby
Black Fortunes by
Publisher: Amistad – An Imprint of Harper Collin Publishers
ISBN: 978-0-06-243760-0
Available at Amazon
Ratings: Essential

---

---