Narrative #5
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In reply to:
Narrative #4
Terri England 5/29/12
barred window or two where passers-by could fling insults, spit and curse at those imprisoned within.Rank buckets served as latrines.
One can only imagine the deprevations young Thomas must have endured during his imprisonment.With no legal counsel to represent him and no parents to comfort him, there is little doubt he knew his wait would result in a judge and jury ready to find him guilty and deserving of a sentence of hanging by his neck until dead.The long dark hours he spent in the dankness of the cell was tantamount to a stay on death-row, with little, if any, sense of hope.
Although we can’t know for sure what prompted his theft we can surmise that should Thomas have tried he would have had great difficulty selling the items items he stole -- with any adult being suspicious of the orgin of the garments.Being young, Thomas likely didn’t realize the full consequences of his actions.It just so happens thatduring that same year Charles II had made the stealing of any linen cloth punishable by death.But theft of the linen would have been the least of Thomas’ fears and crimes, rather the injustice felt by the citizenry that a young hoodlum would have stolen items from the mother Church could simply not be tolerated. While awaiting trial and without legal representation to assist him, Thomas threw himself on the mercy of the court, asked for a trial by jury and pled not guilty.He reportedly commited the theft with “force of arms” however unless he was a member of a gang this is likely a tacked-on offense to hold his feet closer to the fire of incarceration or death.
The Lent Assize (trial) of 1671 was held on March 27 in the town of East Grinstead, only some fourteen miles northeast of Mayfield, however most prisoners waited their turn before the court in the village of Horsham.Prisoners were subjected to a forced march from Horsham to East Grinstead to meet with the most desperate trials of their lives and stand alone and defenseless in the witness stand.
On the march from Horsham to East Grinstead Thomas and his fellow prisoners likely stopped briefly at Peas Pottage on the London-Brighton road.The unsual name came from travelers and prisoners alike who stopped there for a bit of sustenance before reaching the gate to Ashburnam Forest and Peas Pottage Gate.
It is regretful that the depositions of Thomas’ court trial no longer exists.Had it been extant we would have heard Thomas speak his plea in his own words, giving the details as his young mind saw them.
During the Lent Assize Thomas was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to death by hanging.Whether through divine providence, the aid of concerned parents or perhaps the support of one of the high-born persons from his home parish attesting to his character, Thomas stayed in in the Horsham jail another two and a half months while he hoped for a reprieve that finally came to him on 7 June 1671.This great piece of luck helped him elude the hangman's noose through a reprieve from King Charles II that would relegate Thomas to forced transportation out of the lands of England with immediate sentence of death should he return.Charles II’s reprieve decreed that Thomas, along with some ten to fifteen others would receive reprieve but only on the condition oftransportation to the island of Barbados in the Caribbean.It is likely that Thomas was shipped on one of the first ships headed to Barbados; no jailer was willing to waste precious space on an already convicted felon when another accused could easily occupy his place and increase the jailer's fortune.(For more information click or paste this link: http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n159/piggygrins/BrigmanImage4.pnghttp://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n159/piggygrins/BrigmanImage4.png )
< REPRIEVE BY CHARLES II >
By this time, transportation to Barbados and the fear associated with ithad already found its own verb within the lexicon of the English language – to be "Barbadosed."Imagine the desperation and anxiety young Thomas must have felt and the utteranguish of his parents – knowing without question they would never see their young son again.
It is interesting to note that Peter Coldham, (the foremost authority on criminal behavior during the period), has postulated the penalties enforced and the details of transportation for people such as Thomas almost always included the added theft of a “mappum“ -- Latin for handkerchief -- what some might argue as a secret signal to London that the prisoner was a suitable source for transportation.At the time of Thomas' indictment and conviction the many Assize judges and jailers were in cahoots with foreign colonial plantation owners looking for any excuse to judge a crime as a felony in order to have the criminal reprieved and sent to the colonies as white slave labor.The jailers, judges and colonial plantation owners profited from this in many ways, to include under-the-table bribes.White labor was in high demand on the island colonies.
This period in history (like so many others throughout England’s early legal system) was callous and contemptuous in the way they treated both old and young alike, finding the the young particularly easyto force into the populations of colonial possessions.The location of these colonial possessions, such as those in the Caribbean or even Virginia were tropical in nature and not ones easily borne by the Englishman.Defenseless children often found themselves subject to trumped-up charges or when that didn’t work, the state or factors working as representative of the planters of the Caribbean outright stole the children from orphanages and kidnapped or ‘spritied’ those who came too close to the ships harbored along the Thames or various other ports.During Cromwell’s reign as Protectorate he had some two-thousand innocentboys and girls spirited from the docks of Ireland and bound for the Caribbean while their parents looked on in horror and helplessness.
Persons committing felonies at this time were often branded with a hot iron to mark them as criminal.More often than not, the brand was on the outside of the right hand, between the thumb and index finger.This is the reason -- to this day -- when one takes an oath and raises the right hand while doing so, onlookers can determine if the oathtaker is a known criminal.If Thomas had any brand at all, it would probably have been the letter "T" -- signifying thief or the letter “F” – signifying felon.Depending on the penchant of the brander, criminals might also receive a brand directly on the face, usally on the cheek beneath the eye, a place where all could determine the character of a person with or without oath-taking.
Terms of indenture for felons were not the same as for others and depending on the crime and could be ten or twenty years, or even life.For those with the longest terms the indentured could look forward to a life of virtual white slavery.As previously mentioned, the indentured was considered the property of the master to do as the master willed and especially in Barbados few rules existed to protect the indentured – up to and including abominable whippings and the right to even kill one’s own servant without repercussion from the law in any way.
While Barbados had just recently begun the importantion of slaves from England, wealthy island planters quickly foundthey were in great need of white slaves to oversee the increase of African slaves brought to the island by the thousands to work the sugar plantations. While white slaves were in great demand, the plantation owner was always willing to pay the shipmaster more for an Englishman than and Irishman.The Irish, being Catholic, were treated with great disdain, the planters believing them to be a substandard, lazy, criminal and unruly lot. While some white slaves had already been pledged by planter’s factors prior to their departure from England many were not and like African slaves were sold to other planters at auction block in the port capital of Bridgetown, Barbados.
One can unceasingly speculate about Thomas Brigman’s voyage to the New World.In point of fact, it would have been extremely unusual (and unprofitable) for a ship to have left any port in England without a cargo of some sort to sell in the Colonies.If the ship did leave without a cargo, more often than not it would have headed to the northwestern coast of Africa and the Gold Coast of Guinea where slaves would be gathered and put in chains and placed in the hold for the remaining journey.For the typical eight to twelve weeks such a journey from England to Barbados might take, Thomas’ ship’s captain (and thus his new jailer) would be the most important influence on the quality of life aboard ship.The ship captain could have been either an easy going man or one totally committed to capitalizing on his journey with little concern for the criminals he ported to the colony.Like the African slaves, it is possible Thomas may have been chained in some sort of cell along with other felons or, like the white slave he had become, perhaps put to work on ship with seamen’s tasks or even taking care of the African slaves.Accounts exist where shipmen were known to be none too gentle nor kind when it came to new pretty boys aboard ship.
A few extant accounts of voyages to “the Barbados” reveal the amazement of Englishmen who, for the first time, witnessed friendly dolphins that would follow the ship and most amazing to all were the “flying fish” found in warm ocean waters and that had such great mastery of their flying mastery were known to actually make landing on the deck of the ship.To the superstitious English sailor this must have been a calamitous sight.
Ships followed the seasons, the trade winds and the routes of the triangular Transatlantic Slave Trade.Upon leaving England the ships headed south, skirting Portugal and Spain and headed directly to Guinea to take on and fill the ship’s hold with African slaves.Next, the trade winds led ship to the Canary Islands where wines and luxury stores were boarded and the ship then set final sail directly to Barbados.The Atlantic portion of the trip usually lasted four to six weeks (depending on the problematic condition of winds) and was fraught with immeasurable dangers -- especially those of Spanish and Dutch pirates who might attempt to overtake the English ship and rob her of her merchant cargo and slaves.Food and water always became depleted, as well as vitamin C with scurvy a constant threat.Many slaves died in the grievous conditions or even jumped overboard, and English felons would also meet death due to deplorable treatment or inability to withstand long periods at sea.Aside from the general dangers of the journey, the location of Barbados itself made the trip all the more daring.The main port, Bridgetown, is located on the southwestern coast of the island.If the winds were such that the ship was unable to turn sail and immediately reach port, the ship would be blown off course and farther west and unable to turn back into the current toward the island itself.A dangerous business at best.
Barbados is an amazing island nation of only twenty-one miles in length and fourteen miles wide. The island contains no source of natural springs and receives all water in the form of rain.It's a wonder that of all of England's vast riches during the seventeenth century, Barbados produced more income than all of England's colonies combined. The island was relatively young in Anglo civilization, only being inhabited by the English and wrested from the native Arawak speaking Carib Indians in the late 1620s. Upon arrival the early explorers found the island completely covered in vast and dense tropical forest.Interestingly, these Englishmen were quick to locate the large number of wild pigs that were dropped off by the Spanish one-hundred earlier as a sort of insurance policy in case they one day found themselves trapped on the island by the sweeping currents.
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