AMERICA’S FIRST REBELLION: BACON’S REBELLION
Hunter Bailey
HIS 131-07: American History I
November 21, 2018
The definition of the word “embolden” as stated by Dictionary.com states that it is a “verb (used with object) to make bold or bolder; hearten; encourage.” That is exactly what Nathaniel Bacon did. In 1676, an uprising known as Bacon’s Rebellion transpired in the southern colony of Virginia. What exactly started this dispute? More specifically, why was this dispute so impactful? This paper not only explores the events leading up to the rebellion as well as the cause and effects of it on not only American settlers, but on their economy as well.
As America was first beginning to form and established its founding colonies, American settlers found themselves fending off multiple problems. Among those many complications was a particular problem that affected a huge portion of the population. This problem was the amount of needs pertaining to farming. As the most lucrative crop to grow was tobacco, it was also the most work extensive.
As tobacco and its popularity was on the rise, so was the demand for it as an agricultural need. The more farms that started growing tobacco created more manual labor to be needed. With more manual labor being needed, more job opportunities were created. Tobacco not only needs an ample amount of space to grow, but also nutrient rich soil. Tobacco depletes soil rapidly and leaves the ground little to no time to replenish itself. Due to tobacco being very harsh on the land and the soil needing time to be restore itself, many farmers started to go into debt. Heavy taxes and the price of tobacco plummeting did not help at all. Farmers needed new land with enriched soil. These farmers thought if they could obtain more land they could not only grow more tobacco, but sell more of it which initially creates more economic flow from making more money. Where would these colonists acquire this land they so desperately need to grow more cash crops? That was their biggest problem.
The biggest problem of all for these farmers was the lack of land needed to grow more crops. Many farmers saw this problem. Nathaniel Bacon, a Cambridge graduate, was a plantation owner whose main plantation resided just 40 miles north of Jamestown and whose outer plantation resided in what is now modern-day Richmond. As a farmer that was affected by the need for more land, he and many other farmers decided to seek authorization to take nutrient rich land from the Indians. Many small western planters saw this as an opportunity due to the fact they were affected by raids from the Indians as well as high taxes placed on their crops, as did indentured servants. When the governor of Virginia, Governor William Berkeley, refused to grant the colonists an authorization to take this land, it sparked a fire in which a rebellion would set flames (literally) not only in the hearts of settlers, but also American land.
According to a manuscript written by Thomas Matthew of the Northumberland County, he tells us of the events that led up to and started Bacon’s rebellion. He begins his story by saying “The one was a large comet every evening for a week…Another was, fflights of pigeons in breadth nigh a quarter of the mid hemisphere…this sight put the old planters under the more portentous apprehensions, because the like was seen (as they said) in the year 1640 when th' Indians committed the last massacre… but not after, until that present year 1675. The third strange appearance was swarms of fflyes about an inch long… and in a month left us.” He then connects these superstitions of his to the main event that started the war; the Indian massacre.
“My dwelling was in Northumberland, the lowest county on Potomack river, Stafford being the upmost, where having also a plantation, servants, cattle &c, my overseer there had agreed with one Robt. Hen to come thither, and be my herdsman, who then lived ten miles above it; but on a Sabbath day morning in the sumer anno 1675. people in their way to church, saw this Hen lying thwart his threshold, and an Indian without the door, both chopt on their heads, arms and other parts, as if done with Indian hatchetts, th' Indian was dead, but Hen when ask'd who did that? answered Doegs Doegs, and soon died, then a boy came out from under a bed, where he had hid himself, and told them, Indians had come at break of day and done those murders.” Raids were constantly happening to southern farmers close to the border of Indian lands. Encuclopediavirginia.org shows that these raids created many farmers such as Thomas Matthew to retaliate. “Mathew and his neighbors killed several Indians as they were making away with livestock.”
Defying the governor of Virginia, Nathaniel Bacon and many volunteers waged “war” on Virginia’s closest Indian Allies; the Susquehannocks. Led by Nathaniel Bacon himself in 1676, an armed force of very distraught amount of farmers, indentured servants, and other volunteers, this ragtag group of people fought against Indians on Virginia’s western frontier.
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