Thomas Newby was born in about 1725 and was a prominent Quaker in Perquimans County, North Carolina. By 1775 Newby owned fourteen enslaved people and in 1776 he freed ten of his enslaved people, hiring them out to other white people in the nearby community to earn wages. Newby also encouraged other Quakers in the area to free their enslaved people as well, using a religious argument to do so. Newby died in Perquimans in 1793.