There WAS a widespread awareness during Newton's time that slavery was NOT ok

No there wasn't. There were people who thought that it was bad, sure, but this isn't the same as "widespread awareness". In the US today, there are people who think it's bad for the environment to drive an SUV every day or run air conditioning in your house in summer instead of just opening windows and closing shutters, but it's safe to say that this isn't a "widespread awareness" in the US as a whole...

Slavery wasn't just legal then, it was actively supported by governments and the Catholic church. It was even supported by Africans themselves - as has previously been pointed out, Europeans were usually simply exporting African slaves who had already been captured and enslaved by other Africans.

Also consider the attitudes of the time. The press-gang was a widely-practised way of getting new recruits for the Army and Navy - essentially another form of slavery. Lower-class soldiers were basically thought of as subhuman cannon-fodder, and wars were started between the European nobility over trivial matters which resulted in massive slaughters of men. The unemployed ended up in forced labour in the workhouse - essentially another form of slavery - and even workhouses were an improvement on the previous situation, because at least they got some food and medical care, and women weren't forced into prostitution.

Basically, this wasn't a time when human rights featured very highly. So although we can criticise slavers by modern standards of morality, we're not in a position to judge them by the standards of *their* day.

Graham.