Breadnut Island in November 1786. In his will he left £3,000 () and 34 slaves. Thistlewood's treatment of his enslaved workers did not attract criticism from Jamaica's white settlers, but on the contrary, seems to have been typical of the brutality exhibited by British slaveholders in Jamaica. Biography Early life and migration to Jamaica Thomas Thistlewood was born in Tupholme in Lincolnshire, England. The second son of a farmer, he was educated in Ackworth, West Yorkshire, where he received training in mathematics and "practical science." At age six, he inherited 200 pounds sterling from his father, but most of the estate was given to his brother, thereby giving him the opportunity to leave England. He began training as a surveyor, but after a friend and fellow surveyor reportedly went mad and threw himself into the sea, Thistlewood reflected that "now my hopes are dead". Trevor Burnard concludes that the friend in question was William Wallace, though it is also possible the man in question was James Crawford. After a two-year voyage on one of the East India Company's ships as a supercargo, Thistlewood returned to England briefly at 29 and decided to seek employment in Jamaica. On 1 February 1750, he boarded the Flamborough to Savanna la Mar, Jamaica. He had letters of recommendation but no arranged employment. He arrived on 4 May. Overseer at Egypt Thistlewood began his Caribbean life as an overseer, first at Vineyard Pen, a cattle pen that provided meat and vegetable provisions to sugar plantations. He then worked primarily at Egypt, a sugar plantation owned by John Cope and William Dorrill, where he was an overseer from 1751 to 1767. The plantation was in Westmoreland Parish, where he supervised numerous slaves in sugar production. Egypt comprised 1,500 acres of land, of which 1,200 consisted of water and morass and were thus unsuitable for sugar production. Only 150 acres were in cane, and Thistlewood's first crop was so poor that Dorrill considered switching Egypt from sugar to a cattle pen. During these years, Thistlewood gradually acquired slaves of his own, whom he rented out to other planters. This is also when he met Phibbah, one of many slaves with whom he was "involved" sexually, but one with whom he formed a long-lasting relationship. The "relationship" was tempestuous, and they often quarrelled. Many enslaved people fled Egypt, but like other plantation owners and overseers, Thistlewood often hired