Thomas Thistlewood

Thomas Thistlewood (* 16 March 1721, Tupholme, Lincolnshire; † 30 November 1786; Jamaica) was a British landowner and estate overseer who migrated to western Jamaica. He is remembered for his diary, which became an important historical document on slavery and history of Jamaica.

Biography

Thomas Thistlewood was born in United Kingdom and lived in Lincolnshire, England. In 1750 he left England and migrated to Jamaica, where he lived until his death in 1786. He became a small landowner and the overseer of the Egypt sugar plantation, which was located near the Savanna la Mar.

Diary

His diary is a detailed record of his life and daily activities, providing a rare and detailed insight into plantation life, from agricultural techniques to slave-owner relations.

In his diary, which eventually ran over 14,000 pages, he describes the brutal treatment of 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."

”

See also

• Tacky's War
• Derby's dose

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
  • Excerpts from the above book
• Douglas Hall, In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750-86, Macmillan, 1999, ISBN 0-333-48030-9

External links

• An introduction to Thomas Thistlewood’s journal
• Thomas Thistlewood on 'Sales and branding'
• Masters of Their Universe by Ira Berlin, The Nation, 2004, article