{"id":129686,"date":"2024-11-24T22:33:15","date_gmt":"2024-11-24T15:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=129686"},"modified":"2024-11-24T22:33:15","modified_gmt":"2024-11-24T15:33:15","slug":"isaac-newtons-wealth-intimately-connected-with-slavery-author-says-isaac-newton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=129686","title":{"rendered":"Isaac Newton\u2019s wealth \u2018intimately connected\u2019 with slavery, author says | Isaac Newton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">Sir <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/isaac-newton\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Isaac Newton<\/a>, whose theory of gravity revolutionised science and who later rose to the upper echelons of London\u2019s banking world, had closer financial ties to the transatlantic trade in enslaved people than was previously understood, a new book has claimed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">The book, Ricardo\u2019s Dream, covers the life and work of David Ricardo, a pioneer of economic theory and the wealthiest stock trader of his day. It also re-examines Newton\u2019s time as master of the mint at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/bankofenglandgovernor\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Bank of England<\/a>, where the scientist wielded political influence and amassed vast personal wealth after leaving his academic position in Cambridge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">During the scientist\u2019s 30-year tenure at the bank, the book outlines, Newton oversaw an influx of gold mined primarily by enslaved Africans in Brazil. And as master of the mint, he took a small fee for every coin that was minted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">\u201cI show, in part with his own correspondence, digitised by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.history.ox.ac.uk\/newton-project\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">the Newton Project<\/a>, that he benefited from gold primarily from Brazil mined by enslaved peoples,\u201d said Nat Dyer, the book\u2019s author.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">\u201cDespite losing a lot of money on the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/the-south-sea-bubble-of-1720\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">stock market crash of the day<\/a>, Newton died an incredibly wealthy man,\u201d Dyer added. \u201cA lot of that was intimately connected with the transatlantic slave trade.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">The gold made its way to the bank largely through trade with Portugal, which controlled a rapidly expanding goldmining enterprise in Brazil. Typically, British cloth merchants trading in Lisbon were paid in gold, much of which was turned into currency at the Bank of England.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">Before taking up a role at the bank in 1696, Newton earned \u00a3100 a year (equivalent to \u00a336,000 today) as the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, where he developed his universal theory of gravity \u2013 possibly inspired by an apple falling from a tree. By 1702 he was earning nearly \u00a33,500 a year (\u00a31.26m today) and his wealth was such that on his death an inventory of valuable items included a pair of sterling silver chamber pots, apparently used by male guests behind a screen during dinner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">The book cites evidence that during Newton\u2019s three decades at the mint, England minted about \u00a314m in gold coin, roughly the amount minted in the 136 years before this period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">Newton\u2019s own correspondence confirms the origin of the gold, including a note from 1701 stating: \u201cWe can have no bullion but from the West Indies [South and Central America] belonging to Spain and Portugal.\u201d A letter to the Treasury in 1717 describes the west of England as \u201cfull of Gold\u201d from Portugal, bringing \u201cinto the Mint great Quantities of Gold\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">Dyer said: \u201cHe was at the very centre of this gold rush. The more gold that poured into the Tower of London, the richer he got.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">\u201cI don\u2019t think this should radically change every aspect of what we think of Newton,\u201d he added. \u201cHe\u2019s an epoch-defining thinker. But even the greatest scientists are part of their time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">To others, it is no surprise that Newton was a financial beneficiary of slavery, which lay at the heart of transatlantic trade. Iberian America is well established as the main source of gold bullion at the time, according to Prof Leonardo Marques, a historian at <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fluminense_Federal_University\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Fluminense Federal University<\/a> in Brazil.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">\u201cYou can find this in Locke, in Davenant, and in many other mercantilist writers of the time,\u201d Marques said. \u201cThus it is not surprising to me that Newton \u2013 apparently unlike many of his biographers \u2013 was aware that this gold was coming from Brazil.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">\u201cEveryone involved with banking and finance in early 18th-century Britain in a sense was somehow connected to the history of slavery and the slave trade to Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">Dr Patricia Fara, an emeritus fellow at the University of Cambridge and the author of Life After Gravity, previously highlighted separate links between Newton and the East India Company, whose officers Newton commissioned to make tidal measurements around the globe, and Newton\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prospectmagazine.co.uk\/ideas\/economics\/37531\/when-isaac-newton-was-master-of-the-royal-mint\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">ill-fated investment<\/a> in the South Sea Company, a slave-trading enterprise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1eu361v\">\u201cWe can\u2019t apply our own moral criteria to people who lived three or four hundred years ago,\u201d Fara said. \u201cNewton was more culpable than some and far less culpable than others. But it\u2019s important to recognise that people who are up on a pedestal in Westminster Abbey were involved in slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2024\/nov\/24\/isaac-newton-wealth-connected-with-slavery-author-says\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sir Isaac Newton, whose theory of gravity revolutionised science and who later rose to the upper echelons of London\u2019s banking world, had closer financial ties to the transatlantic trade in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=129686\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8628],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}