“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound…”
We’ve sung it in church. We’ve sung it at funerals. We’ve heard it when somebody needed comfort, hope, forgiveness or a reminder that God’s grace can reach us anywhere.
But y’all know me.
I’m always asking: What’s the rest of the story?
Well, I went looking.
And whew.
The man who wrote the words to Amazing Grace, John Newton, was once a captain of ships carrying enslaved African people across the Atlantic.
Yes. Slave ships.
And not just one voyage.
Newton himself admitted that after becoming a ship commander in 1750, he made three voyages to the Windward Coast of Africa “for Slaves.” (Project Gutenberg)
His ships were:
The Duke of Argyle — his first voyage as captain.
And then the African — which he captained on two more voyages.
Three voyages as captain between 1750 and 1754.
Before that, he had already worked as a mate aboard another slave ship, the Brownlow. (Royal Museums Greenwich)
Now here is the part that really stopped me.
He had already “found God.”
We often hear John Newton’s story packaged neatly:
Bad man.
Terrible storm.
Found God.
Wrote Amazing Grace.
Repented.
Not quite.
Newton experienced the famous storm that helped trigger his religious conversion in 1748.
But he didn’t immediately walk away from the slave trade.
He went back.
He became a captain.
He commanded voyages whose very purpose was to purchase African human beings, put them aboard ships and transport them across the Atlantic for sale.
That part matters.
Because conversion apparently did not immediately change what he was willing to participate in.
And Newton eventually told us what those ships were like.
Decades later, when he finally spoke publicly against the slave trade, Newton described conditions aboard slave ships in horrifying detail.
He wrote that enslaved Africans could be packed below deck close together “like books upon a shelf.” (Project Gutenberg)
Think about that.
Human beings.
Mothers.
Fathers.
Children.
Somebody’s babies.
Packed like books on a shelf.
Newton also recalled a voyage when he was a mate—not yet captain—where the ship left the African coast carrying 218 enslaved people.
Sixty-two died during the passage to South Carolina.
Sixty-two human beings.
And that number didn’t even include those who had already died before the ship left the African coast. (Project Gutenberg)
Sit with that.
So when did he finally understand?
Years later.
Newton left the slave trade after illness prevented him from making another voyage. In fact, he had prepared for a fourth voyage as captain, but became ill and another captain took his place. (Project Gutenberg)
He eventually became an Anglican minister.
Then, decades after his slave-trading days, Newton publicly confronted what he had participated in.
In 1788, he published Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade.
And by then, his language had changed dramatically.
He called the trade “iniquitous,” “cruel,” “oppressive,” and “destructive.” (Project Gutenberg)
More importantly, he acknowledged his own guilt.
He essentially said that his confession had come too late to repair the misery he had helped cause. (Project Gutenberg)
That sentence matters to me.
Because repentance doesn’t erase consequences.
Grace doesn’t rewrite history.
And forgiveness doesn’t require us to pretend the harm never happened.
And THEN there is Amazing Grace.
Newton wrote the hymn that became Amazing Grace years after leaving the slave trade. The words were first associated with a sermon he delivered in 1773.
And knowing the fuller story makes me hear those famous words differently:
Amazing grace.
A man who participated in one of the most horrific systems human beings ever created eventually looked backward and recognized the evil he had helped perpetuate.
Does that make him a hero?
I don’t know that I need him to be one.
Does it erase the Africans who suffered aboard those ships?
Absolutely not.
But it does make his story a complicated lesson about human beings, morality, Christianity, repentance—and how long it can take people to recognize evil when that evil is profitable, legal and socially acceptable.
And THAT is the part of history I want us to talk about.
Because sometimes history gives us comfortable little stories.
Then you start digging.
And you discover that the truth is much more complicated.
So the next time I hear:
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…”
I’m going to hear something different.
I’m going to remember that Newton knew exactly what he meant when he called himself a wretch.
But I’m also going to remember the African men, women and children whose names we don’t know.
The people down below deck.
The people packed together like books on a shelf.
The people who survived.
And the people who never made it across the Atlantic.
Their story belongs in the song too.
Keep digging. There is always more to the story.
References & Further Reading
- Newton, John. Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade. London, 1788. Project Gutenberg.
Read Newton’s original 1788 text - Royal Museums Greenwich. Journal of a Slave Trader: John Newton, 1750–1754. Newton’s surviving journal documenting his three voyages as master of the Duke of Argyle and the African.
Royal Museums Greenwich – John Newton Journal - National Portrait Gallery, London. John Newton (1725–1807). Biographical and portrait collection.
National Portrait Gallery – John Newton - Cowper & Newton Museum. John Newton (1725–1807). Biography covering Newton’s maritime career, involvement in the slave trade, ministry, and later abolitionist activities.
Cowper & Newton Museum – John Newton - Enslaved.org. Historical resources and datasets documenting people, voyages, and networks connected to the transatlantic slave trade.
Enslaved.org - SlaveVoyages. Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Research database documenting thousands of transatlantic slave-trading voyages, including ships, embarkation and disembarkation locations, and numbers of enslaved Africans transported.
SlaveVoyages Database
Suggested photo credit:
John Newton (1725–1807), clergyman and former slave-ship captain. Portrait collection, National Portrait Gallery, London.
If this blog made you think, taught you something new, or inspired you to dig a little deeper, I’d love your support. Please like ❤️, leave a comment 🗣️, and subscribe/follow so we can continue exploring the stories history too often leaves behind.
You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Substack, and yes… I’m even having fun experimenting with TikTok, sharing my thoughts, travels, coaching, and what life in my 60s really looks like—one story at a time.
A Note About AI: This blog may have been created with the assistance of multiple AI platforms for historical research, fact-checking, writing support, and image generation. Every idea, perspective, and final edit reflects my voice and my commitment to sharing thoughtful, well-researched stories. — Tena
Discover more from PocahontasAvenue
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
