Martin Henry

Thanks to historian Douglas Hall for bringing to public life and light the archived diary of Thomas Thistlewood.

Thistlewood came to Jamaica in 1750 to be a backra plantation overseer, mostly in Westmoreland, where Douglas Hall in more recent times would be born. Thistlewood spent the rest of his life, 36 years to 1786, in Jamaica, continuing to keep a diary.

Slave resistance takes centre-stage in the heroic history of Abolition and Emancipation. Tacky's Rebellion took place in 1760, only four years after Thistlewood arrived.

On the evening of Wednesday, December 27, 1752, the slave Congo Sam struck his own blows for freedom - his own freedom. And Thomas Thistlewood was at the receiving end. Sam was a runaway, and, as Thistlewood diaried, slaves running away was a regular occurrence despite the harshest of punishments.

On an evening walk overseer Thistlewood came upon Congo Sam who had run away from the second of the month. Thistlewood tried to apprehend Sam apparently with the expectation of a docile yielding to Massa which had been hammered into slaves. Instead, Sam lashed out. "Attempting to take him," Thistlewood records, "he immediately struck at me with a backed bill he had in his hand, and repeated his chops with all vehemence, driving me back into the morass towards the river [the Cabaritta] 25 or 30 yards from the road."

God apparently sided with the Massa, if Thistlewood is to be believed, for "through the great mercy of God, his blows either fell short of me," Thistlewood chronicles, "or were warded off with a pimento stick I had in my hand with which I sometimes got a good stroke at him."

No harm

Desperate for life, Thistlewood threw himself at Sam and held on to the blade of the bill. Sam kept a hold of the handle and allowed himself to be led back on to the road and across a bridge up to the watch-hut. There a freedom stand-off ensues, with Massa holding the blade and the slave the handle.

After some minutes, Sam suddenly lets go and jumps into the river. Machete now firmly in his possession Thistlewood jumps in swinging at Sam but the bill flew out of his hand into the water. Sam tries to retrieve it, but Massa, up to the waistband of his breeches in the waters of the Cabaritta, arm-locks him.

Thistlewood notes with great indignation that as he stood in the river entwined with his slave, five Negro men and three women, all strangers to him, crossed the bridge, "and would by no means assist me, neither for threats nor promises." In the earlier stand-off by the watch-hut two of his female slaves who came by refused to assist him as Sam spoke to them fiercely "in his language".Along comes London, a Thistlewood slave, who helps him tie Sam's hands behind his back with Thistlewood's handkerchief. With Sam bound, Thistlewood tries to find his pimento stick in the morass. With London carrying a load of provision on his head, Sam seized the opportunity provided by Thistlewood's distraction and bolted into the bushes, "where he by some means had his hands loosed, and lost my handkerchief."

But Rebel Sam wasn't doneyet. He pounced on London and seized his machete, threatening to kill him. Two gentlemen riding by helped in securing the runaway rebel Sam. He was hustled 'home' locked in irons and watched for the night.

Thistlewood laid charges against Congo Sam, charges that could lead to his execution for attacking a backra. The two Thistlewood slave women, Abigail and Bella, who had refused to help Massa were each given 100 lashes. They ran away but voluntarily returned two days later.

London flatly refused to go to testify against Sam at his trial in Savanna la Mar on January 6 and Sam, the courageous freedom fighter, was acquitted by the court.