Speaker 1: School of Humans. Have you guys done your taxes yet? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Me neither.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you have, that's great of you, A
Speaker 2: very responsible ten out of ten, you win the award
Speaker 2: for today. But I do stand up comedy, so sometimes
Speaker 2: you'll get like you'll get like a W two for
Speaker 2: some place that you did a show at where you
Speaker 2: got like fifteen dollars, And I'm like, do I can
Speaker 2: we just like not? Can we just not report this?
Speaker 2: I think it's fine, it's just fifteen. But do you
Speaker 2: guys know who was really annoyed about taxes, like even
Speaker 2: more than we are. The American colonists before the American Revolution,
Speaker 2: they were pissed.
Speaker 1: They were pissed.
Speaker 2: About those taxes, stamps, tea. They're like, is nothing sacred?
Speaker 2: In the mid eighteenth century, revolution was rumbling in the streets.
Speaker 2: People were whispering or even sometimes talking quite loudly about
Speaker 2: liberty and Indians from Britain because I didn't want to
Speaker 2: pay those gosh dang taxes. I mean other reasons too,
Speaker 2: but mostly the taxes.
Speaker 1: It seems.
Speaker 2: The stampback lasted less than a year due to boycotts
Speaker 2: and protests, but the Brits.
Speaker 1: Kept at it.
Speaker 2: They were like, we'll create more taxes, maybe they won't notice.
Speaker 2: Well they did, and some of them decide to do
Speaker 2: something more about it, something dramatic. They're like, yeah, we
Speaker 2: can protest, we can boycott, but let's do something a
Speaker 2: bit crazier. Why don't we take these loyalists or these
Speaker 2: people trying to enforce the taxes, or also the importers
Speaker 2: and exporters who aren't boycotting. What if we cover them
Speaker 2: in tar and then roll them in feathers.
Speaker 1: Obviously that's the solution.
Speaker 2: Appropriately, this is called tar and feathering, and it's been
Speaker 2: happening since the medieval period in Europe, and then it
Speaker 2: got exported to the Americas and became trey potlair during
Speaker 2: the Revolutionary period. We're going to get into the nitty
Speaker 2: gritty of it today and learn about this sticky and
Speaker 2: feathery torture and its many victims. Cue the theme song.
Speaker 2: This is American filth. I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I
Speaker 2: tell you a filthy story from American history. This week
Speaker 2: tar and feather. I know, not very creative, but I'm tired.
Speaker 2: So tar and feathering really caught on in the Americas
Speaker 2: in the mid eighteenth century, the Sons of Liberty were
Speaker 2: super into it.
Speaker 1: That was a band of dudes that was formed.
Speaker 2: To fight for the rights of the colonists, intimidate any
Speaker 2: person trying to enforce British taxation, sometimes with the violence,
Speaker 2: and then eventually they would fight for American independence.
Speaker 1: They were the ones who were like no taxation without representation.
Speaker 2: And they were the ones who made tar and feathering iconic.
Speaker 2: Starting in the late seventeen sixties, a slew of tarn
Speaker 2: featherings occurred throughout the colonies, from Virginia up to New England.
Speaker 2: Historians think that American colonists learned about the practice from sailors,
Speaker 2: like in seventeen sixty six in Virginia, a ship captain
Speaker 2: got tarred and feathered because he told royal officials that
Speaker 2: contraband was on board another ship. But then that captain
Speaker 2: was attacked by the owner of the ship. He tattled
Speaker 2: on the owner and some of his cronies smeared tar
Speaker 2: all over him, doused him in feathers, and then paraded
Speaker 2: him through the streets of the town. Finally, once their
Speaker 2: revelry was completed, they dumped the captain in the harbor.
Speaker 2: I would imagine at this point, while flailing in the water,
Speaker 2: he regretted his choice. After all, the royal officials were
Speaker 2: doing nothing to save him, and also while.
Speaker 1: He was paraded through the streets.
Speaker 2: Apparently even the mayor was there ello welling at the
Speaker 2: captain like everyone else. The captain almost drowned, but before
Speaker 2: he sank, a passing boat rescued him. He probably resembled
Speaker 2: one of those pelicans covered in gas from an oil spill,
Speaker 2: but unfortunately at the time they did not yet have
Speaker 2: don dish soap. While dumping the captain into the harbor
Speaker 2: was a unique garnish for that particular case. This was
Speaker 2: how most tarn featherings would go. And if any of
Speaker 2: you are in need of a historical torture method for
Speaker 2: your enemies, here is what you need to tar and
Speaker 2: feather someone. First, it's hard to tar and feather someone
Speaker 2: by yourself. You know, most people won't sit still and
Speaker 2: let you tar them up, so it's good to have
Speaker 2: some cronies with you, or even better, a whole mob.
Speaker 1: Mobs love to tar and feather.
Speaker 2: Indeed, tar and feathering is actually a great community building
Speaker 2: exercise and create sponds that will last to lifetime. Then Obviously,
Speaker 2: you need to get some tar, and most of the
Speaker 2: tar that was used was pine tar, which you could
Speaker 2: find almost everywhere in the colonies. It was used on
Speaker 2: ships to protect the ropes and use for axles and machinery.
Speaker 2: Tar was also used to cauterize and sterilize wounds somehow,
Speaker 2: and then sometimes you could use it in your hair
Speaker 2: if you're trying to do a nice stiff updo. Okay,
Speaker 2: so now you got your tar. Now it's time to
Speaker 2: put it all over your victim. Here, you got some options.
Speaker 2: You could tar them up while they're still in their clothes.
Speaker 2: That would actually be the nicer way to do it.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, you're ruining that outfit, but it will
Speaker 2: be a lot easier for them to get all of
Speaker 2: the tar off later. Alternatively, you could strip them out
Speaker 2: of all their clothes and you could just dunk them
Speaker 2: in a tar barrel. Now, it appears most of the
Speaker 2: time the tar that was used had been cooled down.
Speaker 1: It wasn't fresh hot tar.
Speaker 2: But there were a couple unhappy cases where people were
Speaker 2: actually tarred with warm tar, and that's bad. It would
Speaker 2: blister your skin, just burn you up. So luckily they
Speaker 2: usually had the humanity to use cool tar, okay, And
Speaker 2: now once you got the tar on them, you got
Speaker 2: to find some feathers. Feathers were also pretty common, you know.
Speaker 2: They stuffed mattresses and pillows, and if you wanted to
Speaker 2: find the right quantity, usually you just needed a couple
Speaker 2: pillows of down to cover your victim from head to
Speaker 2: toe and become the ugliest bird you've ever seen. There
Speaker 2: are plenty of cases, though, where people would rip open
Speaker 2: a mattress and then just throw their victim into the feathers.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Once you have your victim covered in tar, covered in feathers,
Speaker 2: it's time to show off the great work you have done.
Speaker 1: You and your.
Speaker 2: Mob of friends parade the victim around the town, being like,
Speaker 2: look at.
Speaker 1: This loyalist fool moa haa haa haa. And for them,
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: Of the pain from his experience came from the humiliation
Speaker 2: of being in this parade. Sometimes crowds would gather in
Speaker 2: the thousands to see a feathered man, and they would
Speaker 2: last for hours while people were cheering and hurling insults
Speaker 2: at you. Wow, what a fun time. Sometimes they'd even
Speaker 2: make the victim make a speech to renounce his loyalist
Speaker 2: ways and embrace the fervor of liberty, and when it
Speaker 2: came to physical pain, in some cases the process was
Speaker 2: quite violent, Like there was one case where a dude
Speaker 2: was forced to pluck the feathers off of a live goose,
Speaker 2: and then after he was tar and feathered, they kept
Speaker 2: throwing the goose at him. In some other cases, once
Speaker 2: a man was covered in feathers, they let them on fire,
Speaker 2: burning his skin underneath aUI also, it was just really
Speaker 2: hard to get the tar off, like you'd have to
Speaker 2: scrub and scrub and scrub and maybe use turpentine to
Speaker 2: help dissolve it. And almost every single victim of this
Speaker 2: they had a lot of hair loss, and sometimes they
Speaker 2: would get this thing called tar acne, which I can
Speaker 2: only imagine is fucking terrible acne. A lot of these
Speaker 2: events happened in Boston and in the surrounding New England area,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't just the sons of Liberty who engaged
Speaker 2: in it. In fact, it caught on all across the colonies.
Speaker 2: Everyday people on the side of independence from Britain might
Speaker 2: partake in some recreational torture if someone started being too
Speaker 2: loyalist around them. Also, some of these colloquial tar and
Speaker 2: featherings kind of demonstrate the creativity and diy spirit that
Speaker 2: many folks had at the time. Like there was one
Speaker 2: that happened in Kinderhook, New York. There's a group of
Speaker 2: women just sitting around quilting, just girly things, and then
Speaker 2: this guy came up to them who was a loyalist,
Speaker 2: and he started complaining about the Continental Congress. He was like, Gough,
Speaker 2: why on earth would you want to advocate for your independence?
Speaker 2: That's so stupid boo the Congress. The women who were
Speaker 2: quilting were probably looking at this dude like, why are
Speaker 2: you loyalist explaining to us right now? We will not
Speaker 2: do emotional labor for you random man. Also, quilting is
Speaker 2: a serious and tedious process not to be interrupted, so
Speaker 2: I don't know why he was just talking at them.
Speaker 2: So while the dude was spewing his loyalist garbage, the
Speaker 2: women suddenly stopped their quilting and we're probably like, shut up,
Speaker 2: you little British cuck bit which they grabbed him, pinned
Speaker 2: him down, stripped him down to the waist, girl boss,
Speaker 2: girl power, etc. But the thing is these women, they
Speaker 2: did not have any tar on hand. They were probably
Speaker 2: like hell fire and damnation. The one time I didn't
Speaker 2: bring tar with me, we need to tar a son
Speaker 2: of a female dog. But luckily the quilt squad had
Speaker 2: a bunch of molasses.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's why you eat with the girlies when you're quilting,
Speaker 2: you know, before the invention of SIPs and strokes, where
Speaker 2: you drink wine and paint a horrendous picture of a
Speaker 2: flower with your gal pals, they had quilt to molasses parties,
Speaker 2: probably called sticky and so I'm just kidding that was
Speaker 2: a stupid joke.
Speaker 1: I should delete it, but I'm not going to.
Speaker 2: Ha So, with the spirit of diy or die, they
Speaker 2: took the molasses and poured it all over the loyalist dude.
Speaker 2: And then, as they had no feathers on hand, what
Speaker 2: they did instead is they just rolled them around in
Speaker 2: the meadow collecting the debris of wild life flowers. And
Speaker 2: they were like, yeah, that's what you get, scum. Now,
Speaker 2: I want to be clear, it wasn't like everyone was
Speaker 2: getting tar and feathered. Historians have found that there were
Speaker 2: probably like a dozen or so, maybe two dozen that
Speaker 2: have actually been written down and recorded there was probably
Speaker 2: some other ones, but it kind of happened in different phases.
Speaker 2: Like it seems that they started after the Stamp Act
Speaker 2: was repealed, and then when the British enacted the Townshend Act,
Speaker 2: which tax glass, lead, paint, paper and tea, and as
Speaker 2: an act of protest, they were like, we're going to
Speaker 2: tarn feather. But then it seems like the sons of
Speaker 2: Liberty kind of change their methods. Instead of tar and
Speaker 2: feathering people who are importing British goods or trying to
Speaker 2: enforce taxes, they started tar and feathering the goods themselves,
Speaker 2: you know, property and in one case someone's horse. Why
Speaker 2: they decide to do this, IDK, but it seems that
Speaker 2: from like seventeen seventy to seventeen seventy two there were
Speaker 2: only a couple of cases where people got tar and feathered. Also,
Speaker 2: at this point the Townshend Act had been repealed, So
Speaker 2: the Liberty Boys, the Whigs, the Patriots, they seemed to
Speaker 2: be losing steam and motivation, but luckily for their resolve
Speaker 2: in seventeen seventy three, that's when the Tea Act was passed.
Speaker 2: Wasn't that compelling information about taxes whatever? But we all
Speaker 2: know about the Tea Act. Blah blah blah blah. There's
Speaker 2: the Boston Tea Party, and then the patriot passion was
Speaker 2: ignited once again. After the Boston Tea Party. That's when
Speaker 2: one British official got a particularly violent tar and feathering
Speaker 2: in Boston. His name was John Malcolm. He was despised
Speaker 2: by the sons of Liberty and independent supporters because he
Speaker 2: was a big fat ladist.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: He worked in customs and he loved his job. If
Speaker 2: people weren't paying their taxes, if people weren't paying their duties,
Speaker 2: John Malcolm was gonna come for them. Now mob came
Speaker 2: after him after this one particular event that really didn't
Speaker 2: have anything to do with taxes, but he was just
Speaker 2: being an asshole, and they're like, that's enough of an
Speaker 2: excuse for us. So Malcolm had been walking around Boston
Speaker 2: when suddenly a young boy riding in a sled ran
Speaker 2: into him. Now, Malcolm, it seems he probably had a
Speaker 2: reputation where he wouldn't take it too well if someone
Speaker 2: ran into him with a sled. So a shoemaker named
Speaker 2: George Hughes saw the incident and he came to the
Speaker 2: defense of the boy, which then resulted in Malcolm beating
Speaker 2: the shit out of George.
Speaker 1: What a nice guy.
Speaker 2: And so the Liberty boys were like, that's all we need.
Speaker 2: We got a tar and feather this asshole. And for Malcolm,
Speaker 2: while he's not the most sympathetic person, this was really
Speaker 2: quite unfortunate for him because he's probably one in a
Speaker 2: small handful of people who have been through this twice.
Speaker 2: Two months earlier, he had been in New Hampshire and
Speaker 2: got tar and feathered. But this tar and feathering that
Speaker 2: was about to happen in Boston was about to be
Speaker 2: a whole heck of a lot worse. Once word of
Speaker 2: the assault got around, a mob descended upon Malcolm and
Speaker 2: they tore his clothes off, beat him up, gave him
Speaker 2: the tar and feathering treatment, and then paraded him through
Speaker 2: the town, stopping at various Patriot attractions like the Liberty Tree,
Speaker 2: and at each stop they would flog him. And you know,
Speaker 2: because they were still pissed off about the tea, they
Speaker 2: forced him to drink so much tea that he vomited.
Speaker 2: And yeah, through this experience he almost died. Hoops, And
Speaker 2: how did our revered founding fathers and Patriot leaders feel
Speaker 2: about this. You know, for a lot of these the
Speaker 2: worst thing that happened was the humiliation of being torn
Speaker 2: around the streets and then you know, getting the tar
Speaker 2: off of your skin. But as we've learned, sometimes they
Speaker 2: were extremely brutal. Well, it seems that some of the
Speaker 2: Patriot leaders were like really into it, Like apparently John
Speaker 2: Hancock paid the legal fees of one man who was
Speaker 2: arrested as a tar and featherer. But this last one
Speaker 2: with John Malcolm, they're like, hey, guys, I think you
Speaker 2: went a bit too far with this one. We should
Speaker 2: probably calm it down. They're like, no one's going to
Speaker 2: be sympathetic to our cause if we are literally being
Speaker 2: a crazy mob. And then also, how did the British
Speaker 2: feel about this?
Speaker 1: Not great?
Speaker 2: In March seventeen seventy five, a group of British soldiers.
Speaker 1: Were outside of Boston.
Speaker 2: They're being harassed, they were annoyed, they're fed up. So
Speaker 2: what they did is they set up this guide named
Speaker 2: Thomas Ditson. And Thomas wasn't the brightest bulb on the tree.
Speaker 2: So one of the officers offered to sell him a gun,
Speaker 2: which was illegal, and Thomas was like, hell, yes, brother,
Speaker 2: I'll buy that gun from you. But then they arrested him,
Speaker 2: and the commanding sergeant of these soldiers was like, damn you,
Speaker 2: I am going to serve you as you have served
Speaker 2: our men, and then commanded the soldiers to tarn feather
Speaker 2: this random dude. Then they put a sign on him
Speaker 2: that said American Liberty a specimen of democracy, and then
Speaker 2: they paraded him around the town while playing Yankee Doodle.
Speaker 1: Out of spite. Of course, at this the colonists were like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, how dare you. It's like, I know we.
Speaker 2: Were doing that, but how could you technically the governing
Speaker 2: body do something as wicked as that? But you know,
Speaker 2: they didn't really resolve anything because Whoop's wares on the
Speaker 2: horizon and tarn feathering wasn't happening just in the north,
Speaker 2: Oh no, it was making its way down south. And
Speaker 2: they're one brutal feathering left another man near death, but
Speaker 2: that man survived and vowed to get his revenge. Be
Speaker 2: right back after these soothing advertisements. All right, let's talk
Speaker 2: about the Continental Congress real fast. So in seventeen seventy five,
Speaker 2: they came up with this policy. They're like, hey, don't import,
Speaker 2: don't export British goods. And then they called on these
Speaker 2: local committees across the colonies to form so that they
Speaker 2: could enforce this plan. And the Continental Congress came up
Speaker 2: with the Articles of Association where they would force colonists
Speaker 2: to publicly declare if they were four or against American liberty.
Speaker 2: And if they refused to sign these articles, well, the
Speaker 2: Continental Congress was like, local committees, you can make a
Speaker 2: public example out of them, that's fine.
Speaker 1: And what's a great.
Speaker 2: Way to make a public example out of someone, Tar
Speaker 2: and feather them, obviously, And so the tarn feathering was
Speaker 2: making its way down south, and it was about to
Speaker 2: be used upon a dude named Thomas Brown, who would
Speaker 2: later be called Burnfoot.
Speaker 1: You'll see why anyway. Thomas Brown was.
Speaker 2: Born in the North of England in seventeen fifty and
Speaker 2: his dad was a prosperous merchant and manufacturer. When he
Speaker 2: turned twenty four, it was Thomas's turn to go out
Speaker 2: in the world and make his fortune. He got a
Speaker 2: boat and enlisted seventy indentured servants from Scotland to go
Speaker 2: on the long voyage to Georgia to work on a plantation.
Speaker 1: How fun.
Speaker 2: The boat arrived in Georgia in November seventeen seventy four,
Speaker 2: and with three thousand pounds of his family's money, he
Speaker 2: established Brownsboro. Remember his name was Thomas Brown, so Brownsborough. Honestly,
Speaker 2: I think it would have had a better ring to
Speaker 2: it if it was called Browntown, but that's just me. Also,
Speaker 2: I guess that does sound gross. Anyway, Brownsboro was near Augusta,
Speaker 2: and Thomas had a fifty six hundred acre plantation. And
Speaker 2: when he arrived, the Royal Governor of Georgia made Thomas
Speaker 2: a magistrate of the area.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And according to historians, it does appear that Thomas fully intended.
Speaker 1: To lead a peaceful life as a planter.
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, isn't it peaceful to have seventy indentured servants?
Speaker 1: Ah?
Speaker 2: The definition of tranquility. But unfortunately for him.
Speaker 1: He arrived at a bad time.
Speaker 2: The Revolution was nigh, the Continental Congress was convening. They
Speaker 2: were making people say yay or nay to American liberty.
Speaker 2: The Georgia Provincial Congress voted to enforce the no import
Speaker 2: and export rule as the Continental Congress decreed. Thomas Brown,
Speaker 2: though he wasn't into independence, he wasn't into any of it.
Speaker 1: He had hardly been away for a year.
Speaker 2: He was a magistrate, He had indentured servants and a
Speaker 2: rich dad. Why would he ever be on the side
Speaker 2: of this silly American cause his life is awesome. Thomas
Speaker 2: ended up joining a loyalist group that opposed the provincial Congress.
Speaker 2: But alas I guess he was doxed or something, or
Speaker 2: it was just well known who he was associated with,
Speaker 2: because on August second, seventeen seventy five, more than one
Speaker 2: hundred men who were part of the Sons of Liberty
Speaker 2: arrived at his plantation. They're like, hello, loyalists, scum, you
Speaker 2: must sign these articles of association. But Thomas he refused
Speaker 2: to pledge allegiance to the not yet created American flag
Speaker 2: and stated that he was against independence. So this Horde
Speaker 2: of Liberty boys took it upon themselves to try to
Speaker 2: convince him otherwise. First what they did is they beat
Speaker 2: him up. Someone had a rifle and they started hitting
Speaker 2: him with it. Then they tore off his clothes and
Speaker 2: tied him to a tree. And once he was tied
Speaker 2: to the tree, they set his feet on fire. There
Speaker 2: we go, there's the burn foot and then it gets worse.
Speaker 2: They scalped him. That's right, They cut the scalp right off,
Speaker 2: and finally they painted him with tar and covered him
Speaker 2: in feathers. Now, some accounts say that they tarred and
Speaker 2: feathered him and then let him on fire, but others,
Speaker 2: you know, say the opposite. But either way, he wasn't
Speaker 2: feeling good. Thomas was obviously in bad shape after this happened.
Speaker 2: He ended up losing two toes from the burns and
Speaker 2: from being beaten with the rifle.
Speaker 1: His skull was fractured.
Speaker 2: For the rest of his life, he had headaches, and
Speaker 2: he became addicted to laudanum, probably from trying to get
Speaker 2: a break from his chronic pain. But instead of forcing
Speaker 2: Thomas into submission, the Sons of Liberty accidentally made a
Speaker 2: great enemy, because even though Thomas Brown had been beaten
Speaker 2: down in the muck, he was now pissed as frick.
Speaker 2: No longer was he under the delusion that he would
Speaker 2: be a peaceful, happy planter. Oh No, Instead, he doubled
Speaker 2: down and became a Tory loyalist extraordinaire, ready to fight
Speaker 2: these Patriot jackasses. He said that even though the Patriots
Speaker 2: had quote presented him with a genteel and fashionable suit
Speaker 2: of tar and feathers end quote. He was undaunted by
Speaker 2: the task to shut them down. In a couple months
Speaker 2: after the attack, Thomas Brown recovered and he began supporting
Speaker 2: the Loyalist effort in South Carolina. But then, unfortunately for him,
Speaker 2: he was overrun. So Thomas had to flee. And where
Speaker 2: were the Loyalists fleeing to at this moment, Well, they
Speaker 2: were going to East Florida. You know, Florida, a safe
Speaker 2: place where nothing bad has ever happened.
Speaker 1: When Thomas got to East.
Speaker 2: Florida, he formed his own militia called the East Florida Rangers.
Speaker 1: Pew pew pew pew pew.
Speaker 2: He and his men raided Georgia, defended East Florida, and
Speaker 2: eventually helped the British get Georgia back from the Patriots.
Speaker 2: After they disbanded, Thomas formed a new militia called the
Speaker 2: King's Rangers, and he continued to fight and fight and
Speaker 2: fight and fight to get vengeance for his missing toes
Speaker 2: and his headaches. Finally, in seventeen eighty one, Thomas and
Speaker 2: his militia had to surrender. And at this point, I
Speaker 2: don't know if Thomas had fully quenched his thirst for revenge.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like, how many patriots do you have
Speaker 2: to kill in order to get over being tar and feathered?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, tar and feathering was falling out of fashion. People
Speaker 2: were like, are we bad for doing this? I mean,
Speaker 2: it's the age of enlightenment after all, maybe we shouldn't
Speaker 2: behave like animals. In seventeen seventy seven, Thomas Paine wrote
Speaker 2: about tar and feathering. He wrote, quote, it is time
Speaker 2: to be done with tarring, feathering, karting, and taking securities
Speaker 2: for their future behavior. Every sensible man must feel a
Speaker 2: conscious shame at seeing a poor fellow hawked for a
Speaker 2: show about the streets. And after the war there was
Speaker 2: still some tarring and feathering. Like some of the loyalists
Speaker 2: who went back to their homes after the war, some
Speaker 2: of them got tarred and feathered, you know, just on principle,
Speaker 2: I guess. But there are fewer instances than there used
Speaker 2: to be. And throughout American history there have been other
Speaker 2: instances of tarring and feathering, and eventually the practice, you know,
Speaker 2: did get picked up by white supremacists. Classic anyway, on
Speaker 2: that note of white supremacy. Let's get back to Thomas Brown.
Speaker 2: After the war, he was able to get back to
Speaker 2: East Florida in a prisoner exchange, but unfortunately he wasn't
Speaker 2: able to stay there because part of the treaty ending
Speaker 2: the war meant that Spain got Florida.
Speaker 1: Whoop sees.
Speaker 2: So Thomas spent the next few years bouncing around islands
Speaker 2: in the British Caribbean. And this is kind of funny
Speaker 2: because at one point he was on this island in
Speaker 2: the Bahamas and he got really pissed off there because
Speaker 2: he and the other British settlers couldn't get representation in
Speaker 2: their government. It's like, buddy, what are you trying to say?
Speaker 2: No taxation without representation. He eventually ends up on Saint Vincent.
Speaker 2: And because you know, he was loyal, because he's a Tory,
Speaker 2: la la la la la, the British gave him a
Speaker 2: lot of money, a lot of land.
Speaker 1: And six hundred enslaved people.
Speaker 2: One thing I want to point out is that a
Speaker 2: lot of articles about Thomas Brown, they sometimes just skip
Speaker 2: over the part where it says he had enslaved six
Speaker 2: hundred people. They're like, Oh, he just got to live
Speaker 2: his dream of being a planter. Okay, but let's remember
Speaker 2: his true accurate legacy. Okay, but let's get back to
Speaker 2: the subject of tar and feathering.
Speaker 1: What do you think we can learn from this episode?
Speaker 2: What I've learned is that if you're gonna tar and
Speaker 2: feather someone, you gotta make sure you know who you're
Speaker 2: dealing with. If you tar and feather that person, are
Speaker 2: they gonna seek revenge?
Speaker 1: Also how much revenge?
Speaker 2: And that might help you make a choice, because if
Speaker 2: Thomas Brown hadn't been tar and feathered, maybe he wouldn't
Speaker 2: have fought so hard. Anyway, if you are going to
Speaker 2: tar and feather someone, I would say make a pros
Speaker 2: and cons list and just sort of really assess the
Speaker 2: situation before you do it, okay by American Filth is
Speaker 2: a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcast. This
Speaker 2: episode was hosted and written by Me Gabby Watts. The
Speaker 2: theme song is by me and Jesse Niswanger. Our senior
Speaker 2: producers Amelia Brock, and our executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 2: Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr. You can follow along with
Speaker 2: the sew on Instagram at American Filth Pod and if
Speaker 2: you liked this episode, or if you didn't like this episode,
Speaker 2: please leave a review, leave a comment if it's me,
Speaker 2: and make it very funny. Okay, I do read them
Speaker 2: and I do enjoy them. All right, bye, talking to
Speaker 2: you next time.
Speaker 1: School of Humans