WEBVTT - Part One: Thomas Thistlewood: Slave Plantation Owner and Diarist 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:03.240 Also media. 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:09.600 Ah and welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:14.200 that you're listening to today and maybe other days. Probably 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.919 other days. I'm Robert Evans here to tell you about 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.919 some of the worst people in all of history and 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:22.400 to talk with us about some of the worst people 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:24.639 in all of history. Is someone who's not one of 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:26.480 the worst people in all of history, but it's in 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:28.240 fact my friend T T. 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:28.720 Lee. 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:30.560 Welcome to the show. How are you doing. 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:31.840 I'm good. 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:33.839 I mean I still have time to become one of 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:34.680 the worst people. 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.839 In history, so I wanted to Yeah, like, I believe 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.159 you could be a contender. No, no, it's like that. 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:46.559 It's like that movie where fucking Marky Mark becomes a 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.400 pro football player by trying out, Like I think you could. 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:51.559 You could become a dictator if you show up. 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.840 If there was a competition show, yeah I need rules. 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.920 If there's like a rubric, I mean actually there probably is. 0:00:58.000 --> 0:00:59.400 I don't know if I would do well actually in 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:00.000 that competition. 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.319 But see, that's this is what this is. And none 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:06.600 of these Network States Silicon Valley dictatorship people have any 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.920 sense of like fun because if you had like a 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:12.759 reality show where whoever one got to govern like three 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.880 million people's lives as like an iron fisted dictator. Like 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:21.800 the franchising potential for that show is incredible, especially if 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.520 any of them become nuclear armed. I mean, my god, 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:26.680 you could. You could keep people glued to the TV 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:29.480 like that's that's the new reality, Shoe. 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.480 Yeah, a competition for who gets the nuclear codes. 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.000 I mean, we might actually end up in better situation 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:37.200 than we are now. 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:38.640 Just give it to someone else. 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:40.800 See, I have an important question. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:45.920 Yeah, how's woo Shue? Oh my god, wooshoo. He's right 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.560 behind me. Wait is there a video on that you guys? Yeah? Yeah, 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:51.960 he's He. 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.280 Doesn't like when he's not the underve attention as I 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.560 don't know if any I feel like old days when 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:00.080 we used to go into the that big building in 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:00.960 Hollywood to record. 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.600 Yeah, sure would run around and make a lot of noise. 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.280 And then I had to stop bringing him because, Yeah, 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:07.960 but I discovered he doesn't like when he's not to 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:08.640 send her attention. 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:11.880 I love back in the day Anderson who Sho used 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.800 to hang and that was nice, It was really nice. 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:17.120 Yeah, he's an old dog, you know, he's about to 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:17.560 be nine. 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.040 Anderson will be all of had Anderson ten years next year, 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:23.840 which is horrific and awesome but horrific. 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.080 I would like her to age less. 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:28.200 Yeah, wouldn't we all like to age less? 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:29.200 Yeah? 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:30.200 Fair enough? 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.760 Would you if giving like the blood of a young 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.520 dog to Anderson would make Anderson younger? Would you do 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.079 the Peter Teal thing with Anderson? 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.720 I would commit so many horrific crimes to extend the 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.400 lives of Anderson. If I could extend Anderson's life longer, 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.200 the amount of crimes I would commit to do this 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.760 I probably shouldn't say on it on Mike, but my goodness, 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.160 I would commit biohacker. 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.760 Who's the guy who like is always botoxing his penis? 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:58.880 Ryan Jo? Are you talking about the guy who wants 0:02:58.919 --> 0:02:59.519 to live forever? 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:00.200 Oh? 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:01.440 That vampire all but. 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:02.760 They're all botoxing? 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.600 Oh yeah, there's one. There's one guy on Twitter? Yeah, 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.639 probably him. Yeah. I feel like I wonder when, yeah, 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:10.400 when the next dog? 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:12.320 Uh when the dog version of that? 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:14.760 The dog version of that? Yeah? 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.280 Yeah, because it does tend to like every after five 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:19.679 or ten years, it trickles down like people are now 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.280 doing like like cosmetic surgeries for their dogs and stuff. 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.040 It just takes a little while longer, uh for it 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:28.640 for for people to be like, well, maybe my dog 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.639 also needs to be ashamed that they're that there their 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.600 eyelids are drooping or something like that, even though they're 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:36.640 a bass a hound and that's how they're supposed to. 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:40.840 I mean they have bb also droops for the labooboos. 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:44.280 Now that's like a whole what thing on TikTok. Yeah, 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.400 there's like they like wear little doctor clothes and have little. 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.480 Gloves and lies. Oh my, they're great. The videos are. 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:57.360 Great, and I will fuck well, I love the modern world. 0:03:57.720 --> 0:03:59.560 But you know what the modern world is built on, 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:04.600 tet slavery obviously, right, we're all we're all aware of 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.120 that today. 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:07.720 Horrific transition. 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:10.600 Robert I went and I wasn't given a lot of 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.480 options weekend we started the started this, how we started this, 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:16.599 and that was the easiest way to get to slavery. 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:18.880 You're never more than like two steps away when you're 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:22.800 talking about like really any history, human history, to be honest, 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.400 But when we talk about like the Atlantic slave trade, right, 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.720 chattel slave trade in the America's uh a lot of 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:36.200 like our documentation about like what happened is documentation of 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.200 like people kind of nearer to the end of the 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.440 process who like escaped and were able to write about it. 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.320 That's not exclusively it, but you get a lot more 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.080 from that period of time just because you know, earlier 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.400 in the system there were it was a lot harder 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.200 for somebody to break out of that system and then 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.400 to be able to like talk about what had happened 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.440 to them. And so when it comes to like kind 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.359 of the height of this period of time, one of 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.679 our best sources in terms of like how actually brutal 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.000 the system was on a day to day basis is 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.400 the notes the extensive diaries of a single man of 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:14.520 a guy who was a plantation owner in Jamaica, and 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.880 one of the worst like documented mot like sex criminals 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:21.200 and murderers and history, just because of like the stuff 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.880 he wrote in his own diary. And this guy's name 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.560 is Thomas Thistlewood, and he's someone who's like studied by 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.479 historians of slavery today because like you get something with 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:32.240 him that you don't get a lot, which is like 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:34.800 one of the guys actually doing It's like some of 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.400 those like internal notes that the Nazis took when they 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.320 were doing their shit, where you've got this guy who's 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.800 a part of this system that is still like a 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.839 century away from a reckoning, you know, almost at the 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:47.880 time that he dies, who's just like writing about it. 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:49.560 Is like this has got up this morning and here's 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:51.800 what I did to these people that I own. Wow, 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.320 So that's what we're talking about today. This is like 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:58.760 a bleak story, but it's really important. Not because Thistlewood 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.839 himself is like the worst specific guy who ever owned people, 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.880 but more because he's a pretty normal guy who owned people, 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:09.560 who was like unusually detailed in his his note taking. Right, 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:11.200 That's why we know about it, like. 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.080 A guy writing in his diary. 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.520 That's exactly. Yes, I want to say. 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.600 I had no idea what like, right before we started, 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:20.920 I was like, I don't know what we're talking about today, 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:24.360 and I asked you, I was like, is it gonna 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:25.240 be perfect yep? 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:25.800 Or diamonds? 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.000 Like this one's real bad? Here we go. I felt 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:30.240 the need to warn you about this. 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:32.080 Yeah, I had a feeling. 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:33.880 I'm like, you know what, it's been a while since 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.120 I've done this podcast. It's it's it's gonna be a 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:41.720 brutal one. Yeah, but no, Well, yeah, well, I mean, obviously, 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.159 I'm sure there's horrific things in it. It's but while 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.440 that you were talking what you said about before people 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:49.960 realize as a reckoning, because that's something like I think 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.520 about a lot, like just like him, writing in a 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.960 diary feels like the most private, safe, like secretive thing. Right, 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:58.800 you just wrote in a piece of paper. There's no 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.720 such thing as xerox, there's no Internet. You just hide 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:03.560 it somewhere. But that's also like one of the most 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.120 lasting things because nowadays, and I could go away in 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:07.880 you know, one hundred years. 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.239 And this is one of those things where this guy, yeah, 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.000 like like this, there's a decent chance that like very 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.640 few people's lives who were like live tweeting or streaming 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.000 everything they do today will be as known in a 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.520 hundred years as Thomas Thistlewood's because he wrote it all 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.119 down on paper and it got like when he died, 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:26.440 his effects wound up and I think in a university's 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.320 collection it was like a long decades after his death 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:32.560 that someone found these and was like, oh my god, 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.080 like there's a lot of there's a lot of detail 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.040 in here about how slavery worked. He's also like our 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.400 best detail on what the climate of Jamaica was like 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:43.920 for about a hundred years because he was just taking 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:46.560 like really detailed notes and it would be like woke 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.640 up and committed these horrible sex crimes. Here's what the 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.160 weather was like, right, Like these are the diary increase 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.080 that he's leaving behind. So's it's one of those things 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.280 where you'll find you'll find whole books by people that 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.520 are just like exing the stuff from his diary about 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.600 the weather because that's important for like climactic. 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.720 Sciences first and impression. 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.720 Yeah, and then there's this larger branch of scholarship that's 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.320 about his crimes against humanity. But it's it's kind of 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.480 like the Unobomber where he is also known for his 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:17.120 other work. 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:17.520 You know. 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:20.000 Interesting reminds me. 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:21.720 I don't know why I thought of Arcadia the play, 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.840 but that's too obscure a reference where all the notes 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:26.760 being taken are anyways, I. 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:27.960 Probably wouldn't be brought up. 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.400 But anyway, what is nobody. 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:34.480 Because they go the Arcadi it is Tom Sopper play, 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:36.720 but in it they well, the reason I brought it 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:38.319 up is because people are taking notes and trying to 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.839 infer what happened, but then there's like slight misunderstandings of 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.920 like what actually happened. But I just find that interesting 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:47.240 if he mentions like a weird obscure bird or something, 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.080 and you're like, I just imagine some like you know, 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.680 bird hunter, like looking through his diary, like, yes, he's 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.319 a terrible slave owner, but there's a sign this extinct 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:56.000 bird exist. 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.480 We've documented that this animal lived here at this time too. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.200 That is like the thing with his diaries is that 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.920 they're both really useful to like naturalists and also to 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:07.800 students of one of the worst things people ever did 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:16.800 to each other. So his name was Thomas Thistlewood. He 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:21.640 was born on March sixteenth, seventeen twenty one in tupelm Lincolnshire. 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.280 His father was Robert Thistlewood, and he was who was 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:27.679 a moderately successful farmer. You know, so this is in 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:33.640 you know ingelande. His dad is like an okay farmer, yeah, 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.360 but not like super wealthy, right, Like his his family 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:40.439 aren't aristocracy, but they're like landed and they're doing okay. 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:42.640 There would be like upper middle class by the time 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.400 his dad dies. And his dad dies pretty young. When 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.400 Thomas is six in seventeen twenty seven. Now, this is 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.320 one of those things where, like the early seventeen hundreds 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.520 were kind of coming into modernity, but there's still a 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:58.520 lot that's almost very medieval. So, like the father dies 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:02.400 and he's got multiple sons, everything's going to the firstborn son, right, 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:04.840 That's just the way shit tends to work. And so 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.400 if you're the second born son, either like a wealthy 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:10.680 family or of like a family like this, that's just 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.680 pretty comfortable. You're not gonna inherit any of that land 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.679 or really much in the way of wealth. Right, So 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.400 you kind of you grow up knowing your older brother's 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:24.400 getting everything and you're gonna have to figure out something 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:28.360 new to do something probably not. This is what fuels colonialism, right, 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:30.640 is to a heavy extent. You've got all these second 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.440 and third sons who are like, not gonna get shit 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:35.600 unless they get it themselves. So they go over to 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.319 the New World somewhere, and they probably die of cholera 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.200 in a month, but whatever. You know, some of them 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:42.640 get rich. 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:44.200 We could marry rich, but you know. 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.640 Yeah, yeah, that's your other option, is marrying rich. But 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.440 but you know some people tried to do both, and yeah, 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:53.839 this is kind of this is what's going to be 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:55.440 one of these guys who from the time he's like 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.320 five or six years old, knows, Okay, Dad's gone, I'm 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:01.600 I'm kind of all my own in terms of figuring out, 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:03.960 like what I'm going to do to make my fortune. 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:08.360 You know, Thomas would be one of these unhappy second sons. 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.559 His older brother John born in seventeen sixteen. And here 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:15.120 it's basically everything their dad does set aside some money 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:19.000 for Thomas, about two hundred pounds sterling. And you can 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.559 never kind of convert perfectly from that kind of money 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.840 to this kind of money because like most people back 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.080 then didn't have money, or at least didn't use it 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:30.760 most of the time. Like your average transaction is, like 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:34.800 your average working class person isn't handing over money for stuff. 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.240 You're often like bartering like well this time of year, 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.360 here's what I got and here's what I need. Right, 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.920 that's kind of a lot of a lot of the 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.600 use of currency or IOUs and stuff like that. So 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.920 but anyway you might translate his inheritance to like forty 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.319 or fifty thousand dollars, right, it's enough, it's going to 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.240 like pay for him to get through school basically, and 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.960 that's kind of it because for his whole childhood he 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.600 has to like pay people who are taking them in. Yeah, 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:03.880 exactly right, So this has to last the rest of 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.240 his chase. It sounds like a lot, I see, but 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:08.080 it's got to last him until or at least until 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.720 he's an adult, right, because he's he gets like moved 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.480 around almost as soon as his dad dies. And basically 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.240 these people who are teaching him, he's living with them, 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.520 or he's at a boarding school, and so wherever he is, 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.960 he's paying to be and he's paying people to take 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:23.920 care of him for the rest of his childhood because 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.960 that's kind of the only reliable social support there is. 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:28.800 Some of these people are his relatives, but he still 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.920 has to give them money because like that shit ain't free. 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:33.959 So if you travel with your bag of money and 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:35.079 you're like, well's coin. 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.480 For you, right, you get one coin a year for 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:39.600 taking care of me as like a seven year old. 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:39.960 Right. 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.960 Yeah, So I wonder how much that does impact him 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.520 as a kid, because that's a very transactional way to 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.160 think of your childhood. Like, all right, now you have 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:51.680 this much money left if for your childhood and you 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:53.360 have to pay this much a year to the people 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.040 caring you so they could feed you, right, Like. 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:57.600 That's a wild and you really have a sense of 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.440 like how much your value is in society. And someone's like, 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.000 I don't want to take care of you for this much, 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:03.560 and you're like. 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.760 Here is it. I'm worth this much to be alive, Like. 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.000 Yeah, exactly, here's what I can pay to continue being alive, please, 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:12.920 And yeah, he's gonna be This is going to kind 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.040 of turn him into the perfect foot soldier of the 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:19.520 British Empire because he sees relationships is very transactional, and 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:22.359 he grows up knowing I'm gonna have to hustle constantly 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.280 for everything that I'm going to get, right, especially if 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.280 I want to be anywhere near as comfortable as like 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.640 my dad was and my older brother is going to be. 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:32.400 So in seventeen twenty nine and now eight year old 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.040 Thomas Thistle would have sent to a school in Lincolnshire. 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.160 This is a nice place, but it's not like the 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:40.959 kind of fancy boarding school that the wealthy sons of 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:45.080 the aristocracy are going to like send their kids to. 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.920 So he winds up boarding with a relative by marriage, 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.559 and he pays for his upkeep with his inheritance. And 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.320 he does this in various ways over the next six 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.199 years and three different schools. He studies Latin, he becomes 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.520 fluent in that, he learns Greek, and he studies reading, writing, 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.480 and a rhythm, and he's an intelligent kid. All signs 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.080 point to the fact that he did pretty well in school. 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.560 But it's also one of those things where once you're 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.560 like fourteen or fifteen, you're basically grown, and they're like, 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.559 it's time to apprentice in something and figure out what 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.480 you're actually gonna do for a living. So at age fifteen, 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:20.080 he moves into an uncle's house and he pays him 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.520 five pounds sterling a year to be an apprentice on 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.320 his farm. So he's like paying his uncle to teach 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.160 him how to run a farm, but he's because he's 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.040 not gonna he's gonna have to work on someone else's 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:31.800 he's not going to inherit any land of his own. 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.160 Sometime after this, a couple of years later, he. 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.720 First paid internship. Unpaid internship. 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:40.960 It's like an internship that you pay to attend at 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:45.080 your family, like you're paying your uncle to your like 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.560 to give you a paid internship, which is a shitty 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.680 gig really, like having done an unpaid internship, at least 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.160 you're not out anybody, right, Yeah, and it. 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.520 Sounds like he's working, he's given them free labor. 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.840 Yeah, it's really fucked up actually, and this guy's his uncle. Yeah, 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.800 but that just that tells you something about how mercenary 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:06.640 a lot of this culture is at the time, right, 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.080 Like you wonder why did the British Empire do the 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.000 things that the British Empire did? Well, this is how 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.320 people are living on the island when they're better off, right. 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.800 Yeah, wow, that's like it's like these are the citizens 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:19.480 who and this is like their norm. 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:21.440 Yeah, how do you think they're going to treat people 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:28.560 in bengaal like, yeah, their own kill left to pay, Yeah, exactly. 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.640 So I don't know how long he spends in this 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.200 internship exactly, but he probably would have been somewhere around 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.040 eighteen when he sets off fully on his own to 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:39.640 make a living as a livestock dealer. Right. So he decides, 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.880 I don't have any land yet, but I've got some money. 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.240 I've saved up some left over from my inheritance. I'm 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.200 gonna start buying and selling livestock to try to make 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:51.040 a profit. And around this time, as he's starting his career, 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.000 he hooks up with a local girl for the first 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.680 time and she gets pregnant. Right, he gets this, this 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:00.800 young woman pregnant and they're not married. Now in this 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.400 period of time nearly seventeen hundreds, that there's this social level. 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.040 If you get someone pregnant, as the man, you have 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.800 two choices. Choice one is convinced this lady's parents to 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.320 let you marry their daughter, right, and that's very much 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.400 your job. She does not have a lot of choice 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:16.880 in the matter. 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:17.240 Right. 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:19.840 That's going to vary from family to family, But this 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:24.920 is primarily you interfacing with this young woman's family, right. 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.040 And if they don't want you to marry their daughter, 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.400 if they don't see you as a suitable match, you 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.200 can get in a shitload of trouble. You can go 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:35.880 to prison for fathering a bastard. Right. So, yeah, he 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.360 gets in this situation and this lady's parents. I don't 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:41.920 know much about this person, but and I say, I 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:43.840 don't know if literally if she is a girl like 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:45.920 a child, or if she's like she could have been 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.240 anywhere from like fifteen to twenty, given the way things 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:53.040 worked at the time, right, And I have no idea 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:55.960 like why, but her parents are like, this guy is 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:57.960 not a suitable match for our daughter. Maybe it's just 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:02.000 that he's poor. Maybe they see something like the sketchiness 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.840 lurking inside this man's soul. I have no idea, but 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:06.960 they say no. And so he really is looking at 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.800 like if this girl has a kid, I'm going I 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:11.639 could go to prison. I'm at least going to have 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:13.520 to pay like a heavy fine for what I did. 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:15.840 But then the child doesn't come to term and he 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.920 gets off scott free. Right. But this kind of inspires 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.679 him to like get the fuck out right, Like this 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:23.720 was my message of like I got it almost got 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.120 in a lot of trouble here. I need to actually 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:30.760 like escape my hometown, maybe get out of England altogether. Right. 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.080 And so in seventeen forty six, he travels to London 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.840 and he signs a contract with the East India Company 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.639 to act as a purser on of super cargo on 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.000 a ship headed for the Far East. This means that, like, 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.159 you know, you've got this boat and it's taking a 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.120 bunch of goods over to like India and other parts 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.080 of Southeast Asia, and it's going to come back with 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.640 a bunch of goods from the different places it visits 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:55.359 on this like two year year and a half two 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.960 year long voyage right as the age of sail, that's 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:00.760 how long shit takes back then. And he's his job. 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.280 He's getting paid to like manage the money on board. Right. 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.160 They've got a bunch of petty cash. Some of their 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.600 they're using to like buy goods to take back. Some 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.879 of it they're using to pay for like incidentals and 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:13.680 necessities on the voyage. And he's the guy, like man, 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:18.199 he's the ship's accountant almost right now. The ship, like 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.679 the one that he's signed onto, it's going to like 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.560 leave with goods loaded for you know, from the home 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.119 country for homesick colonizers in India, and then it's going 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:27.960 to come back with all sorts of shit. And you're 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.600 getting paid to do your job. But you also part 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.720