In 1676 one of the most important rebellions in early North America erupted in Virginia. Settlers had long chafed under their royal governor, Sir William Berkeley. They had many complaints, but it was Berkeley’s Indian policy that proved most volatile. Amid a storm of criticism, the governor had earlier conceded the land north of the York River to Powhatan tribes. To be sure, Berkeley wanted his colony to expand but without creating a conflict with neighboring Native Americans. Mindful of Indian opposition, especially since the powerful Susquehannah had migrated from Pennsylvania to the Virginia back-country in the 1660s, Berkeley genuinely feared a full-scale war.
Although many settlers shared Berkeley’s concern, those fears did not deter land hunger, especially among poorer and western colonists. By 1660 the colony’s population had mushroomed as newcomers joined freedmen (former indentured servants) in demanding land. Eastern established planters had acquired most of the acreage in the tidewater counties, leaving the landless with two alternatives: renting permanently from landowners or moving inland. Newcomers and freedmen soon envisioned the Indians, who possessed the land they coveted, as the source of Virginia’s growing pains.
This mixture of fear and jealousy produced violent conflict in 1675. It all started, strangely enough, over hogs, when traders from the Doeg tribe confiscated Thomas Mathew’s livestock as collateral for unpaid goods. Mathew and his friends gave chase, recovered the hogs, and attacked the traders. The Doeg retaliated, and soon a series of skirmishes and raids swept across the frontier.
Fearing their enemies, settlers expected decisive action from Berkeley, but again he disappointed. In March 1676 Berkeley and the assembly decided to build fORTS, but at locations far from the actual conflict. For settlers, the defensive plan appeared more like a plan for profit, allowing assemblymen the opportunity to monopolize Indian trade. Having lost faith in their government, the frontiersmen looked for other alternatives.
They found one in a newcomer to the colony, Nathaniel Bacon. Unlike most newcomers, Bacon—a favorite of Berkeley, a council member, and a wealthy landowner— had enjoyed a prosperous start in Virginia. Like most newcomers, Bacon was disdainful of Indians. Assuming that Berkeley would eventually grant him a commission for his actions, Bacon and the western colonists waged war on the Indians. Having earlier sensed the rebellious mood of the frontiersmen, Bacon now realized that hatred of Indians diverted anger away from the government. When he wrote Berkeley for a commission, Bacon informed the governor of the potential for rebellion and how best to avoid it. Under his leadership, Bacon argued, frontiersmen would project their frustrations onto Indians. Racial hatred would thus ease CLASS tensions and unify white people against Indians.
Berkeley refused. He did not want to alienate Indian allies, in part to protect the valuable trade with them, nor did he trust the men whom he considered frontier “rabble.” Indeed, the governor thought it more dangerous to sanction Bacon’s men than to rebuke them. Berkeley had another solution for defusing rebellion: He called for a new assembly, removed voting restrictions on landless men, and welcomed criticisms of his leadership, but his plan backfired. The new assembly passed reforms that empowered the common folk, and it legalized the enslavement of Indians.
Meanwhile, Bacon’s men proceeded to attack Indians without a commission. Upon hearing the news that Berkeley had labeled them rebels, Bacon and his followers lived up to the label, directing hostility not only toward Indians but the government as well. On June 22, 1676, Bacon entered Jamestown with 500 men and at gunpoint forced Berkeley to grant the commission. Bacon was declared “General of Virginia,” while a “Manifesto and Declaration of the People” called for all Indians to be killed or removed
During Bacon's Rebellion, farmers marched to Jamestown in September 1676, took over the House of Burgesses (shown here), and passed laws for reform. (Library of Congress)
And for the rule of elite “parasites” to end. Bacon’s men now returned to the frontier to wage war against Indians. However, they soon turned back toward Jamestown when Berkeley nullified the commission and tried to raise troops to fight the rebels. Berkeley fled across the Chesapeake Bay as Bacon reentered the city.
The next months proved among the most chaotic in Virginia’s colonial history, as the exile and the rebel vied for control of the colony. The rebel appeared to be winning. As Bacon paraded captured Indians through the countryside, flocks of freedmen and newcomers joined his ranks. Even established planters, who had always opposed the “Bacon rabble,” gravitated toward rebel leadership to prevent the plunder of their estates. Berkeley responded by sailing back to Jamestown with guarantees of freedom to loyal slaves and servants, but Bacon made similar promises before the governor could dock. Never getting off his ship, Berkeley watched as Bacon razed Jamestown.
Bacon’s Rebellion officially ended when English troops arrived to secure peace in January 1677, but it unofficially ended when Bacon died of dysentery in October 1676. After the dynamic leader’s death, the rebellious spirit expired. Having crushed the Indians, frontiersmen turned their attention to the October harvest.
What began as a crusade against Native Americans nearly became a social revolution. Frontiersmen initially blamed Indians for their problems but later included the upper-class leadership. Although the rebellion never achieved its logical conclusion of political revolution, the threat was enough to initiate change. Unlike Berkeley, who had been dismissed from his duties, the remaining elite followed Bacon’s advice. By almost exclusively importing African slaves rather than indentured servants after the rebellion, the elite apparently hoped that racial hatred of black people would unify white people and thus soothe future class conflict.
See also Berkeley, Lady Frances; Powhatan Coneederacy.
Further reading: Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York: Norton, 1975).
—C. B. Waldrip
World History
