Transcript

Part One: Thomas Thistlewood: Slave Plantation Owner and Diarist | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

From Behind the Bastards · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 14 min · 15,070 words · 223 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Part One: Thomas Thistlewood: Slave Plantation Owner and Diarist | BEHIND THE BASTARDS", an episode of Behind the Bastards published November 12, 2025 (1 h 14 min, about 15,070 words). It mentions 13 people, works and ideas, including Thomas Thistlewood, Egypt Plantation, TT Lee, James Robertson, East India Company.

What this episode is about

The discussion centers on Thomas Thistlewood, a notorious slave plantation owner and diarist, exploring his life and the darker aspects of his legacy, while also examining the broader themes of power and morality. The dialogue intertwines historical reflection with humorous commentary on contemporary societal issues, emphasizing the importance of remembering and learning from the past.

Key takeaways

  • Reality TV might just be the best way to decide who gets nuclear launch codes—entertaining and terrifying!
  • If cosmetic surgery is trending for dogs, we should brace ourselves for the cat version of botox next.
  • Thomas Thistlewood’s diaries are like the horror movie sequel we never asked for, exposing true plantation brutality.
  • In the race for immortality, I’d commit a crime wave for my dog—talk about loyalty upgrades!
  • The shadow of slavery lingers; history often whispers louder through the diaries of its worst offenders.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Thomas Thistlewood, TT Lee, Lincolnshire, Tupelm
  2. – 20:00: East India Company, Lincolnshire
  3. – 40:00: Thomas Thistlewood, James Robertson, Caribbean Quarterly
  4. – 50:00: James Robertson, Ebo forest
  5. – 1:00:00: Thomas Thistlewood
  6. – 1:10:00: Egypt Plantation, Thomas Thistlewood
  7. – 1:13:42: Thomas Thistlewood, Scary Stories to Make You Scared of Christmas, Zach Brousard

Notable quotes from "Part One: Thomas Thistlewood: Slave Plantation Owner and Diarist | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"

  • Someone who's not one of the worst people in all of history, but is in fact my friend TT Lee. Welcome to the show.
    about TT Lee · at
  • Like sex criminals and murderers in history just because of like the stuff he wrote in his own diary. And this guy's name is Thomas Thistlewood and he's someone who's like…
    about Thomas Thistlewood · at
  • Of the worst things people ever did to each other. but yeah, his name was Thomas Thistlewood and he was born on March 16th, 1721 in Tupelm, Lincolnshire. his father was Robert…
    about Lincolnshire · at
  • Of England alto together, right? and so in 1746, he travels to London and he signs a contract with the East India Company to act as a purser on of super cargo on a ship headed for the Far East.
    about East India Company · at
  • Is how it's being marketed, right? This is how guys like Thomas are convinced to go there. And I want to quote now from a 2006 article in Caribbean Quarterly by James…
    about James Robertson · at
  • And he writes this in his like Latin shortorthhand. And basically the translation is that he slept with this enslaved woman named Sylvia who's a black woman from the Ebo forest…
    about Ebo forest · at
  • He gets made overseer of the large and profitable Egypt plantation. This is still in Jamaica. It's just called Egypt. He's paid the princely sum of60 sterling a year for his labor.
    about Egypt Plantation · at
  • But my friend Zach Brousard just came out with a book and I so I'll plug his book. It's it's a it's a what is it called? Oh my gosh. Wait, it's called Spooky Story. It's like kind.
    about Zach Brousard · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Thomas Thistlewood — Person · Primary subject (historical 'bastard') · 6 mentions · first at
    Central figure of the episode: an 18th-century Jamaica plantation overseer/owner whose detailed diaries document daily brutality of slavery, including sexual violence and punishments.
  • TT Lee — Person · Main guest / co-host for the episode · 1 mention · first at
    Guest reacting to and discussing the narrative; asks clarifying questions and plugs a friend's book at the end.
  • James Robertson — Person · Referenced expert / historian (quoted source) · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as author of a 2006 Caribbean Quarterly article used to contextualize Jamaica’s migrant labor/plantation society and 'seasoning' mortality.
  • Carl Linnaeus — Person · Referenced scientist (taxonomy; Latin/science framing) · 1 mention
    Invoked to explain Latin as the scientific language and to frame Thistlewood’s self-presentation as a 'man of science' documenting/ordering the world.
  • Zach Brousard — Person · Referenced creator (book author; plug) · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned by TT Lee while plugging his Christmas-themed parody book; presented as a comedian and the book’s creator.
  • Anderson (TT Lee's dog) — Person · TT Lee's pet · 1 mention
    Mentioned in relation to the host's personal life and anecdotes
    I loved back in the day Anderson and Wooi used to hang and that was nice.

Books & papers

  • Scary Stories to Make You Scared of Christmas — Book · Primary recommendation · 1 mention · first at
    Book recommended by TT Lee during the podcast.
    Christmas one. It's called Scary Stories to Make You Scared of Christmas. Zach Bashard. It's you can get a free ebook online or you can buy it on Amazon. So check it out. He's very funny comedian.

Companies & orgs

  • East India Company — Company · Employer · 1 mention · first at
    Employed Thomas Thistlewood as a purser on a ship before he moved to Jamaica.

Places & events

  • Egypt Plantation — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Plantation in Jamaica where Thomas Thistlewood worked as an overseer.
  • Lincolnshire — Place · Origin · 2 mentions · first at
    Birthplace of Thomas Thistlewood, where he spent his early life before moving to Jamaica.
  • Tupelm — Place · Origin · 1 mention · first at
    Birthplace of Thomas Thistlewood in Lincolnshire.
    Of the worst things people ever did to each other. but yeah, his name was Thomas Thistlewood and he was born on March 16th, 1721 in Tupelm, Lincolnshire. his father was Robert…
  • Ebo forest — Place · Origin · 1 mention · first at
    Region in modern-day Cameroon where an enslaved woman named Sylvia was from.

Media & podcasts

  • Caribbean Quarterly — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Academic journal referenced for information about Jamaica during the time of Thomas Thistlewood.
    Is how it's being marketed, right? This is how guys like Thomas are convinced to go there. And I want to quote now from a 2006 article in Caribbean Quarterly by James…

Full transcript with timestamps

Ah, and welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast that you're listening to today. Uh, and maybe other days, probably other days. Uh, I'm Robert Evans. Here to tell you about some of the worst people in all of history. And to talk with us about some of the worst people in all of history is someone who's not one of the worst people in all of history, but is in fact my friend TT Lee. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?

I'm good. I mean, I still have time to become one of the worst people in history. So,

you could if you really wanted to. Yeah. Like, I I believe you could be a contender.

No, no. It it it's like that uh it's like that movie where uh uh what is it? Uh [ __ ] uh Marky Mark becomes a pro football player by trying out. Like, I think you could you could become a dictator if you show up.

If there was a competition show. Yeah, I need rules. If there's like a rubric, I mean, actually, there probably is. I don't know if I would do well actually in that competition. But

see, that's this is what this is what none of these network state Silicon Valley dictatorship people have any sense of like uh fun cuz if you had like a reality show where whoever whoever won got to govern like 3 million people's lives as like an iron fisted dictator.

Like the the the the franchising potential for that show is incredible. Especially if any of them become nuclear armed. I mean, my god, you could you could keep people glued to the TV. Like, that's that's the new reality show. Yeah.

Competition for who gets the nuclear codes. I mean, we might actually end up in a better situation.

Yeah. That than we are now. Just give it to someone else. See, I have a important question.

Yeah. How's Wo? Oh my god. Wo. He's right behind me. Wait, is there video on the

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There he is. He doesn't like when he's not the center of attention as I don't know if any I feel like old days when we used to go into the um what is it that that that big building in Hollywood to record

Woo would run around and make a lot of noise and then I had to stop bringing him because

I discovered he doesn't like when he's not the center of attention. I loved back back in the day Anderson and Wooi used to hang and that was nice.

That was really nice. He's an old doggy now. He's about to be nine. Yeah, Anderson will be I'll have had Anderson 10 years next year, which is horrific and awesome, but horrific. I would like her to age less.

Yeah. Wouldn't we all like to age less? Yeah. That way lays to Would you Would you if if giving like the blood of a young dog to Anderson would make Anderson younger? Would you do the Peter Teal thing with Anderson?

I would commit so many horrific crimes to extend the lives of Anderson. If I could extenderson's life longer, the amount of crimes I would commit to do this,

I probably shouldn't say on it on Mike, but my goodness, I would bio biohacker. Who's the guy who like is always Botoxing his penis?

Brian. Oh, you talking about the guy that wants to live forever. Oh, that vampire looking guy.

They're all Botoxing. The guy on top probably him. Yeah. I feel like I I wonder when Yeah. when the next dog uh like

when the dog version of that the dog version of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it does tend to it like every after five or 10 years it trickles down like people are now doing like like cosmetic surgeries for their dogs and stuff. It just takes a little while longer uh for it to for for people to be like, "Well, maybe my dog also needs to be ashamed that they're that their their eyelids are drooping or something like that." Even though they're a bass and that's how they're supposed to look. I mean, they have BBL surgeries for um the lab boooos now. That's like a whole

what whole thing on Tik Tok. Yeah, that there's like they like wear little doctor clothes and have little gloves and lights.

Oh my god, you got to LOOK IT UP. THEY'RE GREAT. The videos are great. But I mean,

well, I love the modern world, but you know what? The modern world is built on tit slavery. Obviously, right? We're all We're all aware of that both in the past and today. Horrific transition, Robert.

I didn't I wasn't given a lot of options. Start my weekend. Fair enough. We started the started this how we started this and that was the easiest way to get to slavery. You're never more than like two steps away when you're talking about like uh really any human history to be honest. Um, but when we talk about like the Atlantic slave trade, right, shadow slave trade in the Americas, uh, a lot of like our documentation about like what happened is documentation of like people kind of nearer to the end of the process who like escaped and were able to write about it. That's not exclusively it, but you get a lot more from that period of time. um just because you know earlier in the system there were it was a lot harder for somebody to break out of that system and then to be able to like talk about what had happened to them. And so when it comes to like kind of the height of of this period of time, one of our

best sources in terms of like how actually brutal the system was on a day-to-day basis is the notes, the extensive diaries of a single man uh of a guy who was a plantation owner in Jamaica and one of the worst like documented like sex criminals and murderers in history just because of like the stuff he wrote in his own diary. And this guy's name is Thomas Thistlewood and he's someone who's like studied by historians of slavery today because like you get something with him that you don't get a lot which is like one of the guys actually doing it's like some of those like internal notes that the Nazis took when they were doing their their [ __ ] where you've got like this guy who's a part of this system that is still like a century away from a reckoning you know almost at the time that he dies who's just like writing about it as like this is got up this morning and here's what I did to these

people that I own. Wow. Um, so that's what we're talking about today. This is like a bleak story, but it it's really important. Not because Thistlewood himself is like the worst specific guy who ever owned people, but more because he's a pretty normal guy who owned people who was like unusually detailed in his his notetaking, right? That's why we know about this.

Like a guy writing in his diary. That's exactly what it is. I had no idea what like right before we started recording, I was like, I don't know what we're talking about today. And I asked you, I was like, "Is it going to be perfect?" You're like, "Yep, we're done."

Must this one's real bad. Uh, here we go. I felt a need to warn you. Yeah. I had a feeling I'm like, "You know what? It's been a while since I've done this podcast. It's it's it's going to be a brutal one." Um, but no. Well, uh, yeah. Well, I mean that obviously I'm sure there's horrific things in it. It's but was wild that you were talking what you said about um before people realize there's a reckoning cuz that's something like I think about a lot like just like him writing in a diary feels like the most private safe like secretive thing right you just wrote in a piece of paper there's no such thing as xerox there's no like internet you just hide it somewhere but that's also like one of the most lasting things cuz nowadays internet could go away in you know 100 years

and this is one of those things where this guy Yeah like like like this there's a decent chance that like very few people's lives were like live tweeting or streaming everything they do today will be as known in a hundred years as Thomas Thistlewoods because he wrote it all down on paper and it got like when he died his effects wound up in I think in a university's collection. It was like a long decades after his death that pe someone found these and was like oh my god like there's a lot of in there's a lot of detail in here about how slavery worked. He's also like our best detail on what the climate of Jamaica was like for about a hundred years because he was just taking like really detailed notes and it would be like woke up and committed these horrible sex crimes. Here's what the weather was like, right? Like these are the diary entries that he's leaving behind. So he's it's one of those things

where you'll find you'll find whole books by people that are just like exerting the stuff from his diary about the weather cuz that's important for like climactic science and stuff like

first and impression. Yeah. And then there's this larger branch of scholarship that's about his crimes against humanity,

but it it's kind of like the Uni Bomber where he is also known for his other work, you know.

Um, interesting. Yeah, it reminds me I don't know why I thought of Arcadia the play, but that's too obscure of a reference where all the notes being taken are

Anyways, I probably shouldn't have even brought it up, but anyways. No, no, no, but they go the Arcadia. It's Tom Stoppper play, but in it they

Well, the reason I brought it up is because people are taking notes and trying to infer what happened, but then there's like slight misunderstandings of like

what actually happened. But I just find that interesting if he mentions like a weird obscure bird or something and you're like,

"Oh, so I just imagine some like, you know, bird hunter like looking through his diary like, yes, he was a terrible slave owner, but there's a sign this bird."

They've documented that this animal lived here at this time, too. That is like the thing with his diaries is that they're both really useful to like naturalists and also to students of one of the worst things people ever did to each other. Um but yeah, his name was Thomas Thistlewood and he was born on March 16th, 1721 in Tupelm, Lincolnshire. Uh his father was Robert Thistlewood and he was a who was a moderately successful farmer, you know. So this is in in you know Ingaland. Uh his dad is like an okay farmer. Yeah.

but not like super wealthy, right? Like his his family aren't aristocracy, but they're like landed and they're doing okay. They're like upper middle class by the time his dad dies. Um, and his dad dies pretty young when Thomas is six in 1727. Now, this is one of those things where like the early 1700s were kind of coming into modernity, but there's still a lot that's almost very medieval. So, like the the father dies and he's got multiple sons. Everything's going to the firstborn son, right? That's just the way [ __ ] tends to work. And so if you're the secondborn son e either of like a wealthy family or of like a family like this that's just pretty comfortable, you're not going to inherit any of that land or really much in the way of wealth, right? So you kind of you you grow up knowing your older brother's getting everything and it you're going to have to figure out something new to do something probably not. This is what

fuels colonialism, right? is to a heavy extent you've got all these second and third sons who are like not going to get [ __ ] unless they get it themselves. So they go over to the new world and they probably die of of kalera in a month but whatever you know

some of them get rich. You could marry rich but you know yeah that's your other option is marrying rich. Um but but uh you know some people tried to do both. Um, and yeah, this is kind of This wood's going to be one of these guys who from the time he's like 5 or 6 years old knows, okay, dad's gone. I'm I'm kind of on my own in terms of figuring out like what I'm going to do to to make my fortune, you know. Um, Thomas would be one of these unhappy second sons. His older brother, John, built born in 1716, inherits basically everything. Their dad does set aside some money for Thomas, about 200 pound sterling. And you can never kind of convert perfectly from that kind of money to this kind of money cuz like most people back then didn't have money or at least didn't use it most of the time. Like your average transaction is like your average working class person isn't handing over money for stuff. You're often like bartering

like well this time of year here's what I got and here's what I need. Right? That's kind of a lot of a lot of the use of currency or IUS and stuff like that. So, but anyway, you might translate his inheritance to like4 or $50,000, right? It's enough. It's going to like pay for him to get through school basically and that's kind of it

because for his whole childhood he has to like pay the people who are taking him in. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So, this has to last the rest of his It sounds like a lot.

I see. But it's got to last him until at least until he's an adult, right? cuz he's he gets like moved around almost as soon as his dad dies. And basically these people who are teaching him, he's living with them or he's at a boarding school. And so wherever he is, he's paying to be and he's paying people to take care of him for the rest of his childhood cuz that's kind of the only reliable social support there is. Some of these people are his relatives, but he still has to give them money because like

it's like you travel with your bag of money and you're like one coin for you, right? You get one coin a year for taking care of me as like a seven-year-old right?

Yeah. So, you're I I wonder how much that does impact him as a kid cuz that's a very transactional way to think of your childhood. Like, all right, now you have this much money left for your childhood and you have to pay this much a year to the people carrying you so they could feed you, right?

Like, that's wild. And you really have a sense of like how much your your value is in society and if someone's like, "I don't want to take care of you for this much." And you're like, "Please, it I'm worth this much to be alive." Like,

yeah, exactly. Here's what I can pay to continue being alive. Please. Um, and yeah, he's going to be this is going to kind of turn him into the perfect foot soldier of the British Empire cuz he's he's very he sees relationships as very transactional and he's he grows up knowing I'm going to have to hustle constantly for everything that I'm going to get, right? Um, especially if I want to be anywhere near as comfortable as like my dad was and my older brother is going to be. So, in 1729, and now 8-year-old Thomas Thistle would have sent to a school in Lincolnshire. Uh, this is a nice place, but it's not like the kind of fancy boarding school that the wealthy sons of the aristocracy are going to like send their kids to. So, he winds up boarding with a relative by marriage. And he pays for his upkeep with his inheritance. And he does this in various ways over the next six years in three different schools. He studies

Latin. He becomes fluent in that. He learns Greek and he studies reading, writing, and arithmetic. And he he's an intelligent kid. All signs point to the fact that he did pretty well in school. But it's also one of those things where once you're like 14 or 15, you're basically grown. And they're like, "It's time to apprentice in something and figure out what you're actually going to do for a living." So at age 15, he moves into an uncle's house and he pays him5 sterling a year to be an apprentice on his farm. So he's like paying his uncle to teach him how to run a farm. Um but he's because he's not going to he's going to have to work on someone else's.

He's not going to inherit any land of his own. Um sometime after this a couple years later.

Reverse paid intern unpaid internship. Reverse. It's like an internship that you pay to attend at your family. Like you're paying your uncle to do your uh like to give you a a paid internship

which is a shitty gig really. like having done an unpaid internship, at least you're not out any money, right? Um

Yeah. And it sounds like he's working. He's given him free labor. Yeah. It's really [ __ ] up actually. And this guy's his uncle. Yeah. But that just that tells you something about how mercenary a lot of this culture is at the time, right? Like you wonder why did the British Empire do the things that the British Empire did? Well, this is how people are living on the island when they're better off, right?

Yeah. Wow. That's like it's like these are the citizens who and this is like their norm.

Yeah. How do you think they're going to treat people in Bengal like Yeah. their own to pay.

Yeah. Exactly. So, uh I don't know how long he spends in this internship exactly, but he probably would have been somewhere around 18 when he sets off fully on his own to make a living as a livestock dealer. Right. So, he decides, I don't have any land yet, but I've got some money I've saved up, some leftover from my inheritance. I'm going to start buying and selling livestock to try to make a profit. Um, and around this time as he's starting his career, he he hooks up with a local girl for the first time and she gets pregnant, right? He gets this this young woman pregnant and they're not married. Now, in this period of time, the early 1700s, that there's this social level, if you get someone pregnant as the as the as the man, you have two choices. Choice one is convince this lady's parents to let you marry their daughter, right? And that's very much your job. She does not have a lot of choice in the matter, right? Um

that's going to vary from family to family, but this is primarily you interfacing with this this this this young woman's family, right? And if they don't want you to marry their daughter, if they don't see you as a suitable match, you can get into shitload of trouble. You can go to prison for fathering a bastard, right? So

yeah, he gets in this situation and this this lady's parents, I don't know much about this person, but and and I say I don't know if literally if she is a girl, like a child or if she's like she could have been anywhere from like 15 to 20 given the way things worked at the time right?

Yikes. Um and I have no idea like why, but her her parents are like, "This guy is not a suitable match for our daughter. Maybe it's just that he's poor. Maybe they see something of like the the sketchiness lurking inside this man's soul. I have no idea. But they say no. And so he really is looking at like if this girl has a kid, I'm going I could go to prison. I'm at least going to have to pay like a heavy fine for what I did. But then the child doesn't come to term and he gets off scot-free, right? But this kind of inspires him to like get the [ __ ] out, right? Like this was my message of like I got almost got in a lot of trouble here. I need to actually like escape my hometown, maybe get out of England alto together, right? Um, and so in 1746, he travels to London and he signs a contract with the East India Company to act as a purser on of super cargo on a ship headed for the Far East.

This means that like you know you've got this boat and it's taking a bunch of goods over to like India and other parts of Southeast Asia and it's going to come back with a bunch of goods from the different places it visits on this like two year year and a half two year long voyage. Right? This is the age of sale. That's how long [ __ ] takes back then. And he's his job he's getting paid to like manage the money on board. Right? They've got a bunch of petty cash. Some of their it they're using to like buy goods to take back. some of it they're using to pay for like incidentals and necessities on the v voyage and he's the guy like man he's the ship's accountant almost right um now the ship like the one that he signed on to it's going to like leave with goods loaded for you know from the home country for homesick colonizers in India and then it's going to come back with all sorts of [ __ ] and

you you're getting paid to do your job but you also part of like how you make good on being having a job like this is along the way you're buying stuff at all of these these different foreign ports that you're going to sell back at home, right? That's understood to be like perk of the job.

Side hustle, right? You're going to like sell a bunch of tea that you bought in India for like way more money back in London or some [ __ ] like that, right? Um, so the ship they're gone for almost 2 years. Like it's a long voyage and they land back in Black Wall on August 27th, 1748. Thomas disembarks. He's now in his late 20s. He's a seasoned world traveler and an entrepreneur. He gets his back wages for the journey, which is like 30 sterling, something like 8,500 bucks in modern money, which is not a lot for like 2 years of of hard labor on a boat. Um, now he's got a bunch of [ __ ] with him that he's going to try to make a fortune flipping and selling, but he also spends most of his time like gambling and playing cards and speculating on investments and he's just spending his money, right? because number one, he's spending most of his money on like gambling. And the money he's not spending on gambling, he's spending on

prostitutes, right? Like we're talking London in the 1700s. And he he talks about this in a diary, right? Um cuz this diary that this is like a thing that he picks up at the school that he goes to where you're they're like,

so this diary, are we already starting with the diary? Cuz I know when he was eight, he wasn't writing in it yet. Okay, so we're in diary firsthand account mode. Yeah, he starts kind of in his early adulthood, right? And he's this is like this is not a diary of his thoughts and feelings. We learn basically nothing about what he how he feels. This is cuz he's just like he's listing everything he buys and sells. So you see part of the use of this diary,

right? Yes. Classic man where it's just like uh this is what dinner cost me in 1748, right? Like this is the cost of like buying tobacco. This is how much I lost at cards last night. this is how much I paid this prostitute. Right? And so it it's both like you get you do get this weirdly detached look at the inside of this guy, but you also get like you can see why it's useful to all sorts of different scholars where they're like, "Well, what did it cost to get like drunk and gamble and go out with a prostitute in London in 1748?" Well, this we we know actually this guy took notes on it, right?

Or at least we have an idea. Yeah. Uh great question. Um so when to answer Time machines exist. No, I'm

exactly. You need to know what to bring along. I have a lot of foreign currency from the past that I keep in emergency bags in case I get transported back in time. You wind up in ancient Rome. You don't want to not have any dinari. Like, what are you going to do, you know?

Okay, Robert. You got to fight for it in a gladatorial pit. You're not doing that.

I actually believe you would you would have like an old money collection. Like,

you got to be ready. Yeah. Keep that. And yeah. All right, Robert. Um, so whenever he was writing to know what it like a night out with a prostitute cost in London in 1748, whenever he wrote about stuff like this, he would like box off the entry about the sex stuff from the rest of his diary entries, and he would preface it with the letters xxx, which is interesting. I didn't know that went back that far, but apparently it did.

Um, or at least that's what he chose cuz like I don't think this was like a broader thing in society yet. It may just have been a coincidence uh that he chose to do that to like kind of make a note that he was about to start talking about sex. And he would always write about it in Latin.

And so the very first entry that we have of him writing about sex is of a night he spent with a prostitute in 1748. And he writes in the evening two uh in the evening tumier two shillings, right? Uh and and a mulier is a contemporary term for a prostitute, right? So he spends two shillings for a night with this lady, right? Uh, and he writes a G above her title, which is his way of letting her know G is the seventh letter. It's his way of noting alphabetically this is the seventh woman that he slept with. So presumably while he's traveling around the world at various ports, he's he's doing, you know, he's probably paying women, right? That's likely who most of A through F are. One of them's got to be that lady that he he got pregnant briefly, right? You assuming like but this also tells you a lot about him that he is he's talking about the women that he's been with. He's just like alphabetically counting them, right?

Like that the code I feel like that's like what because it like you even though it is private, there's a part of him that's like just ina like

just in case someone finds it. He's writing it in like a secret code. That's what I did when I was

a child in my my first pink diary like write, you know, like pig Latin. It's it's great. I wasn't writing Yeah. I wasn't writing Latin back back then.

Pig Latin. Yeah. And I wasn't hiring prostitutes either. Well, yeah. I I would hope not. But it is like what you've picked up on is actually something scholars are really interested in because there's a lot of debate as to like why did he write about sex this way? Why did he do it in Latin, right? And that is one of the theories, right, as we'll talk about that basically this was his way of like if somebody comes across this, I don't want anyone at least I don't want anyone uneducated knowing what I've been writing about, you know? Um, and from what we can tell, this is a guy who I don't know if we'd call him like a nyamomaniac today, but sex is a lot bigger part of his life than people would have admitted to, than like a polite man would have admitted to in this period of time, right?

Um, and he he tries one last time after he gets back from this overseas voyage to to have a proper marriage with someone in England and like start a life on the island. uh he sits down with the parents of a girl that he'd known as a younger man and he asks them like, "Hey, can I marry your daughter?" And again, he he writes that they entertained him with great civility, which one of his biographers said was like that was him saying that they said no. Right? That they were like they politely said absolutely you cannot marry our daughter. You're a creep. Right? like um

yeah, it sounds like there's stuff that he's like not you know like when you meet someone you're like oh

something's wrong with him and you're like oh I see that's why like the vibes are off something's wrong

he looks like the kind of guy who lists women alphabetically in his weird crime diary like yeah

yeah those parents are correct in their assessment yeah good call don't let this guy marry your daughter call

um so during this period of time as at all other points in his life. Thomas read voraciously and he took notes in his diary on what particularly interested him in the books that he was reading in January of 1749. This was abortions. He's really interested in and this again tells you a lot about what's happening elsewhere in this guy's life is he's just casually interested in how to make abortance, right? Like drugs to induce like abortion. Wow.

Um or a mis like he often frames it as drugs to induce a miscarriage, right? Um, and one of his recipes, I just found this interesting because this tells you like again one of the things that

oh man, the society believes at the time for an abortant at the time is one pound of bitter apples. I think that's what it means. It's it's like LD of bitter. So it's an amount of bitter apples steeped in beer and cooked at least twice. Uh, it says it said will cause abortion certainly. So

dang bit covering my unborn baby's ears right now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the good news is I don't think there's a lot of bitter apples around anymore. Um although depending on the state of reproductive healthcare in the near term. I don't know. I don't also I kind of doubt this worked very well, but maybe it did. Um he also took

making drinks to like feed. Yes. Like he's making morning after pills. Yeah. He's interest or at least he he's put part of like one of the things that's theorized is that if he didn't need it then he was taking down notes while he was like near a library on how to make basically morning after pills cuz he foresaw cuz of what had happened to him in his past he was like I might need to do that in the future right like cuz the other thing he's doing at the same time is he's writing down recipes for cures for veneerial diseases because this is a guy who's probably by this point slept with prostitutes and ports all around the world. He's picked up a lot of ED, right? Like this is not like there's no antibiotics. They don't know anything about like how to prevent disease.

Um so he c he catches chlamyia and he writes uh uh he this is like the recipe he gives for a treatment for chlamydia. Take every other day one dose of any purging pills and continue that course if your strength will allow it until the running change both its color and consistency and appears the same as the semen. Right? That's like this like discharge that happens when people get the clap. So he's he's taking these like weird balms and we don't know exactly what's in them, right? Because there's these are both cures for like the clap and for you know ganorrhea that guys are like buying on the streets. One of them is called ciderhems common purging. One of them is called balm captive. And we don't know exactly what he was taking but I did find a dissertation by Elizabeth Pcha for Northeastern University that discussed a similar quack remedy that this exact guy used later for the same diseases. uh Ward's

pill and drop which were these blue, red and white pills that were filled with arsenic and other poisons. So that's what he's taking for VD. It's like arsenic. Yeah. And like probably mercury and [ __ ] That's what people put in these cuz they like

Wow. you. It's the same logic that a lot of like [ __ ] new age medicine stuff uses today where they're like, "Look, it's drawing out the toxins

where they're like if you give someone this like arsenic that they wind up like their body purges everything like they wind up vomiting and like having

right cleansing you. Yeah, they used to do Lysol was uh originally invented as like a a vagina cleaner. So yeah,

I mean I'm sure the men didn't have great healthcare before either. I mean they got theirs a little faster than we did but

right 20s. Yeah. No one's doing great. And I think the logic is the same as with Lysol where it's like, well, this looks like it hurts like hell, so it must be working right?

It's like now you've just poisoned yourself. Disinfect everything. Yeah. Yeah. You're all just taking arsenic. Um, so by the spring of 1949, things are not going well for Thomas. He has every veneerial disease known to man. Um,

run out of his money. 1749. Uh, okay. Wow. We skipped No, he's he's 200 years old now. He's a vampire.

A real time traveler. Yeah. No. So, this guy, I mean, he's just sick as hell all the time and he's run out of money. All the money he got doing his merchant marine [ __ ] he's blown through. He's got, you know, he's got some assets that he's still selling from his trip, but he's doing badly enough that he's borrowing money from his landlady, which that's like a a level of doing bad, right? When like you can't you're not even paying your land lady. You're like having to borrow money from her. Yeah.

Um and he's also borrowing from his brother and complaining in his diary about how lonely he is all the time. So he he takes a little trip to the continent where he tries to sell off some of his goods and he's he's doing badly enough that by the end of 1749 he finds himself back in London and he visits this place called the Jamaica coffee house. And as best as I can tell this is like a business and it looks like a cafe basically but it's also kind of an advertisement for white people to go to Jamaica which at the time is like I think it's the wealthiest agricultural colony in the British Empire. They're making sugar cane, right? That's what they're growing over there, right?

They're they're producing sugar basically. And the the the Brits had had Jamaica not that long at this point. They captured it from the Spaniards in 1655, right? So we're less than a century into like English control of the island. And they've done in this little period of time where they've dominated Jamaica. They're they've done their best. They're trying to settle this island, but they're having trouble because it seems to them that Jamaica, like life on Jamaica has evolved primarily to kill English people. Like they'll send over a bunch of young white guys to do the quote unquote skilled work on, you know, a and a lot of that's overseer work, managing these slave plantations. And most of these guys die in the first year, right? That's just known. You get a boat with like 200 white kids from the main island and like 80 of them are going to be or like 180 of them are going to be dead within like

a year, year and a half. I wonder why you send a bunch of people to go to an already a land where people live and you're like why do the people who live here keep trying to kill us? We're just trying to

kill them. The people who live there, right? Because this is also, you know, that the pe the slaves who are brought there, the enslaved people also die at an elevated rate. Um because like none of them have grown up around the various like diseases and bugs that are there, right? Like they're getting bit by mosquitoes and getting [ __ ] that like

Oh, you mean they're just dying of natural? I I thought you meant like they're they're being fought off.

That happens. That does happen. That's part of this because there is there's a heavy maroon. They're called maroons, right? which is like people they're former slaves and descendants of former slaves who escaped Spanish plantations and formed independent communities on these like really forested often like mountainous chunks of the island right so there it's areas that where it's hard to control and you can't Great Britain has troops in Jamaica but as soon as you send soldiers out into these like these for these heavily wooded parts of Jamaica they just start dying of diseases left and right you know you can't keep a force out out there for any length of time cuz the natural world will kill more of them than the enemy.

But the enemy will also kill them because these maroons at by this point, these are the the people from the slave populations who survived their first years in Jamaica. So they are hardened to like the the different diseases and bugs and whatnot that exist on the island and they know these like forested dense-like rural areas. So they're able to fight very effectively this guerilla war. So you, yes, it is both a mix of the natural environment and these different marine communities that are killing all of the young white kids who come here, right? Um, and it goes badly enough for Great Britain that about a decade before Thomaslewood shows up in Jamaica, uh, the Brits give up and they offer terms to the marine communities.

And so they say to these like these independent chunks of the island basically that are made up of former slaves and their descendants, we'll recognize your independence and we'll recognize your self-ruule over your territory and in return you have to keep the roads open for us so we can transport goods and you have to not raid these plantations. And whenever future slaves escape from our plantations, you have to help us bring them back. You have to help us if there's an uprising by the enslaved population. Right?

there's like a treaty where these these marine communities agree to all this in order to stop not have to keep fighting these constant wars with the English colonizers right?

So, this is like, you know, it's a pretty it's an ugly thing. Like, it's it's a morally complicated thing, but you understand the decision these like maroon communities are making. They're like, well, at least we get to keep living on our own. you know,

they're not quite a sovereign nation, but they but so there's no like big war to be fought, but they're not quite acknowledging that like

England owns the whole place. And England's like, "We own this, but we don't, but we do."

But we we we'll we'll recognize your right to stay in your area if you stop [ __ ] with trade basically, right? Like that's kind of the agreement that these communities come to with these agents of the empire. So, at the start of 1750 after

You should do You should do an ad first by the Oh yeah. You know who else are agents of the British Empire? Maybe

maybe our sponsors, especially if it's like like one of those big big London banks. They might be advertising on this show. Who's to say? And we're back. How we feeling?

Sad. Well, you know, uh, as as you might expect, um, my my mood has gone down since before we started recording, but in many ways, I'm also happy to see you. So, I I see you, too.

Happy to see you. Happy to learn about how shitty life was in the se mid 1700s. Like really just as a a bad time to be a person. Um, so yeah, uh, into 17 or start of 1750, Thomas Thistlewood books passage on a boat after saying goodbye to his friends and family. And this is goodbye forever. He's never going to see any of them again. He's like 30 and he's saying like goodbye for cuz I'm going to an island almost I'll almost certainly be dead in a year, right? Um, and in fact, it's one of the you get this hint of how disposable these men being sent over are that like within minutes of boarding, his luggage is broken into and his liquor collection is stolen, right? And I think it's just this like look, steal whatever you can from these guys.

They're all going to be dead in 6 months. Like, [ __ ] it, you know? Um, it's like there's no law once you enter once you step off of England.

There's no law. It It's very much like on the way to Jamaica. It it's certainly like that. Like this is still a period of time like

Oh, sorry. Have you ever taken a a flight on the Spirit Airlines to Vegas? That's what that makes me think of.

That That's ex flight to Vegas, right? Including some of the people on that plane are being trafficked, right? Like some number of these men on these boats with Thomas have been like knocked out the night before at a bar and they're they're just woke up working on a boat, right? That's how you That's how you put men on boats in this time, right?

Yeah. Yeah. um they actually get stopped by like the British Navy on their way to Jamaica and the Navyy's trying to make sure there's not like guys on there who got like beaten up at a port and are being forced into labor cuz it's like a it's a major problem. So it is like it is the Wild West. I mean it's it's it's worse than that but like it's it's it's there you are in between these settled areas. There's basically no rule. But part of the appeal of Jamaica to a guy like Thomas is it's known at the time the like marketing nickname for Jamaica when they're trying to get these young white guys to move over there is that it's the best poor man's country, right? And what that means is that if you don't have any money, you can and you don't have any standing in society back in Scotland or or or Ireland or you know, England, you can go to Jamaica and you will be number one, you can get rich there and number

two, you'll get respected because all white men are equally respected. That's the idea, right? It's not exactly true, but part one of the ideas, one of the things that's said about planter culture is that any white man who shows up at any plantation in Jamaica will get like the he he'll get put up for the night and get fed a good meal. It doesn't matter how poor you are or where you come from, there's this level of egalitarianism for white men in Jamaica, right? And

as we'll talk about, this is not entirely what it sounds like, but this is how it's being marketed, right? This is how guys like Thomas are convinced to go there. And I want to quote now from a 2006 article in Caribbean Quarterly by James Robertson. The glowing promises which encouraged success of European migrants to sail to Jamaica often shattered against the brutal island society these Johnny Nukems encountered. An early 19th century bookkeeper wrote home regretting his choice. Instead of being a gentleman's life, it is more like a slave, continuing, I'll die before I'll be a planter, though it is the best for getting money. A person that is hard enough to manage the business may get to be an overseer and have three or400 pounds a year, but no one has wages equal to their hazards. 19 out of 20 die without getting anything, and I fear I shall be one of the unhappy number. These were daunting odds, and

while the brutalizing work contrasted with the splendid prospects that had persuaded him to migrate, even if gullible farm boys continued to swallow recruiters golden tales, the supply was never sufficient for all the vacancies.

So, this is one of those So, they're being recruited. Oh, sorry. Well, just to clarify when you said he's cuz he's like I'll never be a planter, but they're still like being paid is not well to be a planter. And so they're kind of being told they could be a boss.

And they're told, is that right? Or are they already immediately going into slavery?

The white. I mean, they're they're not owning slaves, but they're managing slaves for slave owners. That's the start of the ladder once you get over here. And what that guy is saying, what that bookkeeper is saying is that the only way to really get rich is to make enough money to buy a plantation of your own and be a planter. But almost no one gets there. 19 out of 20 people will die before making any money at all. Right. That's what he's saying.

He would be Well, he's not act so there's not having the white people like actually do the labor still.

The white people the labor the white people are doing is making the black enslaved people work. That's the the labor for white. Now, there are some there are some like experts who are like making metal things or whatnot. Those are there are jobs. And like that guy we heard from is a bookkeeper. So that's not the only job for these young white men. But what this guy is saying is that as soon as he got over on the island, he realizes it's a scam because there's almost no way to get make enough money to leave Jamaica again and you're definitely going to die there, right?

Like something on the island will kill you. So you've cut your life short and it's just this miserable situation. Um so that's that's the the where Thomas stumbles into on May 4th, 1750. It's the day he gets to Jamaica and he starts like that other guy working as a bookkeeper and eventually an assistant overseer on a plantation. The idea is that soon he'll get promoted to overseer, but this doesn't materialize. Now, lucky for Thomas, there's not nearly enough healthy white guys, right? So, when this first place that hires him, when he finds out they're not going to promote him where he wants to, he's able to get another job really easily.

He survives his first six months and then his first year. And after that point, options start to open up for somebody like you because you've proven that you're not going to die right away in Jamaica. So, you're valuable to hire, right? And so, all of these plantations that none of them have enough white men, right? Even if they have enough enslaved people, they don't have enough like guys to to run them for them because the slave the enslaved population vastly outnumbers the white population, right? And this is part of why Jamaica in this period is the most productive slave plantation in the British Empire. About half of the 45,000 tons of sugar that were imported into Britain each year came from Jamaica. And while white overseers and technical employees like Thomas were a part of the workforce, most of it is enslaved Africans or their descendants. There's only rough numbers here. But by the time Thomas lands on

the island, there's about 18,000 white people and about uh another 7,000 free black or like mixed race people on the island, right? So like 18,000 white people, another 7,000 free non-white people. The enslaved population is 170,000. And so when we talk about why there's this reputation that any white man will be treated well in Jamaica, it's because there there's not as much room for the rich people, the rich white people to exclude the poor white people because they're so outnumbered, right? You kind of need these poor white guys at your back in case there's a slave uprising, which there will be periodically, right?

And so that's the reason for this quote unquote egalitarianism is the the the wealthy plantation owners know that they need to keep these poor white guys on their side like enough

they probably feel well to respond to that I I think it's interesting you bring up the point about like the egalitarian and maybe they're not having room to exclude the other white people but I also think part of it is

them being I mean it is like you know the white supremacy but being surrounded by so many enslaved people and they see them as like background. They don't see them as people. So subconsciously they're going to feel like, you know, when they see another white person like you're on my side as opposed to in a society where everyone's white, those like aristocratic, you know, 1enters look for someone else to put down,

but they kind of have that space filled and so they're going to just be nicer and and yeah, I think that kind of leads to that like superiority complex because you just get so used to feeling like there like a whole another race is a background. um to to your supremacy. So

yeah. Well, and it that also helps explain why these poorer white guys who don't own enslaved people themselves will defend the system so much is that they still because of the system they have a much higher place in society than they otherwise would, right? Like the fact that the majority of the people are this kind of like background noise to the the white population means that as a poor white you matter more like you feel like and and that will make you more inclined to defend the the system, right? Like that's also got to be part of what's going on here.

Yeah. Yeah. And if their whole value quote unquote is um managing uprisings or you know of people, but they're going to have to

managing this system of human slavery. Yeah. Yeah. They convince themselves that those people aren't people because that that that they're required to be there to like maintain order, you know, quote unquote.

Yeah. Now, and I I should make it clear here that at the time when he arrives, Jamaica is kind of changing, but at the time he lands there, it's still the case that like of that 7,000 or so person population of like free non-white people in Jamaica, a good number of those people also own enslaved human beings and operate plantations. Right now, one of the things that'll change during the time Thomas is there is that this number will get like curta cut down because the only people who are able to be part of the island legislature are white property owners and they start voting to like restrict both political rights and like reduce the amount of land that non-white people can own during the time that they're here. So, even the ones even the non-white people who are like part of the system of slavery are going to be like edged out of it over the time that Thomas is on the island by like these white uh uh slave owners who

actually get to like manage things politically. Um, now Thomas, like I said, he's going to live. He's going to survive his first year and then some. And as a result, he's going to get treated. He's going to be very valuable, right? He's going to take some pretty significant leaps very quickly in social standing and in income. He proves to be such a competent overseer that he's soon fielding offers for jobs from half of the plantations in his area, which means he's getting steady raises. His boss has to pay him more every year to keep him on because he always has places he can go. This allows him to acrew a tidy pile of ready cash and he starts buying human beings of his own and he will rent them.

He doesn't own land yet. So, he's buying people and then he's renting them out to his bosses as laborers, right? and he's he's pocketing the money for their labor. Um, and that's how he basically sets up passive income for himself that is going to like allow him eventually to buy a plantation of his own is he starts by like buying people and renting them back to his boss. And his boss is always going to pay above average rates for the slave labor that Thomas rents him because his boss wants to keep Thomas happy, right? Because Thomas can go anywhere he [ __ ] wants. So that does that kind of make sense in terms of like why this would be appealing to someone like Thomas who can survive that first year of plague, right? Like he's doing better now than he'd ever have been able to do in England because he's buying and selling human beings.

Um it's I mean yeah no it's [ __ ] up but it's also interesting that pro I mean like prostitution was such a big part of his earlier life because there is like already like you said it's so transactional. there's already this idea of like like buying,

you know, like a night with someone and and then kind of escalating that to being like, well, and now he thinks I'm buying this person's labor.

Um, yeah. And I mean, that's completely inhumane, but I could see like in how you're describing it, like how this man's kind of thinking will jump to to that extreme.

Yeah. Because it is obviously paying your uncle to take care of you when you're like 10 is different from owning humans. Paying for sex is different from cattle slavery. But he has his whole life been had this very transactional understanding of what human be other people are. Right? That is that has been with him like since he was a little kid that has to have some sort of impact on like why you are this way. Um, so James Robertson in his his his article on Jamaica during this period of time describes this like initial mass death of new arrivals from Europe as seasoning. Um, and one of the reasons he theorizes Thistlewood survived his period of seasoning is that he's not getting drunk every night. He's like a nerd. He's spending all of his free time writing in his diary and journaling about the weather and like reading books. And so he's not just like drinking constantly while sick, right?

Someone stole his liquor. That may have saved his life. Yeah. And also all the arsenic he drank probably.

Yeah. All that arsenic made it so that nothing else could survive in his body. Um that's right. Everybody try drinking arsenic yourselves. See if it makes you stronger. Who knows? You know, if I think but we could get RFK to endorse arsenic. Drinking arsenic.

Oh god. Like that's that's that's medicinal now. Um so uh Thomas but you should do you should do your second you should do your second ad.

Oh, should I? Okay. Yeah. Well, here's another adbreak. And we're back. There's not a good way to segue into this next part, but the uh this is the first time in December of 1750, about 5 months after landing on the island, is the first time that Thomas writes uh about committing sexual assault on an enslaved person who works on the ranch where he's working.

Um, and he writes this in his like Latin shortorthhand. And basically the translation is that he he slept with this enslaved woman named Sylvia who's a black woman from the Ebo forest region of modern-day Cameroon in sil, right? He he writes that he like he lay with Sylvia in sil and sil is like a uh that's a a shortened version of the Latin word for forest, right? Um, so he's kind of writing he's kind of writing about this sex crime he's committed almost as like a uh like a Latin couplet, right? Like he's he's he's not just writing about this thing that he's done, but he's clearly he's clearly drawn to this woman named Sylvia because her name is similar to the name of like this Roman goddess uh this Roman term for like the wild part of the world and this Roman term for like a goddess, right? like it's this he's making these weird references in his diary like these aren't just exploitation logs but he's

he's almost like showing off his knowledge of like classical education while he's doing this too. Um and it it it's it's kind of unclear to me why he does this. I've read a couple of different theories as to like why he feels drawn to do this while he's writing about these things. Um, in her paper, Redacting Desire, El Elizabeth Pulka theorizes, quote, "Thistlewood structured his sexual exploitation logs as an entry embedded within an entry, a private subspace into which he placed the record of his sexual activity. If Thistlewood's 10,000 pages of diaries were visualized as an architectural space, such as a domestic home, the sexual exploitation logs would be a locked drawer in Thistlewood's bedroom dresser, where his Latin coding functions as a locking mechanism. Within this private space, Thistlewood placed walls around sexual encounters, employing documentation to codify and order the the sex act within a system of

concealment, which is similar to kind of what you you were saying earlier, right? Like he's he's locking this away for anyone. That's part part of why he's making these obscure references to like Roman gods in this entry log about a sex crime is so that the only other people who will understand what I've done truly are other educated white men of a scientific bent and they'll understand that what I was doing wasn't a sex crime. It was an act of science because that's how he writes about this.

Yeah. Well, I wonder if it's like like you said it's more like in self-defense. like it's I don't know if he really believes it because if he's already putting it into that box like literally right you said he boxes it off

there's that feeling already like describes it. Yeah. He needs to separate it and then on top of that

it's like you're kind of what you said he writing in couplet. It makes me think of like you know you kind of code switch when you're you know if you're writing like people analyze if you're lying or not. like maybe there's a piece where he switches into like he thinks he's intellectualizing it but really it's because he feels some sort of guilt and then is trying to connect it or dissociate or you know be like actually I'm you know kind of going into this intellectual place when I'm doing this

but really it's it's a reaction to his own feelings. I mean, it's his diary after all. He's not

needing to defend himself to anyone, right? And and the fact that cuz it can be both, right? Where he he wants to hide this from anyone other than the people he thinks might understand why he's doing what he's done. But that that implies that he understands there's something unacceptable to regular people about what he's doing.

Well, could he be trying to defend himself to himself? Like almost like possibly. Yeah.

You know, logging his Yeah. I don't know. Like what I'm doing is cuz he's he is a naturalist, right? And that is that those are kind of the early scientists in this period of time. It's like people who are going out into the natural world and they're taking this is eventually guys like more rigorous and better versions of this are going to you know produce people like Charles Darwin, right? But this this basic idea that like you go out and you're taking notes. That's why he's taking notes on the climate every day too on the weather he's experiencing is there's this early scientific understanding that like well part of science is just documenting what you see right and so he is part of what he's doing is walling off these sexual experiences and documenting them as if he's doing scientific research. And I think you're right that it's part of it part of it may be a defense mechanism where he he's trying to make this

unacceptable thing acceptable. Um, and there's maybe this level of knowledge that that will not work for a lot of people. So he has to kind of code it for the people that he he sees as like him, these other scientists.

Um, one of the reasons he uses Latin probably is to connect his because that's the scientific language, right? And this also connects the work he's doing to the documentation of a scientist he greatly admired Carl Lanaeus um who was a Swedish biologist and the person who created like the modern texonomy system how we name species is because of Lanaeus right and during his time in Jamaica part of why and part of why this is relevant to Lanaeus is Thomas is not only committing these sex crimes on enslaved people out of like some sense of desire or even a personal need for power. There's a financial motivation here because if you get a person you own pregnant, the baby is your property. You can sell them when they're an adult and he will repeatedly over his life.

And part of what he's doing here is keeping notes as to who he's sleeping with so he can document the parentage of different people that he's going to own and sell, right?

And he sees this scientifically in the same way as people who are like breeding livestock, right? That's what this is to him, right? That's horrible. But that is how Thomas thinks about this, right?

That's wild. Like that totally changes like what I was saying before cuz Yeah, it definitely makes it feel more like he's just logging his property.

I think there's a few things he's this isn't a simple thing really. It's we it's it's a lot in here, right? Um but that is that's part of what he's doing here. And he doesn't see them as his I mean I guess that's probably

true for most people of this time but just hearing that like so he doesn't see them as his children.

No right fathering a child with a enslaved person. He knows they literally are biologically his children but he does not see them as human beings fully. I think that's probably accurate. Like all people living in these situations, there's a lot of weird relationships here that are all deeply unequal and [ __ ] up and also like difficult to categorize and understand. We will talk about that some. Um, but yeah, part of what he's doing here is is like writing about what he's like these what's happening as if he's like breeding livestock. That's an aspect of like what he's doing here. And you know, beyond that, he's also he's his era's equivalent of like a nerd, right? He's into science is like a cool thing for a chunk of like the educated aristocracy. It's a thing you do as like a hobby, right? Um, and so he's he's he has this sense of like I'm not quite as good as a lot of other people cuz he

doesn't grow up super rich and he doesn't he's he he's not fit for high society where he comes from. And so this is kind of how he tries to fit himself in, right, is by framing himself and presenting himself to others as a man of science. Um there's a really good article on this called Thomas Thistlewood's libido lenan project uh for small acts journal by Heather Vermullian and she proposes a likely symbolic explanation for why Thomas wrote about this like very first sex crime on the island the way that he did. This would may have attend intended more than a play on words with his description of the rape of Sylvia in the sil. His choice to attack this woman in particular may have carried symbolic weight. As Robert Pogue Harrison writes, the traditional legends of Rome's foundation tell us that the city was born of the forests, but they also suggest that Rome had had to turn against its matrix in order to fulfill

its destiny. According to Libby, Harrison explains Romulus, the founder of Rome, belonged to the Sylvian family line. As is the case in many foundation myths, the rape of the Sbines, the rape of Lucasia, it is sexual violence that sets the story in motion. Romulus and his twin brother Remis were born when Mars, the Roman god of war, raped the ver vestal virgin Rya Sylvia. Viewed in this light, Thistlewood perpetuated his initial act of terrestrial rape against an enslaved woman whose name evokes a spirit or goddess of the wood targeted for Roman conquest as well as Rya Sylvia targeted for divine rape. His act al also conjures the very manner in which Romulus populated Rome by capturing women from nearby cities and forcing them into relation with Rome's founding men. Thistlewood's rape of Sylvia may well participate in this classic genealogy of mystified sexual violence, ambiguous parentage, colonization and

captivity and the the imperial domesticating of unruly forested land as a sign of progress. Right? So this is

he sees this as part of this very scientific and high-minded colonial project. England is colonizing and civilizing the wilderness and making it better. And these sex scrums I'm committing are a a part of this scientific effort to improve via not just like you know by developing the land but by inserting my DNA into these populations. That's how he's thinking about this. Right. Does he say I mean is because that's like what I mean I can see like I mean that very well written

scholarly interpretation but is he is he really like that like I don't want to call him smart but is he really like thinking that deep or

the this would have been all of these ancient Roman myths and all of this knowledge of Latin this was part of a normal education for a man of his stature at this time you got an intensely detailed classical education Because the British Empire is portraying itself as this line of civiliz and in this line of like because the Greeks and the Romans are very much admired for their understanding of the natural world, right? And for the their their power and command over it in an area in which that was seen as having been less common elsewhere.

And part of why Latin is still the knowled the language of science at the day. And it's also Thistlewood doesn't he doesn't want to see himself as just a guy trying to get rich and committing horrible crimes against other human beings. He wants to see himself as part of this noble global endeavor to civilize the world. And that's

mythological myth. Yeah, that there's a parallel to what I see I mean what I see happening now with a lot of white supremacist but um cuz they talk a lot about

classical literature and referring to classical like and you know biblical memes or imagery. I know like Hillsdale College is one that you know very extreme conservative and they really focus on

teaching classical stories to children and and very much in the same way you're talking about sort of like upholding these like images that are

yes you know eurosentric myths and it's it's this this is a this is a massive part this is not just a part of fascism but this is a part of selling any [ __ ] up thing to young men as you convince them they're doing something great right this thing that we could just say is you giving into your base impulses is also heroic and it puts you in line with divinity and you're part of this great civilizing mission. Right? We've been telling young men that in every society that's ever existed to get him to do [ __ ] up [ __ ] Right? And that doesn't, by the way, that's not to say, "Oh, Thistlewood's just a victim."

No, no, no, no. He is choosing to find a justification for the cruel, violent, vicious things that he wants to do and that he increasingly finds appealing because he becomes a worse and worse person the more he gives into this. And that means you need to come up with increasingly like lofty intellectual justifications for the horrors you're committing. Right.

Yeah. Well, to be clear, I'm not I mean because I know there's been times where I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting he said that." for the for the listeners who don't know me like I'm very much like

oh yeah there's no justification I from the beginning to the end like this slave owner I'm already like

not trying to be like justify it but it is so interesting to me to dive into like the details because it is like

why are we still here in some ways like years later why are we still seeing people like this I mean not in the exact way but how how does this happen you know

I I I think this is an important half not even half but this is an important part of the story is not how they lived with themselves, but how they felt good about themselves for doing this

and how they justified it in their own world um that they're heroes. And yeah, he is by he is he is literally raping civilization into these people. That's how he thought about it in a very literal way in a lot of like I mean he wouldn't have called it rape but like that's what he's doing, you know. Um, and he sees this as part of his civiliz

and he also writes repeatedly about a lot of these people not wanting it, right? He will write basically they did they weren't into it or they weren't like like he will add that. He takes notes on that sort of thing too. That's part of documentation.

Does he describe the like sex he had with not in you know women he women he dated? Well no like that's not what I meant. I meant the um did he describe the sex he had with women that were like dating differently than the woman he raped or they're kind of all seen as like any of that.

We don't know. We know because of things that little bits side bits of his life that we get. We know that he got a woman who was roughly at his social level pregnant when he was younger and that the relationship didn't work out, right? We know that he never writes about anything that could be termed a an an equivalent relationship between two people choosing to like right he writes about paying for sex and you know I don't know about the ethics of how where you want to put the ethics of sex work in 1700s London but it's different than what he's doing in Jamaica and he writes about sex crimes that he commits in Jamaica right he does write there is a there is an enslaved woman with whom he has a long relationship that is obviously not a consensual relationship but writes about it as if it is because that's his interpretation. That's how he feels about it.

We get a little of that and it's still pretty brutal cuz he's still like I mean, yeah, we'll we'll we'll talk unfortunately about too much of that.

But in January of 1753, this thistlewood Yeah. Sorry. takes on his most prestigious job yet. He gets made overseer of the large and profitable Egypt plantation. This is still in Jamaica. It's just called Egypt. He's paid the princely sum of60 sterling a year for his labor. Immediately after he moves to the plantation, he commits another sex crime on another young enslaved woman named Flora, replicating his Sylvia Sil word play by mentioning her within several lines of a passage discussing the plantation's Flora, right? Um and he he writes that he paid her for bits uh after doing this. And this is something you get periodically. Some of these were jokes like money.

No, it's a type of currency. It's it's two T's. Um, unfortunately, well, I don't know for probably Yeah, I don't know where to take that, but it's a a bit you've heard about like you may have heard of like the this used especially in like pirate lit like literature like a bit is a if you've heard of a piece of eight like Spanish pieces of eight like that's a Spanish reel is a piece of eight or is like it's eight pieces of eight and you would like break off the little piece that's like pirate money was a Spanish real

and a a bit was equivalent to like 1/8 of of a Spanish reel, right? Which is again the money in pirate movies as a general rule. So four bits that he he gives this woman is half of a piece of eight. And depending on the source, that's equivalent from like 50 cents to like $1,000 in modern money. Um because it's really not easy to actually draw an equivalent based on the context. I think this is the equivalent of him giving her like5 or $10, right? Um

he's giving her that's in that and that wasn't something he normally I mean it's not standard practice. He did sometimes. He It wasn't every time. And it was Yeah. And I don't think I I don't think most of the way

I think some of it is that maybe it makes him feel better like this is more like what he was doing with the the sex workers in England than what it is, which is a sex crime. And I think some of it is that this just makes it easier for him, right? Like it it

was there a world where there are where there were also um enslaved people doing like sex work on the side?

Yes. I mean Yes. Like that that's that's a that's a thing too is that like if you're Flora, maybe this is how you make money because there's not a lot of options open to you to do that. We like we really don't know how this conversation starts. Like we know that this is a sex crime just because of the slave and non free relationship, right? But we don't know if she would have seen herself as like, well, this is the a way for me to make money, right? There's not a lot

or if he just assaulted her and then threw some money on the ground. Like both of the either of those could be the case. We there's no not really any way to know.

Yeah. And all of them are bad. It's just that we don't really know what was happening here. Um that said, it is worth he starts after Flora. He picks out uh another African-born enslaved field worker and he starts what he described as a relationship with her, right? And he describes Jenny as consenting to the liaison. Obviously, she didn't have choice here, but it's worth exploring what she would have seen as the benefits of a relationship like this because that does paint a bleeer story. And we get some hint as to that in Robertson's article, cuz he writes that the two were together for nearly a year, but quote, "She increasingly alienated his affections by heavy-handed attempts to intervene when he assigned punishments. Bringing a knife to bed proved the final straw." So, what I take from this,

she brought a knife to bed or he brought brought him to bed. Yes, she did. She She did. and Jenny

Jenny quote again I use the word choice loosely here but one of the few choices available to her was if I get in this guy's good graces and pretend that I like him the next time he tries to beat one of my friends I can convince him to stop

right and that's eventually toxic manipulative [ __ ] up yeah he's already interested in her if she refuses it's going to be worse so let like kind of put

I maybe I can use this position Thistlewood convince him to not be so much of it. And so she brings a knife to bed and he catches her, right? And this is the end of whatever you want to call this like very very bleak thing, right? But that does it tells us a lot about how someone in Jenny's position may have thought about what was happening as like, well, maybe this is an opportunity to gain some control over my life and my friend's lives, right? Um, and yeah,

what does he do when he finds the knife? He kicks her out basically. I mean, she gets punished for this. Um, she was almost certainly would have been uh would have been like whipped uh for this and there were talk about worse, but no, she

killed him. She should have just killed him. I I don't think she got the chance.

No, she was I know. Yeah, it does seem like that's what she wanted to do. It's like Yeah, even if she could, she would get in trouble after that. So, it's almost kind of game. Yeah,

there's there's no good options for someone. It's like she's taking trying to take the best option, which is at least gaining some level of control, trying to right, and it doesn't work out. And almost as soon as things end he with Jenny as a result of this uh he picks a new victim/partner, an enslaved woman named Fiba. She had been the last overseer's mistress and she was his cook when he starts at Egypt plantation in December of 1753. Uh they are physically together for the first time. Again, this is a sex crime, but she is it is framed in his life and she is at least as seeding to this uh this like image of it to him as a romantic relationship and they will be together the rest of his life in this kind of grotesque parody of marriage. Um and again I I want to reiterate here at the end of this that nothing we're talking about we have all this detail about Thomas and it's hideous the things he did and we barely

scratched the surface. It's really important that I I lay out here something that's gonna need to carry us through the rest of the episode, which is that there's no evidence Thomas Thistlewood was particularly bad for a slave owner or an overseer in Jamaica in this period of time or would have been considered bad in the Confederacy in North America, right? Uh or in the what became the Confederate States. There's no evidence that he was particularly violent. There's no evidence that he was a committed rape on a wider scale than his peers. They were all like this. He just kept a diary, right? And so when we talk about

You mean like he was sort of an average of what people may have been acting like. Yeah.

Yes. Cuz part of the thing is no one notices [ __ ] about this guy's diary until like the I think it's the early 20th century when this or it might have been after the US civil war when people started first started looking into it. But people who owned slaves at the time in Jamaica didn't think anything of what he was writing. This was not extreme. This was not horrifying. This wasn't upsetting. This was a guy chronicling daily life in a normal way. Like what he wrote about doing to these people was no different than him taking notes about the weather. That's very much how

he's still sort of a outcasty type of guy. Well, so that's interesting because it kind of I feel like it draws like the people who end up going

into being slave owners probably all have that like already those [ __ ] up red flags. But it sounded like

Yeah. early in his life like people saw red flags and then all those people congregated and became

right these still like just like it's not like this is like these are the good I mean I don't know just by bristles at that because it's still like there is evidence that these people were seen as like not like I don't want my daughter to marry someone like this

well that's what I'm saying within the context of people who were running plantations he was not abnormal right politics were like they're all kind of [ __ ] up and

yeah those people are certainly all going to be more [ __ ] in the head than some random dude who like lives in London and works like uh at a like at a counting house or is like lives a little further north and is working in like the first coal mines that open. Those guys are part of a slave state, but they're not thinking about what's they would probably be upset if you were to explain to them what Thomas Thistlewood's putting in his diary because it's it's more upsetting, which isn't to say that they'd feel about it the way we do, but like this is these are all of these slave societies are really brutal, right? And it's why whenever you get abolition movements, a big thing these abolition movements are doing, both the the first one that sets up that that gets slavery outlawed in the British Empire and the one in the United States, a big part of of what abolitionists are doing is just taking when they can very

normal accounts of daily life in these places where child slavery is the norm and right and talking about them to people because to people who live outside of that, it's [ __ ] up and horrifying, right? Like even if those people are not what we would call have a modern attitude on race or anything like that, they're still horrified by a lot of what they're hearing about because it's really bad, you know.

I see. Um but yeah, within that community, Thomas is a normal guy within the community of [ __ ] He's a normal [ __ ] I think, is the way I would come down on him, right?

He's not an exceptional [ __ ] Yeah. No, no, he just kind of is a more of a nerd about being an [ __ ] than most people. Uh and that's part one. Teresa, how you feeling? Well, I mean, how however you expect. I I feel like I'm not being very like lighthearted or funny, which um there's not much to be lightarted about.

Yeah. I don't know if I'm doing okay in my my role, but uh I'm learning a lot and definitely feeling uh sad for humanity. Um but yeah, I don't know. Should I be like commenting more? I feel like there's I don't know.

Trying to find a balance without being too uh too like jokey. a lot of [ __ ] up information.

This is a real bad real bleak one. Like there's not a lot to say cuz I'm like I'm not sure. I'm just going to listen in and be like, "Oh, that's bad."

Um there's not a lot to say. I don't want to like Yeah. Hope I hope I'm doing okay but

yeah, you you're you're fine. It's just bad stuff. Uh yeah. Yeah. Do you have anything you want to plug TT? Um, you know, truly not much going on right now because I'm about to have a baby. Um, but you know, my my friend Zach Brousard just came out with a book and I so I'll plug his book. It's it's a it's a what is it called? Oh my gosh. Wait, it's called Spooky Story. It's like kind of like a parody of like those like spooky spooky stories. Um, but it's a Christmas one. It's called Scary Stories to Make You Scared of Christmas. Zach Bashard. It's uh you can get a free ebook online or you can buy it on Amazon. So check it out. He's very funny comedian.

Hell yeah. Check that out everybody. Uh and yeah, we will be back. TT, thank you so much for being on the show. We will talk to you again for a really depressing part two.

Oh great. Can't wait.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Part One: Thomas Thistlewood: Slave Plantation Owner and Diarist | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"?

Robert Evans (Host), TT Lee (Guest).

What is "Part One: Thomas Thistlewood: Slave Plantation Owner and Diarist | BEHIND THE BASTARDS" about?

The discussion centers on Thomas Thistlewood, a notorious slave plantation owner and diarist, exploring his life and the darker aspects of his legacy, while also examining the broader themes of power and morality. The dialogue intertwines historical reflection with humorous commentary on contemporary societal issues, emphasizing the importance of remembering and learning from the past.

What is mentioned in this Behind the Bastards episode?

13 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Thomas Thistlewood, Egypt Plantation, TT Lee, James Robertson, East India Company, Lincolnshire. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Part One: Thomas Thistlewood: Slave Plantation Owner and Diarist | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"?

The episode runs 1 h 14 min; the transcript is about 15,070 words in 223 timestamped sections.

More from Behind the Bastards

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.