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The Thistlewood Diary: A Slave Owner's Brutal Confession · The Twin History Podcast

0:05
Hi, folks. Just the wee heads up.
0:08
There'll be no episode next week.
0:09
As we're taking a break for Easter, all the best.
0:15
The Twin History Podcast brings together 2 Black Scotsman, 2
0:20
twins, 1 historian and one storyteller to explore the
0:24
moments that shaped our world. The show features Joe McCann,
0:29
the eldest twin and resident storyteller, the one always
0:34
asking why any of this shit actually matters, alongside
0:38
Johnny McCann, 13 minutes younger, and the historian.
0:43
Equipped with the dates, the facts and the receipts, Every
0:47
week they invite listeners to pull up a chair as they unpack
0:52
some of history's greatest tales, The ones you think you
0:57
know, the ones you've never heard, and the ones that hit
1:01
different when told by them. Enjoy.
1:40
Hello and welcome back to the Twin History podcast.
1:43
So today, in case you can't tell, this is Johnny McCann I.
1:46
We're going to do another mini episode.
1:49
Joseph isn't available at the moment.
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Don't worry, he's not been been castled.
1:53
We've just not seen much of each other this year.
1:57
What date is it? The date, 12 May Thursday.
2:01
What year? But anyway, it's obviously 2026,
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so we've not had much of a chance to record together this
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year. And obviously the podcast is
2:11
called The Twin Has You podcast. So we're endeavouring to change
2:14
that. So we will.
2:16
And I'm going to go ahead and record an episode on a man
2:22
called Thomas Fisselwood. So this episode primarily deals
2:27
with Fisselwood and Jamaica in the 18th century, during the
2:32
height of Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade.
2:36
And Thessalwood was a man who was to flourish in the slave
2:40
trade through the exploits, through the exploitation, I
2:45
should say, of the many slaves he won during his time in
2:48
Jamaica. But the remarkable thing about
2:51
Thessalwood is he left an astonishing record which was
2:56
never meant to be seen, for he died and it was found amongst
3:00
his possessions. It's actually a diary.
3:03
And it's a huge, huge source we have, because Thistlewood
3:12
essentially listed always dealings with slaves, sexual
3:17
dealings, his criminal dealings, his reading habits, his
3:23
scientific work, his thoughts on the Enlightenment, just as a
3:29
remarkable source. And it was never meant.
3:31
To be read, but. As one of the best sources we
3:35
have on the transatlantic slave trade, at least here.
3:39
Thomas concedes in his magnificent opus The Slave
3:43
Trade. The History of the Atlantic
3:44
slave trade, 1440 to 1870. The book.
3:48
Covers the entire 500 years or more of the transatlantic slave
3:52
trade, but Thomas writes that any historian of the trade is
3:56
conscious of a gap in his picture the slave remains a
3:59
silent participant, and his and his account for the slave
4:03
remains an unknown warrior so tragically, most of the
4:08
transatlantic. Slaves died before the age.
4:10
Of 34 whether that would be on the middle part during the
4:15
middle. Passage.
4:16
Or rather, that would. Be in the Americas themselves
4:19
and very few of them sadly were literate.
4:22
So we can we have very few accounts from slaves regarding
4:28
their their own thoughts, their own feelings.
4:32
And some of the accounts we have from people like Laudiana
4:37
Equiano, who was only in slavery.
4:40
And I mean, it would have still been appalling for him, but he
4:45
was only he was captured by a slave ship and he managed to
4:51
escape. So he done experience the level
4:55
of chattel slavery that Thistlewood slaves would have
4:58
endured. Of course, those two months
5:02
would have been the worst two months of anyone's life.
5:05
And any job you've hated, any like thing you've been going
5:09
through where it's been difficult, probably there's not
5:13
compared to those two months that Equiano faced.
5:16
As part of the slave. Trade, so his account as
5:20
important, as very important, but as limiting because he moved
5:26
back to the metropole, he became part of the abolitionist
5:30
movement in London in the 18th century.
5:33
And as I said, his account is of great historical importance, but
5:38
it doesn't really show what slaves were experiencing on a
5:42
day-to-day basis. And he even went on to marry a
5:45
white woman and the metropole as they called it in England.
5:49
So his story is very atypical. So mostly it was perished in
5:54
their own righteousness in the Americas.
5:56
Because of the utter. Inhumanity that they endured.
6:00
Equiano was one of over 12 million Africans who would have
6:03
been brought to the Americas. But Equiano, again, I mean, I'll
6:09
show in this account official word to that interracial
6:13
relationships in Jamaica and the Caribbean were encouraged, but
6:18
there would have been very few black freed slaves or black men
6:23
even marrying white women in London and 18th century.
6:27
And you know, with Joseph and I, we definitely love white women.
6:31
So Equiano would have been like, yeah, he would have been a
6:36
kindred spirit for both. Of us.
6:39
So sadly Fessel would essentially speaks for his
6:44
slaves, but it's still a remarkable source.
6:50
And you have to take into account most slaves would have
6:54
been dead by the age of 34. That's if they even made it to
6:57
the Americas all together. So the average life expectancy
7:01
of a slave in the 18th century was 34.
7:06
So most of these people have been lost.
7:10
To history their voices, sadly. Have been lost to history so as
7:16
an unfortunate consequence of the transatlantic slave trade.
7:20
That. The people who were basically
7:24
oppressed, the people who were dying in their millions, very
7:31
few of them left a written record for us to look at or for
7:36
us to try to understand what they were experiencing as
7:42
slaves. So we're going to.
7:45
Look at Thistle Woods. Source.
7:47
And we're going to look into the transatlantic slave trade in
7:51
general, but I hope it's something of interest.
7:54
To you guys. And for this many episodes, as I
8:00
said, my sources I've used here Thomas's Opus on the
8:05
transatlantic slave trades. I just mentioned the name The
8:09
history of the Atlantic slave trade, 1440 to 1870.
8:13
It's a huge. Book, but it's got.
8:16
It's so detailed, it's. Basically an entire history of
8:19
the the slave trade. Also, I've looked at work by
8:23
Robert Mackey. I actually met one time.
8:26
It was a great historian, Peter Waits.
8:30
But the the main source, the primary source, if you will,
8:36
that I've used is Trevor Barnard's Incredible Mastery,
8:44
Tyranny, and Desire. Thomas Thistlewood and his
8:47
Slaves in the Anglo Jamaican World is an incredible book
8:52
about the transatlantic slave trade and in particular
8:58
Thistlewoods and his slaves in Jamaica in the 18th century.
9:02
So I would recommend if you've not read it, I would recommend
9:08
seeking it out as a. Very accessible.
9:12
Book if you're not a historian, it's a good way to learn about
9:17
the transatlantic slave trade without the heavy academia that
9:23
goes with most historical slavery books.
9:28
So I I would recommend that. It's beautifully written, it's
9:32
beautifully researched, it's a incredible book.
9:37
So I would highly, highly recommend it.
9:40
So let's continue with our story of Thomas Fisselwood and the
9:45
transatlantic slave trade. So in the second-half of the
9:50
18th century, Jamaica is the most profitable of the British
9:53
Empire's colonies in the Americas.
9:56
This wealth was largely derived through the cultivation of sugar
10:01
by African slaves. Almost half of the sugar that
10:05
flooded the British market at that time came from Jamaica and
10:10
came from the Caribbean. And one of the most effective
10:13
things that the abolitionist did was a sugar boycott, thus
10:19
basically heart the slavery market and industry at its
10:25
heart. So a lot of people at that time
10:28
in Britain, you also remember when sugar first hits the market
10:33
and the United Kingdom. It is a luxury.
10:37
But as the 18th century continues, it becomes more and
10:40
more affordable because there's a plethora of sugar available.
10:46
The marketplace is saturated essentially.
10:49
So it becomes more and more readily available to working
10:53
class people, to people who couldn't afford it before.
10:56
So by targeting this the abolitionists, that was one of
11:01
the many brilliant moves they made during their campaign to
11:05
abolish. Slavery To get back to Jamaica,
11:08
even though whites were outnumbered by more than 12:50
11:13
and Jamaica by blacks, they were still the wealthiest of any of
11:18
the British Empire colonisers at that time in the 18th century.
11:24
So it was said that the average white Jamaican was 50 times more
11:28
wealthy than the average white person who remained within the
11:31
United Kingdom. And what about?
11:34
That fat white Jamaican guy, Yeah, I wanted to kill that
11:37
motherfucker. I'm just going to read from
11:40
Bernard's book on Thomas Fisselwith about Jamaica.
11:46
The wives were free. To act as he pleased towards
11:48
blacks does not. However, explain why they were.
11:50
So brutal towards their slaves. White Jamaicans, as shadows,
11:54
Leslie noted, were notorious for their out treatment of slaves.
11:59
One of the causes of that old treatment arose from the almost
12:02
complete absence of constraint over how that power was
12:05
exercised. Psychological studies, notably
12:10
the famous milligramme and experiments of on the makeup of
12:15
authoritarian personalities and confirmed that increased extent
12:19
to which individuals are willing to impose normal ethical
12:22
standards when are placed within institutional structures that
12:26
allow normal ethical standards to be violated.
12:30
For example, study the studies of the Holocaust have.
12:33
Revealed that. Extraordinary circumstances can
12:36
encourage ordinary people to commit acts of unrestrained
12:40
violence and evil. So that that's a fantastic quote
12:48
about and it maybe explains the mindset of someone like
12:55
Thistlewood because Barnard explains and shows that Faisal
13:00
would fundamentally at any other time, like if he'd been born,
13:07
say in the 20th century, he may have been quote unquote, a good
13:12
man. He was very intelligent.
13:15
He was very well read. He was a botanist.
13:19
He was into science. So Faisal would is part of the
13:23
Enlightenment which is going on at the time.
13:26
But as Barnard chose, and his book is paradoxical, isn't it?
13:30
Because on one hand he's interested in the exploration of
13:34
the human mind, but on the other hand he can't see that by
13:37
brutalising, by terrorising by a person blacks under his charge,
13:43
that he's basically unenlighted because he's behaving in such
13:49
horrendous way. One of my fantastic professors
13:53
at university has. Adopted it.
13:56
Was in the Scottie or was on the Scottish Enlightenment and I I
14:02
always thought how fucking boring is that?
14:04
But it's actually. It's not.
14:06
It's absolutely fascinating. There's something I don't know a
14:10
lot about and it's something I'd like to learn more about.
14:12
But I always remember the professor was off was I don't
14:18
think he was too fond of me because I do question things a
14:21
lot. Which is.
14:23
Part of my personality, So no question.
14:27
Like why, why are you making us do this assignment?
14:29
And like, shouldn't the assignments be like much more
14:34
specific and their question and instead of asking us to cover a
14:37
500 year period of the early modern of early modern Europe,
14:43
shouldn't we be more succinct? But yeah, he was a great
14:46
professor and I was like, I can't tell him basically.
14:50
So I can see why he wasn't too fond of me.
14:54
So it's paradoxical as as. Utterly paradoxical.
15:01
So he. Was a very well educated man and
15:06
he actually went to Jamaica just on a whim.
15:08
One day he was around the harbour in London, there was a
15:14
boat going to the Americas. He just said like, fuck it, like
15:20
my life isn't going well in England, I'm a failed farmer, my
15:25
father's died. I'm not acceded to the
15:29
expectations that were set out for me as a young adult, so
15:32
maybe it's time to try somewhere and something else.
15:35
But this would have been April 19, 1750.
15:41
And as soon as he got to Jamaica, he was essentially
15:46
offered a job as an overseer in Jamaica.
15:50
So he gets to Jamaica, he gets off the boat and he's offered a
15:58
job and then six to seven. Years he's a slave.
16:03
Owner and by the time he died in 1786, he had about 30 slaves
16:11
under his charge. He had a decent estate.
16:15
It's not a huge estate but he's very comfortable.
16:19
He used to get books shipped in from London every year, like
16:23
sometimes up to 200 at a time would cross the Atlantic and he
16:30
lived in splendour essentially for most of his time in Jamaica.
16:38
So when he died in 1786, this is this is when we see the changing
16:46
of the attitudes in the in the Americas and in Britain and
16:53
across most of the Western railroad to slavery.
16:57
So that's a word. What he would have thought of
17:01
abolition we can only speculate. At.
17:05
He was dead long before 18 O 7 and obviously by 1833 he was
17:13
long dead. But it would have been
17:16
interesting to see how he would have reacted to Britain,
17:21
withdrawn from the slave trade and how that would have affected
17:24
him personally and affected his wealth.
17:28
So Fisselwood spent a large part of his time in Jamaica at
17:33
Westmore Parish. So he was in Jamaica for almost
17:37
40 years and he had an unfettered rise.
17:40
Through the. Barbaric system of the Caribbean
17:43
slave trade and he absolutely flourished in the trade because
17:49
of his has sadistic nature. So Bernard shows in his book
17:56
that some of the methods that Thistlewood used to punish the
18:01
slaves defy belief. One of them which always stuck
18:08
with me was if a slave tried to escape and he was caught.
18:14
Or she was. Caught as they often were, then
18:18
the slave would begin bound and gagged, and another slave was
18:23
made to defecate in the mouth of the runaway slave.
18:27
The gag would then be tied around their mouth for up to
18:31
four to five hours. Fesselwood also took great.
18:36
Pleasure and admonishing punishment to his slaves
18:40
themselves. So it was said that he could
18:42
whip a slave up to 100 times before he became tired.
18:46
So this would obviously create hearing lacerations on the
18:51
slaves back or whatever part of the body that Thistlewood chose
18:55
to whip them on. And again, it just shows us
18:58
sadistic nature because he could have had someone else do this
19:02
for him, but he chose to do it himself.
19:05
Because he obviously took great. Pleasure and enjoyment from
19:11
torturing the African slaves who were under this charge.
19:17
So as you can imagine, doing that 100 times to someone on
19:20
their back and the lacerations that would cause and also the
19:26
pain that would cause, many slaves probably would have died
19:30
from infection. Although Bernard does show that
19:35
Thistlewood went to extremes to look after his slaves to make
19:40
sure they remained healthy in the Jamaican climate.
19:43
But again, as paradoxical because he's doing that, but
19:47
he's also punishing them for the slightest infraction and he's
19:52
punishing them in the worst way imaginable.
19:58
So Faisal Wood also excelled for one of a better term in a sexual
20:03
relations with women. And at this time, you have to
20:07
keep in mind that interracial sexual relationships were not
20:13
frowned upon. In British Jamaica, as they
20:15
would have been in British India, for example.
20:19
So there was very little. Integration between the races in
20:26
India and other British colonies, but it was almost
20:31
celebrated in Jamaica. And Joseph and I, we're both,
20:38
despite the artwork on our podcast where some people have
20:42
spoken about, we're both biracial.
20:46
So our father is from Eastern Africa and our mother is
20:50
Glaswegian. So we, we've got a mixture of
20:54
white and black bloods flowing in our bodies.
20:59
But, and Joseph will tell you, but we're certainly, I mean,
21:04
we're not white passing as they would call it.
21:07
And we're certainly not seen as white in societal terms.
21:12
I mean, I've been called denward, a black bastard, a
21:16
darky, a bog. I'm sure my age here enough
21:23
times to know that I'm certainly not seen as.
21:27
White. So there have been many
21:29
occasions where whether my wife and I've been on the continent
21:33
or even here in Scotland, where I've been mistaken for being
21:39
Italian or Spanish. I mean, the most recent time it
21:42
happened was when my wife and I went for dinner on New Year's
21:45
Eve last year. We're at an Italian restaurant.
21:50
The woman was from, I can't remember where she was from, I
21:54
think it was Sicily, but she, when she came up to speak to us,
22:00
the owner of the restaurant, she thought that I was Italian.
22:05
And just because of the Afro hair and the olive skin.
22:09
And I'm like, no, like I'm African or my father's from
22:12
Eastern Africa and my mother's from Glasgow.
22:16
And she was just laughing. As you're saying.
22:17
I could have sworn you were Italian.
22:18
But that's happened many times to me.
22:21
There was one time when we were actually in Sicily, my wife and
22:24
I taught Amina and a guy went past us on a bike and he stopped
22:32
and he came back and he shouted something and we were wondering
22:36
what what's he saying, But he came back.
22:38
He thought I was a. Footballer, a professional.
22:40
Footballer and and he thought I was Spanish.
22:42
I'm like no, no, I'm not Spanish.
22:46
And one time we were in the airports last year to watch
22:49
Napoli and then we were queuing outside the Maradona and a guy
22:56
went past with his son like an Italian man.
22:58
And he looked at me and my wife speaks a bit of Italian and he
23:02
said an Italian. What a beautiful looking young
23:06
Italian man. And I'm like, OK, I, I have no
23:10
idea what you said. Like everyone in the line around
23:12
has laughed. And my wife, she told me
23:14
afterwards and what you said. Like you're a beautiful like.
23:17
Local man or something, but yeah.
23:20
But we're, as I said, we're we certainly.
23:27
We're black. We see ourselves as being.
23:29
Black. We identify as black.
23:31
Black is more than a colour. So.
23:34
Yeah, as we're biracial, but we certainly identify as black
23:41
being black. So and though we're light
23:44
skinned, my friend Marvin is a big black guy from London.
23:50
He said that I'm like a like a, a light skinned pretty boy.
23:56
So whatever that means. But yes, we're certainly black.
24:00
So anyway to get back to Thistlewood.
24:03
So Thistlewood had a prodigious sexual appetite.
24:07
So he records almost 4000 sexual encounters in his Diaries.
24:13
So with over 130 women and some people might say in 37 years,
24:19
that's not very much, but it's it's an incredible number.
24:24
But yeah, I think Bernard chosen his book is maybe not more than
24:30
above the average person in the span of their lifetime.
24:35
But I guess, I mean, it depends on the person, doesn't it?
24:38
So let's not get into that too much.
24:42
Professor Wood buys his first slave in 1756.
24:46
And this is we don't have time to go into all the slaves that
24:51
Fesselwood mentions, but in his Diaries.
24:55
But one of those slaves is a man called Lincoln, who Fesselwood
25:00
purchased when Lincoln was around about 15 years old.
25:03
So this was 1756. So Lincoln and Fesselwood were
25:09
essentially together until Fesselwood's death and Lincoln
25:15
was for me. He's a proto.
25:17
Slave. So Thessalwood, in fairness to
25:20
him, allowed Lincoln to fish, to hunt, and he allowed him to sell
25:29
some of his some of what he caught.
25:32
But Thessalwood would would also insist.
25:34
That he take a large. Part of the profits, so it
25:37
wasn't a completely charitable act on his part, but that shows
25:45
Lincoln as a proto slave in a sense because he does have some
25:51
autonomy. There because he.
25:52
Can go out and hunt and fish and basically sadly we don't know
25:59
what Lincoln for official would because he doesn't put his
26:03
thoughts down on paper as official would that.
26:06
So we look at early modern Europe.
26:09
Proto peasants would have been present peasants who worked on
26:13
the land. Of a rich.
26:16
Landlord essentially, but the landlords to try and get the
26:19
peasants to have more money than just having enough to pay for
26:25
their rent of rent in the land of working the land for them.
26:28
Some landlords would encourage their proto peasants to grow
26:33
more food than they needed for themselves and like make
26:35
clothing that they could then go on to sell at market.
26:39
So that would be a. Proto peasant as opposed to just
26:42
being a peasant who lived off the land.
26:45
Who paid all? Everything they earned to the
26:47
landowner, so that that's what proto A proto peasant has.
26:52
So unfortunately, Fessel would with the power, deny dynamics as
26:58
a white slave owner. We just get to see.
27:01
Lincoln through his eyes. So we don't know what Lincoln
27:05
was truly like, but apparently they bickered a lot, as friends
27:09
would do, and some people would argue they were friends to a
27:13
certain extent. You can't spend that much time
27:15
with a person without recognising some sort of
27:20
commonality. But he was he's.
27:24
Obviously he's still a slave. He's still at the back and call
27:29
of this vicious slave owner. So we can't look at a through a
27:36
modern prism. It's not a friendship in that
27:39
sense. But they still would have went
27:41
through a lot together and they would have experienced a lot
27:45
together. So it's quite important.
27:49
So another slave who Fesselwood became very close with was
27:54
Phoeba. I think that's how it's
27:55
pronounced. So essentially, again, like with
28:00
Lincoln, they were together for 34 years, but they were together
28:06
romantically and some people described them as being like man
28:09
and wife. So if you remember earlier, I
28:11
mentioned at that time interracial relationships were
28:16
not frowned upon in British Jamaica.
28:19
They were encouraged and they had a son together who
28:23
tragically died. He would have been a biracial
28:30
child or male like myself, like Joseph.
28:33
So he he tragically died. But again, Barnard argues that
28:41
there must have been some love there for together that long.
28:44
And obviously Phoeba had privilege above the other slaves
28:50
under festival was charged because she's living in the
28:52
house. She's getting extra food, she's
28:56
sleeping in the bed. She's basically.
29:00
But again, Bernard shows in his. Book that, she went on.
29:04
Her way to help the other slaves.
29:07
She knew she was a place of privilege, but she used that
29:12
privilege to try and help. The other.
29:15
Slaves who were being oppressed by Fisselwood, so that is only
29:20
to be applauded. So Britain took control of
29:25
Jamaica in 1655, and Jamaica didn't become autonomous from
29:30
the UK until 1960. Two, but obviously it.
29:34
Was very different by that point to how it would have been in the
29:40
17th century, so not really compatible.
29:45
So slavery was abolished. In the United Kingdom in
29:49
eighteen O 7 so by 1833 it's outlawed in all parts of the
29:55
British Empire by royal decree. So by this stage the traders no
30:02
longer as profitable. So we'd also lost the 13
30:07
colonies during the American War of Revolution.
30:12
So also. At this time the Napoleonic Wars
30:14
are ongoing, so the Royal Naval ships that would have been.
30:18
Used to protect slave. Ships bound for the Americas
30:22
were needed more frequently back in European waters to fight the
30:25
French. So Britain's motives were
30:30
reasons for leaving the trade. We're not all altruistic.
30:34
And we also, I mean, we deserve enormous credit for being the
30:37
First Nation, first Western nation to say enough like so
30:42
many people have died, so many people.
30:44
Have suffered, we have. Profited immensely as a nation
30:48
from that suffering. It's time to withdraw from the
30:51
trade. But we also have to take into
30:53
account in 1833 a huge financial package was played, paid to
30:59
slave owners, so it was the equivalent.
31:02
Of what would. Be over a billion pounds today
31:06
if you adjust for inflation. So $20 million were paid to
31:12
slave owners and the Americas for losing their property.
31:16
And also we have to look at a lot of slaves were kept on as
31:23
apprentices so they were made to work for seven more years with
31:28
the slave owners who had maybe brutalised them throughout their
31:31
lifetime. And if you think about it, I
31:34
mentioned earlier, if you've ever been in a drop, you
31:37
absolutely hate and you might stay for various reasons or you
31:41
might leave. I was in a job in 2020.
31:45
I won't. Say what job it was, but I.
31:47
Absolutely despised the job I apart from one or two people.
31:52
Worked there. I didn't get on with most of the
31:54
people who were there, so after three months I said fuck it,
31:57
Like I'm leaving. Like I've got savings.
32:00
I'm going until I find something I actually want to do.
32:03
So and just an aside, with that job, my wife always speaks about
32:10
it because with the money I earned from that job I was able
32:13
to buy her engagement ring. Anyway.
32:17
That's an aside. But if you think about it like
32:20
you've got 7 more years as a slave.
32:24
You're now being paid for doing the same job you did before, but
32:27
you don't have the option to say no.
32:30
Like, I don't want to stay here. Like I want to go out and see
32:33
what else is in the world. So you're made to remain for
32:36
those seven years. So that is one of the
32:40
limitations of the withdrawal from the slave trade.
32:44
And also during the Irish famine between 1841 and 1846, the
32:52
British paid like the equivalent of 000 point 1% of JDP GDP over
33:00
those years on famine relief. So we're willing to give those.
33:05
Slave owners. All of that money, like here you
33:08
go guys, £20 million, do with it what you like.
33:13
But with people suffering an island at the time, we're like,
33:16
OK, this is basically a fraction of what we can be doing to
33:21
relieve the awful suffering of the people of the Irish famine.
33:25
Now, if you've ever been to Dublin, I would recommend going
33:29
to the Immigration Museum. I was actually in tears when I
33:31
was there. A lot of the stuff on the Irish
33:34
famine, so that this was another shameful period of British
33:39
imperialism in the 19th century. But we just, we need to look at
33:45
it. That's the terms I look at it
33:48
at. So although it's wonderful we
33:50
left the trade, we do have these caveats to why we left and how
33:58
we left. We also have.
33:59
To take into account that Britain was entrenched in the
34:03
practise of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade for
34:07
almost 300 years. During that time, 12.5 million
34:12
Africans were transported across the Atlantic Ocean. 2.4 Of those
34:19
died on the Middle Passage. Many of them would have went to
34:24
the Americas and chains and bondage and British ships.
34:30
Slavery terminated every level of British society.
34:38
So, for example, we'll see when the South Seas company launches
34:41
in 1711 that most of the shareholders were actors,
34:46
writers, famous. Offers of the day.
34:52
Half of the House of Lords at the time.
34:53
Half. Of the House of.
34:55
Lords and over 400 MPs from the Commons and also every single
35:01
member of the royal family had shares in this company.
35:06
And what was the company's main commodity after and 1713?
35:14
It was slaves, Africans. That was what they were.
35:18
Trading with, that's where most of their money was coming from,
35:21
so it just shows you how deep the main shaft went.
35:27
A lot of our institutions including our banks like
35:30
Barclays, HSBC, the Bank of England, other institutions,
35:38
Aberdeen, Cambridge, Bristol University recent study.
35:42
Conducted by Edinburgh University, the study where we
35:45
reside into their involvement in the transatlantic slave trade
35:50
and that study basically showed that they made over £30 million
35:55
from their involvement in the trade and the Institute
35:59
institution enriched itself essentially through their
36:03
involvement with the transatlantic slave trade,
36:06
whether directly or indirectly. So this is a reckoning that 21st
36:13
century Britain is still to deal with.
36:15
And it goes back through the argument for reparations.
36:21
So a recent report into Britain's involvement in the
36:24
slave trade concluded that the United Kingdom would have to pay
36:27
£18 trillion in reparations to 12 countries.
36:32
So if we take into account the compensation package that I
36:36
mentioned earlier that was paid to slave owners in 1833, that
36:41
has just been paid off, or the debt that that accumulated has
36:45
just been paid off recently, like in 2015.
36:48
So the argument that comes from people, particularly on the
36:51
right wing, is that 12, sorry, 18 trillion is just far too much
36:57
money. And they also say the
36:59
involvement of the African monarchs who were involved in
37:02
the slave trade. So they argue that without them
37:05
slave slavery wouldn't have happened on such a large scale.
37:10
And yes, African monarchs were largely complicit in the trade
37:13
and without them white Europeans would not have been able to
37:15
populate the Americas with free labour.
37:18
This is an undeniable fact. We cannot deny that slavery had
37:22
existed in Africa for millennia. However European were turn it
37:25
were to turn it into a multi $1,000,000 enterprise.
37:30
So as I said, without these African monarchs, slavery
37:35
doesn't happen or is less likely to happen.
37:37
I mean, you could argue that the white Europeans were going to
37:40
take Africans wherever without their consent.
37:43
But the monarchs of particularly Western Africa, where they're
37:48
guilty of participating in this genocide of their own people,
37:54
and they did it to further enrich themselves.
37:57
The white Europeans would trade weapons, food, wine, medicines
38:04
for the Africans who would then be sent to the Americas.
38:08
So. It was particularly awful.
38:11
But white Europeans were to turn the slave trades into a multi
38:17
$1,000,000, probably billion dollar if you adjust for
38:23
inflation industry. So if there's no demand.
38:27
For the slaves from white. Europe, there's no market for
38:32
these African monarchs to sell them, so yeah, they could have
38:36
been sold within. Africa, absolutely, but that's
38:38
a. Completely different argument.
38:40
A completely different argument. Another argument made against
38:45
the payment of reparations to insulate the descendants of
38:49
enslaved African people as the Vikings.
38:52
Like right wing commentators, people on social media say,
38:56
well, the Vikings enslaved half of Europe.
38:58
They polished, they burned, they raped, they murdered, they
39:01
conquered. So shouldn't their descendants
39:04
also get reparations or be entitled to reparations?
39:08
The descendants of the victims of the the Vikings.
39:11
One interesting thing about the Vikings just before I move on
39:14
here is that they were in North America 200 years, almost 100
39:19
years before Columbus, before Columbus discovered America, if
39:24
we can say he even discovered America, because how can you
39:27
discover something that's already there?
39:29
There's already native people living there.
39:32
So he certainly didn't discover it.
39:34
He brought it back to the Western world and brought
39:39
information about this continent, but he didn't
39:41
discover it because there are already millions of people
39:44
living there so. But we have to understand that
39:49
slavery ended less than 200 years ago.
39:56
We can trace back. There are such detailed records
40:01
that shown who profited, who was a victim, where that money went,
40:07
how institutions were built on the back of this money, why
40:11
banks were funnelling slavery money, why monarchs, British
40:16
monarchs were taking money from. Slave earn earns why the British
40:22
government was able to enrich themselves.
40:24
So there are detailed records so we can trace back who would be
40:30
owed reparations. So if you can show me that same
40:34
link to the Vikings, to the slaves the Vikings took,
40:38
absolutely, I'll support reparations for you.
40:41
I'll happily go on to social media and shout from the
40:46
rooftops that reparations should happen for all those descendants
40:50
of the slaves of Vikings, but only if you can prove it.
40:55
And most people couldn't because there'll be no, there'll be no
40:59
way to prove that. So I'm happy to support that.
41:04
If you can prove to me that you're, you've descended from
41:09
the slaves of the Vikings or from a slave of the Vikings, I'm
41:14
happy to pay that. I actually said to my wife that
41:17
maybe I would be doing reparations, but she said, well,
41:20
Johnny, your father came from Africa, didn't he?
41:23
And I said, yes, he did. And she said, well, his family
41:27
obviously weren't took to the Americas, were they?
41:30
And I said, well, yeah, I guess not.
41:32
They may have came back. And she's like, no, they, he
41:37
obviously your family aren't the descendants.
41:40
Of slaves so. She's probably right on that
41:42
account, but just to bring it back to Fissel with most of his
41:49
slaves are named, which is good. When my wife and I went to Mount
41:54
Vernon in Washington, sorry, in Virginia, that's where George
42:00
Washington spent his final days. It's a big, beautiful estate.
42:05
When we had the tour, they were very keen to express that
42:11
Washington had freed the slaves when he died.
42:16
He's. He he freed.
42:18
Them so they were very keen to show that Washington had freed
42:22
the slaves on his estate and his well and my wife rightly pointed
42:30
out. To the tour guide.
42:32
That he only freed them when he no longer needed them and also
42:37
his wife once he died. She kept some of the slaves
42:42
anyway. But they're interesting thing
42:44
and they're despicable, Despicable thing is.
42:48
Most of these slaves. We don't even know their names.
42:50
So there's a grave at Mount Vernon with the 319 slaves who
42:57
worked there, and they're buried and there's no names.
43:00
And it goes back to the whole idea of the silent witness of
43:05
the they're basically nameless. They're faceless.
43:09
We don't know what these people fought.
43:11
We don't know what they believed in.
43:13
We don't know how they lived, essentially.
43:22
So in light of that, and this is probably for another episode,
43:25
Washington record on the slaves is very complicated.
43:30
He could have. Freed all the.
43:31
Slaves in the Declaration of Independence.
43:34
He chose not to for various reasons, but yeah, he's more
43:40
complicated than the figure who's presented in American
43:44
history. Anyone who defeated the British,
43:48
fine by me, even though I'm born and lived in Britain.
43:52
Anyone who stood up to British tyranny and that time.
43:56
I will applaud that, but. His record on slavery is very
44:00
complicated and very disappointing actually.
44:04
I mean, the reality, the fantasy does not make meet the reality
44:09
because in American history we're showing that this man was
44:16
essentially a progressive when in reality he wasn't.
44:22
So FISA word. Would not been able to operate
44:26
if the British Empire was not involved in the transatlantic
44:30
slave trade. So by the late or by the mid to
44:38
late 1700s there are commissions set up to look into the
44:45
practises of British slave government, commissions to look
44:51
into the practise of British slave owners in the Caribbean.
44:57
So. They were trying to get.
45:01
These owners to be more humane to their slaves, but essentially
45:11
Thistle Woods is a. Proxy of the British state he's.
45:15
Working under the. Sages of the British state.
45:19
Even though he's not employed directly by them, he's still
45:24
only able to operate the way he did for almost 40 years in
45:29
British Jamaica is because Britain is deeply, deeply
45:34
involved in the transatlantic slave trade.
45:37
So we've come to the end of this.
45:39
Episode. And I would just like to, again,
45:44
it's become a tradition. I'd like to end my many swords
45:49
by reading a quote. So this quote again is from
45:54
Trevor Bernard. So Bernard will play us out and
45:59
we'll see you guys next time on the Twin History Podcast.
46:03
Thanks for this. Thistlewood benefited greatly
46:07
from the premium placed on being white.
46:10
It's hard to imagine that he would have done as well as he
46:12
did in Jamaica and any other country where whiteness did not
46:16
confer so many advantages that allowed him space in which he
46:20
could seek mastery over himself and over dependence and satisfy
46:24
his desires, intellectual, social and sexual.
46:29
The Twin History podcast is a Lost Cosmonauts production
46:33
produced by me Viragh Ester Tut. Additional producers are Dale
46:39
McGoldrick, Johnny McCann and Joe McCann.
46:42
Written by Johnny McCann and Joe McCann.
46:46
Original music and score by Kevin McCloud.
46:50
The podcast is available wherever you get your podcast.
46:54
You can find us on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok
46:58
under the handle the Twin History part.
47:01
You can e-mail us at The Twin historypodcast@gmail.com.
47:08
Thanks for listening. The.