Thomas Thistlewood (16 March 1721 – 30 November 1786) was an English-born planter, diarist, and serial rapist who spent the majority of his life in the British colony of Jamaica. Born in Tupholme, Lincolnshire, Thistlewood migrated to the western end of Jamaica where he worked as a plantation overseer before acquiring ownership of several slave plantations. During his time in Jamaica, Thistlewood kept a diary in which he chronicled his life. Eventually spanning over 14,000 pages, the diary detailed the brutal physical and sexual abuse of the slaves he held authority over, first as an overseer then as a plantation owner.
In 1751, Thistlewood started working as an overseer on a sugar plantation called "Egypt"; within days, he started to rape the enslaved women on the plantation. According to his diary, over the course of his life he committed thousands of acts of rape on 138 enslaved women. He systematically raped enslaved girls and women; those that ran away were whipped and put in chains, collars, or placed in field gangs. He sometimes raped more than one woman in a night, after which he would give them some coins "for their troubles".
Two years later in 1753, Thistlewood received a runaway slave's severed head, and he placed it on a pole on the road near his home. Thistlewood also invented a form of torture called Derby's dose, which entailed flogging a slave, rubbing lime juice, salt pickle, and bird pepper on their wounds, and having a fellow slave defecate into their mouth. In 1767, Thistlewood purchased a plantation called "Breadnut Island Pen"; by 1779, he had 215 enslaved people rearing livestock and growing provisions. All of his slaves were branded with his initials on their right shoulders. At Breadnut Island Pen, Thistlewood made attempts to "match" his male and female slaves; he continued to rape the women. By 1788, Thistlewood was becoming regularly ill with syphilis and his sexual abuse declined as a result.
For most of the 1780s, Thistlewood's slaves suffered from malnutrition due to intentional mistreatment. If any enslaved person were caught eating the plantation's produce, they were brutally flogged. While his slaves complained of hunger and starvation, Thistlewood continuously entertained guests with lavish meals. He never married but had a long-term concubine, an enslaved woman called Phibbah, with whom he had a son. In his will he left and 218 slaves. Thistlewood's treatment of his enslaved workers did not attract criticism from Jamaica's slavocracy, as this was typical of the conditions faced by Jamaican slaves.James Walvin, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery (London: Fontana, 1992), pp. 133-140. His diary remains an important historical document chronicling the history of Jamaica during the 18th century.
Early life
Thomas Thistlewood was born in Tupholme, Lincolnshire on 16 March 1721. The second son of a farmer, he was educated in Ackworth, West Yorkshire, where he received training in mathematics and "practical science." At age six, he inherited 200 pounds sterling from his father, but most of the estate was given to his brother, thereby giving him the opportunity to leave England. He began training as a surveyor, but after a friend and fellow surveyor reportedly went mad and threw himself into the sea, Thistlewood reflected that "now my hopes are dead". Trevor Burnard concludes that the friend in question was William Wallace,Trevor Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and His Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World (2004), pp. 43–4. though it is also possible the man in question was James Crawford.P. 319 of Thistlewood's Diary for 1748–50, Beinecke Library, Yale University After a two-year voyage on one of the East India Company's ships as a supercargo, Thistlewood returned to England briefly at 29 and decided to seek employment in Jamaica.Douglas Hall, In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750–86, Macmillan, 1999, pp. 1–9. On 1 February 1750, he boarded the Flamborough to Savanna la Mar, Jamaica. He had letters of recommendation but no arranged employment. He arrived on 4 May.
Migration to Jamaica
Thistlewood began his Caribbean life as an overseer, first at Vineyard Pen, a cattle pen that provided meat and vegetable provisions to sugar plantations. He then worked primarily at Egypt, a sugar plantation owned by John Cope and William Dorrill, where he was an overseer from 1751 to 1767. The plantation was in Westmoreland Parish, where he supervised numerous slaves in sugar production. Egypt comprised 1,500 acres of land, of which 1,200 consisted of water and morass and were thus unsuitable for sugar production. Only 150 acres were in cane, and Thistlewood's first crop was so poor that Dorrill considered switching Egypt from sugar to a cattle pen.Hall, In Miserable Slavery, pp. xviii, 16–19, 26, 48, 138–39.
During these years, Thistlewood gradually acquired slaves of his own, whom he rented out to other planters. This is also when he met Phibbah, one of many slaves with whom he was "involved" sexually, but one with whom he formed a long-lasting relationship. The "relationship" was tempestuous, and they often quarrelled.Hall, In Miserable Slavery, pp. 25–91.
Thistlewood and the Maroons
Many enslaved people fled Egypt, but like other plantation owners and overseers, Thistlewood often hired Jamaican Maroons to hunt runaway slaves. He writes about several meetings with Leeward Maroon leaders Cudjoe and Accompong in the 1750s and 1760s. There are some strands of Maroon oral history which claim that Accompong actually died two years and Cudjoe five years after the treaty. However, primary documents by planter/historian Edward Long confirm Thistlewood's narrative that Cudjoe was alive in 1764. In addition, this narrative is further contradicted by documents from governor Roger Hope Elletson, which describe correspondence with Accompong after Cudjoe's death.Michael Sivapragasam, ′′After the Treaties: A Social, Economic and Demographic History of Maroon Society in Jamaica, 1739–1842′′, PhD Dissertation, African-Caribbean Institute of Jamaica library (Southampton: Southampton University, 2018), pp. 60–3. Hall, In Miserable Slavery, pp. 14, 17, 24, 28, 57, 60, 63, 101, 110, 133. Some aspects of Maroon oral history say that Cudjoe was also born in 1659, meaning he would be 100 years old at the time of meeting him. However, other versions of Maroon oral history state he was the son of Naquan, and therefore a younger man.Milton McFarlane, Cudjoe the Maroon (London: Allison & Busby, 1977), p. 24.
In late 1752, when out for a stroll, Thistlewood came across Congo Sam, a slave of his who had run away a month before, and tried to recapture him. Sam attacked Thistlewood with a dull machete, and inflicted some minor injuries on him, before another slave, London, came to Thistlewood's assistance, and they captured Sam. Two other slaves, Abigail and Bella, refused to help, and supported Sam's attempt to gain freedom. In the trial that followed, Abigail and Bella were given 100 lashes each, but because London refused to testify against Sam, he was acquitted.Hall, In Miserable Slavery, pp. 55–56. Slaves on many Jamaican plantations were not properly fed, and often resorted to stealing cane. In 1755–56, a slave named Scotland was caught stealing corn and plantains at Egypt. The watchman shot him and chopped him to death.Hall, In Miserable Slavery, pp. 69, 74.
Tacky's War
During Tacky's War in 1760, and subsequent slave revolts that decade, Thistlewood wrote about the fear planters felt about the uprising's possible success. He commended the Jamaican Maroons of Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town) for their bravery in fighting the rebels. Thistlewood wrote about rebel slaves killing white men, such as a Mr. Smith and a Captain Hoar. He was extremely anxious about the rebellion's progress and expressed disappointment with Royal Navy sailors who got drunk instead of fighting the rebels. Thistlewood noted that several of his own slaves were becoming disrespectful to him, and put it down to inspiration they were receiving from news of Tacky's revolt. In the years that followed, Thistlewood wrote about attempts to put down smaller, spin-off rebellions, especially the ones in western Jamaica, led by Apongo, a slave belonging to Cope. According to Thistlewood, Apongo was a "prince in Guinea", who paid homage to the King of Dahomey. Thistlewood claimed that Apongo was "surprised and took prisoner when hunting, and sold for a slave."Vincent Brown, Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2020), pp. 34–43.
Thistlewood wrote about John Jones's house being burnt by rebel slaves, who initially defeated a contingent of white militias, killing a number of soldiers. Despite his anxiety, Thistlewood still found time to rape several of his slaves. Eventually, the revolt was suppressed on both the eastern and western ends of the island. A number of slaves in western Jamaica, including some who belonged to Cope, such as Apongo, were executed in the aftermath. For their part in the rebellion, two of Thistlewood's Egypt slaves, Quacoo and Abraham, were sentenced to be resold in the Spanish Caribbean colonies. In 1766, Thistlewood was a part of the militia that put down another slave revolt, inspired by Tacky, this time in western Jamaica. In 1776, he was again armed, as white Jamaicans heard rumours of another rebellion, which did not materialise.
Owner of Breadnut
While overseer of Egypt, Thistlewood began to acquire slaves, whom he then rented them out to earn an additional income.Hall, In Miserable Slavery, p. 121. All of the enslaved people were branded with "TT" on their right shoulders. When Bess's son Bristol was seven, Thistlewood had him branded. When Mary was recaptured after running away, Thistlewood had her flogged, branded on her left cheek, and "put her on a steel collar with a few links of chain to it".Hall, In Miserable Slavery, pp. 82–83, 120, 124, 135, 155, 206, 254, 272, 286. By 1762, he owned 12 slaves. By 1767, he owned 28.Hall, In Miserable Slavery, pp. 125, 143.
In 1767, Thistlewood purchased a 160-acre plantation, Breadnut Island Pen, where about 30 slaves raised provisions and livestock. That tally declined to 26 three years later, but by 1779, he increased his slave population to 32. By 1782, Thistlewood had 34 slaves, of whom nine were men, 12 women, and 13 underage. Thistlewood lacked the capital to purchase a sugar plantation, 18th-century Jamaica's most lucrative crop. Instead, he settled for a venture that was less prestigious but had the potential to be almost as profitable. Thistlewood hired out slaves during the crop season to larger sugar plantations, while on his land he planted a number of provisions, such as turnips, cabbages, parsley, nutmeg, coconuts, and coffee, which he then sold to the owners of sugar estates.Hall, In Miserable Slavery, pp. xviii, 115, 148, 163, 173, 178, 262, 293. Thistlewood also pursued a variety of scientific and intellectual interests. He acquired several hundred books, often on scientific and technical subjects; collected and described medicinal plants and other botanical specimens; and kept a detailed weather record for 34 years. He sent a detailed package containing these observations to the wealthy colonial writer Edward Long, but Long never acknowledged receipt in his writings, though they can be found among Long's unpublished manuscripts in the British Museum.Hall, In Miserable Slavery, pp. 241, 246.