- Thomas Thistlewood
Thomas Thistlewood (1721-1786) was a British estate overseer and small landowner in western
Jamaica . He wrote adiary , which eventually ran to some 14,000 pages, and this diary became an important historical document onslavery andhistory of Jamaica . In his diary he describes the brutality he metes out to his slaves:"He details the daily life of a slave owner and the quite extraordinary levels of brutality he metes out to his slaves; the sexual brutality to the women, and the physical brutality to all of them." [http://www.bbc.co.uk/northyorkshire/content/articles/2007/03/02/abolition_walvin_feature.shtml]
Thomas Thistlewood came to Jamaica from
Lincolnshire , England, in 1750. He stayed in Jamaica until his death in 1786. He became the overseer or manager of the Egypt sugar plantation near the small port ofSavanna la Mar .His diary is a unique record of his activities, which reflect a rich and exciting chronicle of
plantation life - its people, social life, agricultural techniques, medicinal remedies, and relations between slaves and owners.References
*
Trevor Burnard , "Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and His Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World", University of North Carolina Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8078-5525-1
** [http://uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/burnard_mastery.html Excerpts from the above book]
* Douglas Hall, "In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750-86", Macmillan, 1999, ISBN 0-333-48030-9See also
*
Tacky's War External links
* [http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/dgeggus/diary.htm An introduction to Thomas Thistlewood’s journal]
* [http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/slavery/thistlewood_arrival.asp#top Thomas Thistlewood on 'Sales and branding']
* [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041129/berlin Masters of Their Universe] byIra Berlin ,The Nation , 2004, article
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