Newton may have convinced himself that his metamorphosis into a preacher and abolitionist may have absolved him from the misery, torture and often death he inflicted on innocent African people for the sake of personal profit. NEAR 16 YEARS AS CURATE OF THIS PARISH AND 28 YEARS AS RECTOR OF ST MARY WOOLNOTH. The inscription on the tomb in Olney where Newton and his wife Mary are buried was written by himself:-Ī SERVANT OF SLAVES IN AFRICA, WAS BY THE RICH MERCY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST PRESERVED, RESTORED, PARDONED AND APPOINTED TO PREACH THE FAITH HE HAD LONG LABOURED TO DESTROY. It was not until 34 years after he left the slave trade business that he spoke out against the trade in a pamphlet Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade. He haggled for enslaved Africans on the southern coast of the Continent, he raped women chained in his ships, tortured men who tried to escape and made a profit from their sale in the Americas. As a sailor he had been part of the violence of the middle passage.
John Newton is best known today for his hymn Amazing Grace. The National Portrait Gallery does not pull any punches in the short biography that accompanies the portrait above, it includes: It is a singular illustration of the influence of habit and public opinion on questions of justice and humanity, that a man of earnest piety and thorough honesty like Newton could mingle in all the horrors of the slave-trade with scarcely a suspicion that there was any moral wrong about it. Line engraving, published 1 January 1808 Image: © National Portrait Gallery, London John Newton by Joseph Collyer the Younger, after John Russell He admitted to using these himself but only ‘slightly’. He also told of captains using thumbscrews to subdue and torture any person who tried to revolt on ship. His accounts of rape and torture of enslaved Africans on the ships he served on is limited to other captains and crew.
#AMAZING GRACE WRITER SLAVE TRADER FULL#
With eyes full of adultery, they never stopped sinning they seduce the unstable they are experts in greed-an unstable brood. David Jennings that he had been “a slave to every customary vice” and included telling bible passages such as 2 Peter 2:14. Steve Turner in his biography of Newton points out that Newton admitted to his childhood pastor Dr. Although he limited his admissions of depravity to cursing and blasphemy, he hinted at far worse. Newton was a troubled youth, devoid of any religious or moral principles, he would often admit in later life that he was not content with his own bad behaviour but rejoiced in inciting others to follow him.Īs a religious minister he would often write of his earlier wrongdoings on slave ships. In fact as a young adult he was despised by his crew mates on at least two voyages. Newton would continue as a captain of slave ships 6 years after his conversion.Įven apart from the fact he was a slave captain, it’s hard to find any redeeming character trait in the young Newton. Often his life is told as story of two contrasting halves, first as a slave trader and then as a a devout Christian minister who turned to God after a near-death experience on a ship. If you are new to the life of John Newton it is a fascinating and sometimes shocking story. His later work as a preacher and an abolitionist should be balanced against his earlier life as a captain of slave ships. John Newton (born London 1725 – died London 1807) is the perfect example of a historical character who’s legacy is being reassessed in view of his connections with the Transatlantic Slave Trade from the 17th century to the 19th. Watch the then President Obama singing Amazing Grace at the funeral for South Carolina State Senator Clementa Pinckney. The song was also sung at protests and the funeral of George Floyd in 2020 (see the end of the post).
In 2015 the then President Obama sang it at the funeral service of the church leader and South Carolina state senator, Clementa Pinckney, who was among nine people shot dead in the city of Charleston. It relates the happy ending of the tale of a defiant man who manages again and again to escape danger, disease, abuse, and death, only to revert to “struggles between sin and conscience.” Nation Library of CongressĬonsidering it was written by someone who had been a slave captain, it perhaps surprising that Amazing Grace has always been closely associated with the African American community in the Untied States. Newton’s words are also a vivid autobiographical commentary on how he was spared from both physical and spiritual ruin. John Newton, 1813 John NewtonĪrguably the best-known Christian hymn is “Amazing Grace.” Its text, a poem penned in 1772 by John Newton, describes the joy and peace of a soul uplifted from despair to salvation through the gift of grace.
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