Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)

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seems to have ingrained in Bacon both a recalcitrant attitude toward the governor

and a deep hatred of Indians. In addition, Bacon expressed a marked disda in for

Patrician Virginians in general. He also suffered t he loss of the overseer of one

of his two Henrico County plantations at the hands of the Susquehannocks who

had escaped Washington and Allerton’s forces, and therefore Bacon had a personal

score to settle in pushing for punitive raids against the Indians. Finally, his closest

associates among the county’s planters, most of them newcomers like Bacon, all

shared his attitudes toward both Indians and the Patricians who dominated the

east (Washburn 1957, 18, 181; Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

1907–1908).

In April 1676, after much drinking, Bacon and several of his like-minded fellow

western planters decided to cross the James River and meet with the landless free-

men and small planters who had been encouraged to gather there by a man named

Giles Bland in preparation for a campaign against the Indians. Bland recently had

been punished by Governor Berkeley for his insubordinate attitude toward Virgin-

ia’s Patrician leadership. Bland also shared Bacon’s attitude toward Indians. When

Bacon and his neighbors arrived at Bland’s encampment (with a plentiful supply

of liquor to dole out to the small planters and freemen gathered there), they were

received a s heroes of people who would lead them to victo ry. After several

speeches, the group began t o beg Bac on to lead them in a c ampaign to de stroy

all Indians in Virginia. For his part, Bacon accepted and imme diately dispatched

a message to Berkeley asking for such a commission. Twice he proposed that Gov-

ernor Berkeley authorize a punitive expedition against all Indians to diffuse t he

potential for an outright western mutiny of the landless against the landed. In other

words, Bacon suggested that Berkeley allow the frontiersmen to satiate their anger

with the blood of various indigenous peoples. Fearful of a general Indian war like

the one occurring in New England at the time, Berkeley chose instead to honor his

promises of friendship to the tribes with whom he had previously made peace. In

addition, he came to distrust Bacon as nothing more than an upstart, intent on stir-

ring up a rabble to serve his own ambitions. Whe n Berkeley twice refused his

pleas, Bacon enacted his desire t o annihilate all Indians regardless of their

relationship to the Virginia government (Washburn 1957, 35–39; Morgan 1975,

255–259).

After ﬁrst threatening the nearby Pamunkeys into ﬂeeing their village, Bacon

and his 300-man “army” marched to an Indian fort near the borde r with Carolina

held by the Siouan-speaking Occoneechee s. After convincing them to capture

and kill several Susquehannocks in t he area, Bac on demanded t hat they provide

him and his men with food. When he determined that the Occoneechee s had not

complied with his request with enough alacrit y, Bacon and his men attacked and

killed 150 of them (Morgan 1975, 259).

4 Bacon’s Rebellion (1675–1676)

For his part, Sir William Berkeley attempted to destabilize Bacon’s movement.

In particular, the governor promised that those Virginians who joined him against

Bacon would be exempt from taxes, and he called for the election of a new

assembly for the express purpose of allowing the representat ives of the people to

present the ir grievances against him. He then invited Bacon to submit himself

and intimated his willingness to pardon the rebel or allow him to go to England

to plead his case. Berkeley also took the step of classifying all Indians as enemies

of Virginia in an effort to placate the intense Indian hatred that Bacon had aroused.

However, he strongly insisted that only those given express permission by the

Crown via himself as the Crown’s direct representative in the colony could enforce

that decree. Since he had denied Bacon’s calls for a commission to lead an expedi-

tion against Virginia Indians and they h ad proceeded anyway, Bacon and his fol-

lowers were now rebels against the king (Morgan 1975, 259; Washburn 1957,

40–42).

In the May elections, New Kent County voters sent Nathaniel Bacon himself to

the assembly. After he returned from the campaign on the Roanoke R iver, Bacon

left for Jamestown. Still believing that he could convince the governor to see the

wisdom of his p osition, Bacon anchored a few miles from Jamestown and sent

word asking for permission to enter the town. Berkeley res ponded by instructing

one of h is lieutenants to apprehend the rebel leader. A few days after he left for

the assembly, Nathaniel Bacon entered Jamestown as a prisoner (Washburn

1957, 48–51; Morgan 1975, 261–262).

In a dramatic scene described in several sources, Berke ley c onfronted Bacon

face to face. Seemingly forced into submission, Bacon appeared before the

assembly in chains and begged Berkeley for his pardon. Berkeley, realizing that

killing Bacon would only create a martyr, set him free and restored him to full

membership in his Council. In a further effort to pacify Bacon’s supporters, Berke-

ley promised Bacon a proper commission to proceed against the Indians (Wash-

burn 1957, 48–51; Morgan 1975, 261–262).

Over the next several days, the new assembly passed several signiﬁcant pieces

of legislation designed to remake Virginia society in a more egalitarian mold.

The assembly granted suffrage to all landless freemen, c urtailed the powers of

appointed magistrates, and rewrote the tax code to end all the tax exemptions pre-

viously granted to Berkeley and his elite brethren. Berkeley assented to all of these

measures, but continued to resist efforts to sanction genocide campa igns against

Indians. On one occasion, the g overnor ven ted his fru stration over t he killing of

the surrendering Susquehannocks by the Washington and Allerton expedition,

vehemently admonishing the assembly that the Indians who had sought to parley

and peace with the expeditions sent to Maryland were murdered. His resistance

to measures calling for the indiscriminate destr uction of all Indians succeeded in

Bacon’s Rebellion (1675–1676) 5

forcing the assembly to admit the possibility that not all Indians harbored murder-

ous intentions toward the colony. In the end, it did little to check the genocidal

aims of Bacon and his followers. While the preamble to an act regarding the Indian

conﬂict differentiated between those friendly and those unfriendly to Virginia, the

provisions of the act made very little distinction. The act deﬁned any India n who

left their village without express permission from the Virginians as an enemy.

Additionally, the assembly discarded Berkeley’s previous defensive policy toward

Indians and created a force of 1,000 men with which to attack Indian villages. The

legislation also ordered that the members of the expedition would be paid with

both Indian possessions and individual Indian prisoners as slaves (Andrews

1915, 25–27; Hening 1810–1 823, 341–365; Washburn 1957, 54–55; Morgan

1975, 263–264).

Bacon, who had left Jamestown after his pardon to return to his wife and plan-

tations, returned and issued his “Declaration of the People” on July 30, in which he

portrayed himself as the true representative of the king in Virginia. The declaration

also spelled out Bacon’s intent to eradicate all the Indians of Virginia. Bacon then

attacked the Pamunkey Indians who had taken refuge in the Great Dragon Swamp

(Andrews 1915, 116–118; Washburn 1957, 56–58, 71).

Berkeley then ﬂed to the countryside to recruit a volunteer force to pursue the

rebel leader. At ﬁrst, Berkeley succeeded in recruiting nearly 1,200 men, but when

these men discovered that he intended to use them against Nathaniel Bacon and

not Indians, his force disintegrated. Upon discovering Berkeley’s plans to march

against him, Bacon turned to take the ﬁght back to the governor. Lacking enough

troops to match Bacon’s numbers, Berkeley once again ofﬁcially declared Bacon

an outlaw and retreated to Virginia’s Eastern Shore (Andrews 1915, 34, 56–57).

Berkeley’s decision to seek refuge on the Eastern Shore actually aided his for-

tunes . The colonists there were much mo re willing to aid him. When Bacon sent

two men to sail to the Eastern Shore and apprehend the governor, Berkeley, with

the help of Eastern Shore colonists, managed to capture the two assailants instead.

This success allowed him to recruit a force of nearly 600 men and with which he

retook Jamestown on September 8, 1676 (Andrews 1915, 36–37, 64–67).

When Bacon learned of Berkeley’s successes as well as the fall of Jamestown,

he once again moved against the capital. On h is way, Bacon abducted the wives

of Berkeley’s most loyal supporters. He besieged Jamestown in mi d-September

and prominent ly dis played b oth the Indian captives he had taken and the fema le

loyalists , many of whose husbands now op posed him inside J amestown. In the

face of this and Bacon’s superior nu mbers, the governor onc e again retreated via

the water to the Eastern Shore. Not long after, Bacon burned Jamestown, England’s

oldest settlement in North America, to the ground (Morgan 1975, 268–269;

Andrews 1915, 68–69).

6 Bacon’s Rebellion (1675–1676)

After the recapturing of Jamestown, Bacon’s men went wild in an orgiastic

frenzy of heavy drinking as well as looting. The sources disagree as to whether

or no t Nathaniel Bacon was troubled by this turn of events. If he was, his death

from dysentery in late October 1676 prevented him from acting upon those con-

cerns. The loss of the rebellion’s leader opened up yet another opportunity for

Sir William Berkeley to reestablish control. By early November, having returned

from his exile on the Eastern Shore, he defeated several rebel bands. On Novem-

ber 13, Berkeley condemned the leader of one of the defeated bands, Thomas

Hansford, to death by hanging. From the scaffold, Hansford proclaimed himself

a true and loyal subject of King Charles and refused to repent of his participation

in the rebellion (Andrews 1915, 79–81).

In January 1677, Berkeley ex ecuted ﬁve of the rebellion’s leaders and would have

surely hanged more had he not been prevented from doing so by the arrival from

England of a commission sent by King Charles II to investigate the causes of the

unrest. Their report signaled their agreement with many of the rebels that Berkeley

and other elites had dealt with them unfairly, but the commissioners also agreed with

Berkeley’s contention that the actions of Bacon and his associates constituted an

illegal rebellion against the authority of the Crown as manifested in the personage

of the royal governor. As a result of Bacon’s Rebellion, elite Virginians placed fewer

restrictions on nonelite attempts to acquire Indian land in the west, and the entire

colony began to switch from indentured servitude to lifetime African chattel slavery

as the colony’s preferred labor system. This switch would help to control the tremen-

dous growth in the landless free population that had occurred in the latter half of the

17th century due to the signiﬁcant increase in the number of servants who survived

their period of indenture (Morgan 1975, 257–272; Andrews 1915, 65).

—Ethan Schmidt

See also all entries under Leisler’s Re bellion (1689–1691); Regulator Movement (1771);

Pine Tree Riot (1772); Shays’ Rebellion (1787); Whiskey Rebel lion (1794).

Further Reading

Andrews, Charles M cLean. Narratives of the I nsurrection s, 1675–1690.NewYork:

Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915.

Bacon, Nathaniel. “Manifesto Concerning the Present Troubles in Virginia.” Virginia

Magazine of History and Biography 1 (1894).

Briceland, Alan Vance. Westward from Virginia: The Exploration of the Virginia-Carolina

Frontier. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987.

“The Family of Nathaniel Bacon, the Rebel.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

14 (1907) and 15 (1907–1908).

Bacon’s Rebellion (1675–1676) 7

Hening, William Waller. The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of

Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619. Vol. 2. Richmond,

VA: Samuel Pleasants, 1810–1823.

Morgan, Edmun d. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial

Virginia. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.

Washburn, Wilcomb. The Governor a nd the R ebel: A History o f B acon’s Rebellion in

Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957.

Webb, Stephen Saunders. 1676: The End of American Independence . New York: Alfred A.

Knopf, 1984.

Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson. Torchbearer of the Revolution: The Story of Bacon’s

Rebellion and Its Leader. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1940.

8 Bacon’s Rebellion (1675–1676)

Bacon, Nathaniel (1647–1676)

Nathaniel Bacon is best known for his leadership of the 1676 rebellion that bears

his name. Two years after he arrived in Virginia, Bacon led an uprising against

Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of the colony. He and his rebels even suc-

ceeded in burning Jamestown, the colony’s capital, to the g round. The r ebellion

ﬁzzled in October 1676 when Bacon died suddenly of dysentery (Morgan 1 975,

250–270).

In many ways, the details of Bacon’s personality remain somewhat obscure. At

29 years of age, he was still somewhat young even by the standards of 17th-

century Virginia, which was a death trap. Born to an ambitious family in Suffolk,

England, Bacon consistently failed to live up to his father’s expectations. His

father enrolled him at Cambridge only to withdraw him after two years, citing

his son’s propensity toward “extravagancies (Virginia Magazine of History and

Biography 1907–1908).”

After his forced departure from Cambridge, Bacon continued his ne’er-do-well

ways. He entered into a forbidden marriage to the daughter of a local aristocrat and

became involved in a plot to swindle a neighboring youth’s inheritance. Bacon’s

frustrated father then put young Nathaniel and his wife on a ship bound for

In 1676, English colonist Nathaniel Bacon

led a popular revolt of colonial Virginia's

frontier settlers, known as Bacon's

Rebellion, against Virginia governor

William Berkeley and his allies. (Library of

Congress)

Virginia where his kinsmen, also named Nathaniel Bacon, served as the colony’s

treasurer (Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 1907–1908).

Upon his arrival in Virginia, Bacon quickly exploited his family connections as

well as his wife’s friendship with Governor Berkeley’s wife to gain for himself a

seat on the Governo r’s Council. Like many of his neighbors, Bacon ha d recently

obtained a commission from Berkeley and constructed a trading post for the pur-

pose of setting himself up in the increasingly lucrative western Indian trade. Upon

learning of Ber keley’s decisi on to asser t greater control over the tra de, Bacon

reacted furiously. Furthermore, Bacon and his family experienced personally the

effects of the increased raiding by Susquehannock Indians from Maryland when

a 1675 attack claimed the life of one of his overseers. By the fall of 1675, he had

fallen out of favor with Berkeley for arresting a group of Indians whom he accused

of steal ing corn. His subse quent rebuke by Berkeley seems to have ingraine d in

him both an antagonistic stance toward the governor and a deep hatred of Indians

(Morgan 1975, 254–255).

One day after drinking with several of his neighbors, Bacon decided to assume

command of a group of landless frontiersmen gathering near his plantation for the

purpose of leading them in a campaign to rid Virginia of all Indians. Upon learning

of Bacon ’s actions, Berkeley, who favored a more diploma tic approach with the

colony’s Indian s, declared Bacon in rebellion against the government and set out

to apprehend him (Morgan 1975, 255–259).

From that point, the rebellion quickly descended into a personal battle for

supremacy between Berkeley and Bacon, and an opp ortunity for landless Virgin-

ians to redistribute the wealth and possessions of Virginia patricians. After gaining

the upper hand militarily, Bacon quickly moved to head off a general rebellion

among the landless by forcing Berkeley to commission him as the leader of a cam-

paign (manned by landless frontiersmen) aimed at exterminating all of Virginia’s

Indigenous Peoples regardless of their previous relationship to the colony’s

government. However, once Bacon set off on the expedition, Berkeley again

declared him a rebel and called out the militia against him. To defend himself from

Berkeley’s forces, Bacon had to call off the campaign against the Indians and sub-

sequently burned Jamestown to the ground. Shortly thereafter, he became violently

ill and died in October 1676. The rebellion subsided not long after his death, but

many of the grievances that Bac on and his followers demanded were eventually

adopted (Morgan 1975, 259–270).

—Ethan Schmidt

Further Reading

Andrews, Charles McLean. Narratives of the In surrections , 1675–1690.NewYork:

Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915.

10 Bacon’s Rebellion (1675–1676)

“The Family of Nathaniel Bacon, the Rebel.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

14 (1907) and 15 (1907–1908).

Morgan, Edmund. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial

Virginia. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975.

Washburn, Wilcomb. The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in

Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957.

Webb, Stephen Saunders. 1676: The End of American Independence . New York: Alfred A.

Knopf, 1984.

Wer tenbake r, Thomas Jefferson. Torchbearer of the Revolution: The Story of Bacon’s

Rebellion and Its Leader. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1940.

Berkeley, Sir William (1605–1677)

Sir William Berkeley served, with one interruption, as governor of Virginia from

the middle of the 17th century until the events of Bacon’s Rebellion ended his

tenure. He died in July 1677, shortl y after he returned to England to answer for

his conduct during the events of the rebellion.

Born in Middlesex in 1605, Berkeley spent much of his early adult life as a

favorite co urtier of Charles I and even dabbled in playwriting. In 1642, he

accepted an appointment as governor and captain general of the Virginia Colony.

A staunch defender of royal prerogative and patrician privilege, Berkeley actively

supported the efforts of the Virginia assembly to enforce deference and submission

on the part of t he lower orders. During his ﬁrst year as governor, the assembly

passed laws punishing runaway and disobedient servants, forba de servants from

marrying during their time of service, granted serving burgesses immunity from

arrests, and exempted members of the Governor’s Council from tax levies

(Billings 2004, 1; Morgan 1975, 146–147).

The other signiﬁcant achievement of his early tenure was his role in van-

quishing the Powhatan Chiefdom, with whom the Virginians had been engaged

in intermittent warfare since the earliest years of the colony. On April 18, 1644,

Opechancanough, now the titular and de facto leader of the remnants of the para-

mount chiefdom created by his older brother Powhatan, launched a surprise attack

against the English. In the summer of 1644, Berkeley led his troops on what the

Virginians referred to as the “Pamunkey and Chickahominy march.” His actions

forced the abandonment of the Chickahominy village of Oraniock, and destroyed

Opechancanough’s capital village of Menmend. Later that summer, the English

attacked the remaining Powhatan groups. In 1645, Berkeley ordered the construc-

tion of forts along their border with the Algonquians to aid in the reduction of the

Bacon’s Rebellion (1675–1676) 11

chiefdom. Finally, in March 1646, Berkeley himself march ed against th e Algon-

quians ostensibly to negotiate peace with Opecha ncanough. When the Indian

leader refused his offers of negotiation, Berkeley took “that bloody monster, upon

100 years old,” to Jamestown as his prisoner. By October of that year, the Third

Anglo-Powhatan War was over, and the paramount chiefdom of Powhatan had

been destroyed. A treaty signed by Berkeley and representatives of the remaining

chiefdom groups placed the Indians in a subordinate position to the Virginians

(Billings 2004, 96–98; Morgan 1975, 149; Rountree 1996, 84–88).

The fall of Charles II’s government to Parliamentary forces and his subsequent

beheading forced Berkeley, ever loyal to his executed sovereign, to resign his post.

However, he did not return to England. Instead, he retired to his plantation, Green

Spring, and awaited his next opportunity to further his political career. That oppor-

tunity arrived in early 1660, with end of the Cromwellian Protectorate in England.

Within weeks of Richard Cromwell’s abdication, Sir William Berkeley ofﬁcially

began his second tenure as governor and captain general of the colony of Virginia

(Billings 2004, 105–112).

In 16 76, Berkeley responded to Nathaniel Baco n’s extermination campaign

against Virginia’s Indians by declaring him a rebel and attempting to arrest him.

Eventually, Bacon’s death diffused the rebellion and in an effort to restore his

authority and exact vengeance on Bacon’s followers, Berkeley hanged twelve of

Bacon’s followers before a royal commission sent from England stopped him

12 Bacon’s Rebellion (1675–1676)

Sir William Berkeley ruled colonial Virginia

almost continuously between 1642 and

1677. He suppressed a popular revolt,

known as Bacon's Rebellion, although the

ordeal ended his career as governor.

(Maurice du Pont Lee)

and ordered him back to England to a nswer for his role in driving Virginia’s

nonelites to rebellion (Morgan 1975, 250–270).

—Ethan Schmidt