In Miserable Slavery

Thomas Thistlewood came to Jamaica from Lincolnshire, England in 1750, and lived as an estate overseer and small landowner in western Jamaica until his death in 1786. Throughout his life he kept a record of his daily activities and his observations of life around him. These diaries, about 10,000 pages, were deposited in the Lincolnshire Archives. They contain a rich chronicle of plantation life - its people, social life, agricultural techniques, medicinal remedies and relations between slaves and their owners.