maiguruvazaza:

You know what we haven’t talked about; the plantation owner also has a tale to spin; that he can keep your black sheep fenced in and dead to the world, never to leave, and never to be heard from again. That story is his bread and butter.

But would a reform minded man continue the cycle of exploitation and misery, however better the people are treated, and however much he is paid? Nah. Thomas had nowhere else to go. He has no titles or money, but earns his keep honestly in the fields. And maybe he uses this place as penance for roping Miranda and James into his plan, and losing them. Maybe there was still a threat from Alfred Hamilton’s sycophants. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

All I know is that the reputations in Black Sails are often a mask of what truly happens.  So the way I see it; when the people who sequestered you there are gone, and your existence is no longer inconvenient; the plantation owner would have no reason to keep you, save that you have no other means to live. If the Americas are the new world, perhaps he uses the plantation as a way in for those abandoned by their families too; work a while, but once the threat is gone, start a new life in the new world? And if the Governor of Carolina was the one who sent Thomas there, then his death was less than a year previous, and Thomas would have had only that much time to figure out what to do.

I think Thomas and James walked out free men. When? I don’t know. They didn’t go far if James dies in Savanna many years later, and it always helps to have allies close if the plantation owner is amenable to helping them now and then.

The plantation is a gateway of sorts; the underworld if you will. Lord Thomas Hamilton and Captain Flint enter, but will never leave that place, that much is true; but Thomas and James McGraw do.