why is amazing grace so popular

To start, then, Newton had a childhood that would horrify us today but whose main elements were all too common at the time of his birth in 1725. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was seven years old, leaving him under the care of his stern sea-captain father who sent him off to boarding school for a couple of years and then took him to live with himself and his new wife. At age 11 Newton’s father took him to sea on his ship. You can be sure that Newton did not spend his days watching the seagulls or sitting in his father’s cabin reading books! He would have held the position of “ship’s boy” or “cabin boy,” which consisted of running errands for the captain, often taking messages from one end of the ship to the other, carrying water for the galley cook, tying knots, and scrambling up into the rigging to help trim the sails. (The smaller, lighter boys were considered especially suited for this last task.) Newton did this for six years until his father retired, with the plan being that Newton would then go to work on a sugar plantation in Jamaica. I’m sure if I delved into this story more deeply I could find out why Newton’s father wanted him to do this; another fractal layer would be exposed. Newton Sr.’s ship was apparently not involved directly in the African slave trade, but I think it must have carried sugar from the Caribbean to Britain as part of the “triangular trade” that had one leg going to Africa to trade goods for slaves, then the second taking slaves to North America and the Caribbean to work on plantations, then the third taking the sugar to Britain. There were some captains who traversed all three legs in a never-ending circle, but I don’t see that to be the case with the senior Newton.

Newton the younger was having none of this settling down on a sugar plantation. He apparently liked being at sea and got himself a position on another merchant ship. But now another twist in his story arose, as he got impressed, that is, drafted by force, into the British Navy in 1743. This practice was very common and indeed sanctioned by the government as a means of keeping Her Majesty’s Navy fully staffed. Military life apparently didn’t suit Newton (although how it could be even harder than life on a merchant ship is beyond me), and he tried to desert. Was that ever a bad move! The Navy did not treat desertion lightly; otherwise they’d have no sailors left. So,

stripped to the waist and tied to the grating, he received a flogging of eight dozen lashes and was reduced to the rank of a common seaman.

Following that disgrace and humiliation, Newton initially contemplated murdering the captain and committing suicide by throwing himself overboard.

Eight dozen is 96! And the beating was probably carried out with the multi-tailed whip called the “cat o’ nine tails,” so the actual lashes were multiplied by that number. With all this background in mind, then, it’s understandable that Newton was determined to escape again. I’m not sure how he accomplished this, but he somehow managed to get himself onto another, non-military ship: the slave trader Pegasus. Now, at age 20, Newton was participating directly in the transport and sale of human beings. This is one of the many, many times when I so want to sit down with someone from the past and ask questions: “Did you know that this was a slave ship before you joined it?” “Did that bother you?” “Did you ever come face to face with the reality of the conditions before deck for the captured Africans?” I actually do have an answer for the last question, as Newton wrote extensively in his pamphlet “Thoughts on the African Slave Trade” about the conditions on board these ships:

I have known them so close, that the shelf would not, easily, contain one more. Let it be observed, that the poor creatures, thus cramped for want of room, are likewise in irons, for the most part both hands and feet, and two together, which makes it difficult for them to turn or move, to attempt either to rise or to lie down, without hurting themselves, or each other.

But not only did Newton observe the plight of captured slaves; he was one himself. He “did not get along” with the crew of the Pegasus, so much so that he was left in Africa with a slave trader named Amos Clowe, who promptly “gave” Newton as a slave to his African wife, Princess Peye. Oh man! Would I love to know more about this! But however it happened, Newton spent over two years being abused and mistreated by the Princess, treatment that she doled out to all of her slaves. I know this all sounds like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but it’s attested to in multiple sources. Early in 1748 Newton was rescued by a sea captain who had been sent by his father to search for John. I guess there was some residual fatherly feeling there, in spite of everything. It was on the way back to England on the rescue ship that Newton had his famous conversion experience as a result of almost drowning in a storm.

But you’re going to have to wait until next week to find out what happened, as I’ve gone over my word limit and I haven’t even gotten to the bagpipes. So I’ll go ahead and give you this interesting tidbit now, since I promised it in the title. Bagpipes are especially common at the funerals of American firefighters and policemen, because when the great wave of Scottish and Irish immigrants came over in the mid-1850’s they were looked down upon and had to take the hardest jobs that no one else wanted, including the police and firefighters. When there was a death in the line of duty for these dangerous jobs, a way of reminding the neighborhood of these men’s heritage was to play the traditional bagpipes. (Yes, Ireland has bagpipes too.) And “Amazing Grace” was a popular funeral song, although not written by an Irishman or Scotsman. The song and the instrument became intertwined, and never the twain have parted!

Be sure to come back next week to read the rest of Newton’s story and how this hymn by a former slave trader became an icon of the civil rights movement. In the meantime you can enjoy one of the many, many performances of the hymn by pipers:

“Amazing Grace” is one of the most beloved hymns of the last two centuries. The soaring spiritual describing profound religious elation is estimated to be performed 10 million times annually and has appeared on over 11,000 albums. It was referenced in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin and had a surge of popularity during two of nation’s greatest crises: the Civil War and the Vietnam War.

Between 1970 and 1972, Judy Collins’ recording spent 67 weeks on the chart and peaked at number 5. Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Elvis are among the many artists to record the song. Recently, President Obama burst into the familiar tune during the memorial service for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, a victim of a heinous church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.

The song was written by a former enslaver

Ironically, this stirring song, closely associated with the African American community, was written by a former enslaver, John Newton. This unlikely authorship forms the basis of AmazingGrace, a Broadway musical (written by Broadway first-timer Christopher Smith, a former Philadelphia policeman, and playwright Arthur Giron) which tells Newton’s life story from his early days as a licentious libertine in the British navy to his religious conversion and taking up the abolitionist cause. But the real story behind the somewhat sentimental musical told in Newton’s autobiography reveals a more complex and ambiguous history.

Newton was born in 1725 in London to a Puritan mother who died two weeks before his seventh birthday, and a stern sea-captain father who took him to sea at age 11. After many voyages and a reckless youth of drinking, Newton was impressed into the British navy. After attempting to desert, he received eight dozen lashes and was reduced to the rank of common seaman.

While later serving on the Pegasus, an enslaved person ship, Newton did not get along with the crew who left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, an enslaver. Clowe gave Newton to his wife Princess Peye, an African royal who treated him vilely as she did her other enslaved people. On stage, Newton’s African adventures and enslavement are a bit more flashy with the ship going down, a thrilling underwater rescue of Newton by his loyal retainer Thomas, and an implied love affair between Newton and the Princess.

Newton converted to Christianity after a miracle at sea

The stage version has John’s father leading a rescue party to save his son from the calculating Princess, but in actuality, the enterprise was undertaken by a sea captain asked by the senior Newton to look for the missing John. (In the show, the elder Newton is wounded during the battle for his son’s freedom and later has a tearful deathbed scene with John on board ship.)

During the voyage home, the ship was caught in a horrendous storm off the coast of Ireland and almost sank. Newton prayed to God and the cargo miraculously shifted to fill a hole in the ship’s hull and the vessel drifted to safety. Newton took this as a sign from the Almighty and marked it as his conversion to Christianity. He did not radically change his ways at once, his total reformation was more gradual. "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterward,” he later wrote. He did begin reading the Bible at this point and began to view his captives with a more sympathetic view.

In the musical, John abjures slavery immediately after his shipboard epiphany and sails to Barbados to search for and buy the freedom of Thomas. After returning to England, Newton and his sweetheart Mary Catlett dramatically confront the Prince of Wales and urge him to abolish the cruel practice. In real life, Newton continued to sell his fellow human beings, making three voyages as the captain of two different vessels, The Duke of Argyle and the African. He suffered a stroke in 1754 and retired, but continued to invest in the business. In 1764, he was ordained as an Anglican priest and wrote 280 hymns to accompany his services. He wrote the words for “Amazing Grace” in 1772 (In 1835, William Walker put the words to the popular tune “New Britain”)

It was not until 1788, 34 years after leaving it that he renounced his former slaving profession by publishing a blazing pamphlet called “Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade.” The tract described the horrific conditions on the ships and Newton apologized for making a public statement so many years after participating in the trade: “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.” The pamphlet was so popular it was reprinted several times and sent to every member of Parliament. Under the leadership of MP William Wilberforce, the English civil government outlawed slavery in Great Britain in 1807 and Newton lived to see it, dying in December of that year. The passage of the Slave Trade Act is depicted in the 2006 film, also called Amazing Grace, starring Albert Finney as Newton and Ioan Gruffud as Wilberforce.

why is amazing grace so popular