Gourt Home::Gourt :: Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion or the Virginia Rebellion was an uprising in 1676 in the Virginia Colony, led by Nathaniel Bacon. It was the first rebellion in the American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part; a similar uprising in Maryland occurred later in the same year.
Plot
By the end of the 17th century in the Chesapeake, the elite farmers on the Atlantic coast, called the "tidewater gentry," owned much of the best farmland in the area and exercised a level of political power disproportionate to their numbers, to the discontent of the majority of the population, who were small farmers. These small farmers, or the backcountry settlers, held western lands that were subject to frequent American Indian attacks; they were far from markets to sell their produce. Taxes were high, especially on tobacco after 1660. The colonial governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley, had given suffrage to property-holders only, disenfranchising the small farmers.
In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon of Curles Neck in Henrico County led a protest. Berkeley had Bacon arrested and charged with treason. He then let him go.
However, Bacon had broad support among the colonists and demanded a commission of inquiry into the government's failure to police American Indians, and refusal of authorization to raise an army. The governor then fled, to the Eastern Shore, and Bacon rampaged the capitol for three months, raising volunteers and plundering Tidewater estates. However, Bacon died on October 26, 1676, by succumbing to the "bloody flux". Without his leadership the rebellion collapsed.
When a party of English redcoats, summoned by the governor three months earlier finally arrived in November, only eighty slaves and twenty servants still defied the authorities; they were soon suppressed. Governor Berkeley subsequently hanged many of those who had participated in the rebellion, arousing the ire of King Charles II of England.
Causes
Bacon's Rebellion can be attributed to several causes, all of which led to unrest in the Virginia colony. Economic problems, such as declining tobacco prices, growing commercial competition from Maryland and the Carolinas, an increasingly restricted English market, and the rising prices from English manufactured goods (mercantilism) caused problems for the Virginians. There were many problems caused by weather. Several natural disasters, including hailstorms, floods, drought, and hurricanes rocked the colony in the course of a year.
In July 1675, a raid by the Doeg group of American Indians on the plantation of Thomas Mathews, located in the Northern Neck section of Virginia near the Potomac River occurred. Several of the Doegs were killed in the raid, which began in a dispute over the nonpayment of some items Mathews had apparently obtained from the tribe. The situation became critical when, in a retaliatory strike by the colonists, they attacked the wrong tribe, the Susquehanaugs, which caused large-scale Indian raids to begin.
Berkeley ordered an investigation into the reasons for the attacks, during which Berkeley pleaded for restraint on all sides. One settler, Nathaniel Bacon, disregarded the Governor's direct orders by seizing some friendly Appomattox natives on a charge of stealing corn; he was reprimanded and his fellow farmers were aggrieved at this seemingly one-sided action. In attempting to find a compromise, the governor called what was known as the Long Assembly which declared war on all the "bad Indians" by setting up a strong defensive zone around the state. In order to do this, higher taxes were raised, to the disgust of the frontiersmen, and there was a strong feeling among them that "favored traders" were allowed to trade with the Indians at the expense of regular traders who had dealt with the Indians for generations.
In all of this, Bacon came out as leader of those most in opposition to the policies now being pursued by Berkeley, and he became the elected "general" of a group of local volunteer Indian fighters, having promised to bear the cost of the campaigns. From the forest to which he had fled, Bacon led attacks on the Indians. The governor nonetheless denounced them as rebels.
Bacon and the House of Burgesses
Bacon and his men continued to launch attacks on the tribes. The Governor was now forced into agreeing to issue a pardon if Bacon turned himself in, to be then sent to England for trial before King Charles II. Many of the members of the House of Burgesses were sympathetic to Bacon's cause, and this led to his being elected as a member of the House.
Bacon, by virtue of this election, attended the important Legislative Assembly of June 1676, at which time he was made to apologize for his previous actions. Berkeley immediately pardoned Bacon and allowed him to take his seat in the assembly. Although several reform laws were passed at the meeting, Bacon's only cause was his campaign against the Indians. Matters came to a head when, during a debate on the Indian situation, Bacon and his men surrounded the state house, and forced the Governor to give in to Bacon's demands for campaigns against the Indians without government interference. This concession, too, was short-lived, and, when Berkeley reneged on the commission, the rebels took over Jamestown, if only for a brief period, between July 30 (when Bacon issued his Declaration of the People of Virginia) and September 1676.
When Berkeley returned to recapture the town, aided by the English militia, Bacon burned it to the ground. Although, for a short period of time, Nathaniel Bacon had been ruler of Virginia, this success was quickly ended. On October 26th, 1676, Bacon abruptly died of the "Bloodie Flux" and "Lousey Disease" (body lice). It is thought that his soldiers burned his contaminated body because it was never found. Many of the rebels were executed or had their property confiscated.
Berkeley himself was replaced as Governor by a commission sent from England: he died there on July 9, 1677.
Effects of the Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was the result of discontent among backcountry farmers who had taken the law into their own hands. Many of the farmers were debtors: borrowing on the strength of paper money was stopped by the British Government, leading to more discontent against the merchant classes.
Historian Helen Hill Miller has pointed out that one of the most important reforms made during Bacon's government was the recognition of the right to bear arms, so that the common man could defend himself from hostile Indians, but also so that he may oppose a despotic regime. After Berkeley's resumption of power, this right was one of the first he repealed. She suggests it was Bacon's Rebellion that may have served as one of the major motivations for later colonists' intense appreciation of the right to bear arms.
Because it was largely the poor, white farmers, many of whom were formerly indentured servants, who attacked, a new social hierarchy with controlled persons devalued even more than the poor whites was needed. Thus, many easterners saw slavery as a viable option for minimizing the number of future rebels and satisfying these rebels by making them not the lowest people in society. Thus was born a racially defined, permanent form of slavery.
References
- John B. Frantz, Bacon's Rebellion: Prologue to the Revolution? (1969), readings
- Lovejoy, David S., "The Virginia Charter and Bacon's Rebellion," The Glorious Revolution in America (1972), 32-52.
- Edmund Sears Morgan, "Rebellion," in American Slavery, American Freedom:The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York: Norton, 1975), 250-70.
- W. E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel (1957, repr. 1967).
- T. J. Wertenbaker, Torchbearer of the Revolution (1940, rpt. 1965)
- T. J. Wertenbaker Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 (1957)
- Paul Johnson, "A History of the American People" (1997), 77-78
Trivia
In Surry County, the Allen family's circa 1665 brick home became known as "Bacon's Castle" because it was occupied as a fort or "castle" in 1676 during Bacon's Rebellion. However, contrary to popular folklore, Nathaniel Bacon never lived at Bacon's Castle, or is even known to have occupied it. Instead, the rebellious Nathaniel Bacon was the proprietor of Curles Neck Plantation in Henrico County, about 30 miles upriver on the northern bank of the James River.
The tragedy, The Widow Ranter; or, The History of Bacon in Virginia, by Aphra Behn (1689) presents an extremely romanticized version of the story.
External links
"Bacon's Rebellion"