JOHN NEWTON ………From Rebel to Slave to Poet
/HIDDEN LIVES – SECRETS REVEALED – AMAZING LIFE STORIES
JOHN NEWTON ………From Rebel to Slave to Poet
So… there I was in a corral full of slaves in Sierra Leone, locked in and my ship sailing away over the horizon. Betrayed by the captain and hated by my ship mates, they’d had this coup planned for many a day.
I banged on the gate, shouted for Amos Clowe the slave trader to let me out and all I could hear was him laughing on the other side. ‘You got your comeuppance, as far as I can make out John Newton and I’ve heard enough about you to know I should let you cool off a bit before going anywhere near you.’
He might have been right in the first instance. Maybe I did deserve it, but in the second he was totally wrong. However long I was left in that corral I would fight like hell to escape if and when Amos Clowe, nicknamed the Crow, got anywhere near me. For three days I raged and ranted before realising I should play Crow at his own game. I could play subservient and quiet if that was what it took for Crow to give me an explanation. How long would it take for another ship to come? What did Crow have in mind for me….? And all the time thoughts of Polly, dear Polly at home.
Crow came for me at night, with four other men. His henchmen. All white men too, the slaves in the corral seemingly now counting me as one of their own.
Of course I fought, but just like when I had been pressganged into the navy, it was no fair match. I was hit unconscious and awoke to the most terrifying oppressive binding ever known to man. A metal ring around my neck with chains and my feet and hands bound. I was no more than an animal tethered to a post. I would rather die than be captive.
Yet Crow had other plans for me. He was married according to his wife’s culture, to a beautiful African woman. Princess Peye, a princess in her own country. It seemed a ridiculous match; a lithe tall royal woman with the stout, harsh, brute of a man that was Crow, but I tell you now, for cruelty, harshness and ruthlessness, Princess Peye could match Crow in every respect.
The thing was I had caught Princess Peyes’ eye and she wanted ME. Oh not for a lover, although even that would have been difficult with such a barbarian of a woman. No, not that. It was the idea of a white man as her slave that appealed to her. Role reversal. A white man that she as an African woman, could torture, humiliate and to whom she could give orders. A white man who would do her bidding, day after day, night after night. A white man she could totally control and reign supreme over.
Yes, John Newton, who wrote the words of the song Amazing Grace, was about to become a slave with a ring around his neck, to one of the cruellest women this world has ever known.
If you want to know how John Newton came to be in Sierra Leone in the first place or what happened to him thereafter, then watch the whole story in the video below.
