- Genre:history
- Sub-genre:Caribbean & West Indies / General
- Language:English
- Pages:200
- Paperback ISBN:9781098323905
Book details
Overview
The faint of heart should not read Preface pages 31-58. Thistlewood is the story of two families' roots in the Jamaican slave trade both demonstrating histories of misbehavior. 14,000 pages of Thomas Thistlewood's diary tells of horrendous inhumane sexual treatment of enslaved women. Martha and I anticipated a male-dominated Western Samoan culture, preoccupied with considerations of rank. Hans Kruse, then-Minister of Economic Development, coached Richard H. Hadley and me; we then met high ranking male chiefs (matai) to lease some oceanfront land for "The Royal Samoan Hotel" site near Taumeasina. Hans Kruse introduced Martha and me to Aggie Grey and to Aggie's sister, Mary Croudace. We stayed at Aggie Grey's Hotel and arranged for a banquet there to follow the signing of a 99-year lease. Aunty Mary ran a smaller hotel closer to Taumeasina and our proposed job site with several adjoining apartments. "Aunty Mary" Croudace, not Aggie Grey, was the model for "Bloody Mary" in James Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific." Both hotels were known for Western Samoan hospitality, introducing and seating guests at breakfast tables. Martha anticipated eating in the kitchen with women. She was astonished to learn she was included in the male-only banquet, at the head table. A stranger sat by Martha: John Collard, my original principal character for my book, the title of which morphed to become "Thistlewood."
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While my four children were at home, I made one-on-one time when opportunities arose for long-distance travel. Martha's trip occurred when I traveled to then-Western Samoa in order to negotiate with its Minister for Economic Development, Hans Kruse, who is still-alive as a centenarian, and Attorney General Ian Hay, New Zealand Barrister then a Judge, after serving in the aftermath of New Zealand's protectorate of the fledgling nation, now Samoa. Martha and I climbed a mountain to find the grave of author, Robert Louis Stevenson, desecrated by thieves seeking jewelry. Martha and I visited authorities to donate the funding for immediate restoration. Insensitive to how my career had uprooted my wife from a comfortable home in Piedmont, California, first to rainy Seattle, Washington, second, to Honolulu, Hawai'i , to build twenty-story towers, Hawai'i and Amfac Buildings, where my wife re-established friendships and placed second in a field of four to be Hawai'i 's Lieutenant Governor, my next insensitivity to her happiness was to agree to become project manager for what was to be "The Royal Samoan Hotel." Martha and I visited the Rotary Club to meet cocoa plantation owner Doug Atoa in order to buy land for our new residence. I am a member of the Hawai'i State Bar emphasizing land; the Honolulu law firm in which I practiced law for 15 years was Bishop Estate's primary legal counsel. My decision was not to buy Samoan land in fee simple. A later government might well confiscate land owned by Americans. A lease for less than a century, 99 years: No land would be "taken by foreigners" but all would remain the land of Western Samoa, with foreigners to help economic development and pay fair market rent. A banquet was arranged. Amazingly and delightfully Martha was included. All my experience in Western Samoa until that night was that the women were in the kitchen while men drank kava and feasted. (When I expressed my concern sotto voce to the women they assured me in the kitchen they had plenty to eat there.) A new guest was invited: John Collard, purportedly a WWII British Army General who'd fought in Burma, to be my replacement as "Project Manager." He was difficult to "vet" because of alternative life stories he told. Seattle Architect Jim Ive told me John Collard's nickname, General Loo, earned by buying wax-slick cheap toilet paper for an office building occupied by the United States Veteran's Administration. His most recent war sagas, Jim said, placed John not in Africa or Burna anymore, but in India in an uprising where John ordered British troops to antagonize the Indians. In MOWW Archives I found several John Collards, with inconsistent stories, from Kentucky to England, service from Africa to India to China or Burma. John had links to a white-supremacy family: John Marshall Collard was a contemporary of Thomas Thistlewood whose 14,000-page diary tells of inhuman horrific sexual relationships with many powerless enslaved women and cruelty to enslaved men.
Thistlewood is dedicated to "Black Lives Matter."
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