Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to Western SITH episode four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty four, Bacon's Rebellion. In the early decades of English colonization,
Speaker 1: the Colony of Virginia faced a dire and persistent problem labor. Tobacco,
Speaker 1: introduced by John Rolf in sixteen twelve, had rapidly become
Speaker 1: the colony's economic lifeline, but cultivating it was labor intensive,
Speaker 1: and the population simply two spars. The Virginia Company, a
Speaker 1: joint stock venture responsible for establishing the colony, needed a
Speaker 1: way to entice more settlers, more importantly, more laborers across
Speaker 1: the Atlantic. In response, they devised the head right System,
Speaker 1: a land grant program that became the engine of expansion
Speaker 1: in early Virginia. First formalized in sixteen eighteen, the system
Speaker 1: promised fifty acres of land to any settler who paid
Speaker 1: their own passage to Virginia. But the real innovation, and
Speaker 1: the one that would shape the colony's labor economy for decades,
Speaker 1: was the provision that fifty acres would also be granted
Speaker 1: per head for each additional person whose passage. A settler
Speaker 1: financed these heads. This is where the head right system
Speaker 1: comes from. Could be family members servants or sometimes even
Speaker 1: enslaved persons. In effect, the system turned immigration into the
Speaker 1: new source of wealth. A planter, for example, could pay
Speaker 1: to transport five hundred indentured servants, received two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty acres, and then used the labor of those same
Speaker 1: servants to cultivate it. Once the servants fulfilled their contracts,
Speaker 1: usually lasting four to seven years. This was indentured servitude
Speaker 1: by the way, they were promised quote unquote freedom dues
Speaker 1: a small parcel of land, tools, or provisions to begin
Speaker 1: their life as an independent farmer. But in practice, many
Speaker 1: former servants found themselves landless, pushed to the colony's frontiers,
Speaker 1: or compelled to enter service once again. Meanwhile, the landowners
Speaker 1: accumulated vast estates, particularly along Virginia's rivers, where easy transportation
Speaker 1: allowed tobacco to be shipped back to England. This policy
Speaker 1: transformed Virginia into a society shaped stratified by land and labor.
Speaker 1: It encouraged the growth of plantations and entrenched the power
Speaker 1: of a rising class of wealthy planters who would come
Speaker 1: to dominate the colony's politics, economy, and even its church.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it created the legal and logistical
Speaker 1: groundwork for the expansion of unfree labor, first as we
Speaker 1: will see through indenture, and then as a result of
Speaker 1: Bacon's rebellion through African slavery, but that will be right
Speaker 1: after this. In the steamy tide water summer of sixteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, the Virginia colony erupted finally in fire and fury.
Speaker 1: The flames were literal, actually Jamestown itself would burn down,
Speaker 1: but they were also symbolic, liking at the edges and
Speaker 1: of an emerging American society. This was Bacon's rebellion, a
Speaker 1: brief and actually incredibly brief, but explosive insurrection nonetheless that
Speaker 1: would expose the foundations, the cracks thereof, of colonial rule,
Speaker 1: and also, even though it was a short rebellion, have
Speaker 1: an incredibly important lasting impact for the development of American
Speaker 1: colonial life and particularly of what we come to know
Speaker 1: as American shadow slavery. Now, to understand this rebellion, we
Speaker 1: have to, as I started to in the introduction, go
Speaker 1: back and understand the social order of seventeenth century Virginia.
Speaker 1: By the sixteenth centuries, now Virginia was split down the middle,
Speaker 1: not just geographically but socially, in the east, along the
Speaker 1: rivers and coastlines, a small class of wealthy planters dominated
Speaker 1: the political and economic life of the colony. Chief among
Speaker 1: them was Sir William Berkeley, belong serving royal governor who
Speaker 1: had governed mostly uninterrupted since sixteen forty one. He was
Speaker 1: a veteran administrator, He was a loyalist during the English
Speaker 1: Civil Wars that were actually about to get to and
Speaker 1: an aristocrat through and through. Berkeley governed through patronage and control.
Speaker 1: He kept the House of Burgesses, Virginia's elected legislature that
Speaker 1: I mentioned at the end of the Jamestown episodes, packed
Speaker 1: with loyal allies, and he tightly restricted voting rights and
Speaker 1: fur trade licenses to those within his inner circle. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: on the colony's western frontier, a very different type of
Speaker 1: Virginia was emerging. This was a volatile world of small farmers,
Speaker 1: landless freeman and former indentured servants. These frontier settlers lived
Speaker 1: in constant fear of native attacks as they pushed into
Speaker 1: the territory of the diegu and the Susquehannic, and of
Speaker 1: course other indigenous groups. When raids broke out in sixteen
Speaker 1: seventy five after a dispute over livestock and debts. The
Speaker 1: frontier population begged Berkeley for help, but he refused to
Speaker 1: authorize a full scale war, fearing the disruption of the
Speaker 1: fur trade and the fragile peace with other native tribes.
Speaker 1: The frontier saw cowardice, Berkeley saw prudence. A settler by
Speaker 1: the name of Edmund Cheeseman wrote, bitterly quote, the country
Speaker 1: groans under the burthen of their grievances, and I know
Speaker 1: not what remedy remains. That the commons must rise, and
Speaker 1: so they did. But of course, as I talked about
Speaker 1: in the introduction, this rebellion has a lot more to
Speaker 1: do with land and social order than it does with
Speaker 1: disputes of Native Americans. That's one aspect of it. But
Speaker 1: the other, probably equally if not more important aspect, was
Speaker 1: the failed promise of indentured servitude. Many were willing to
Speaker 1: sail across the Atlantic, risking their lives on that voyage,
Speaker 1: and then toil for four to seven years, risking their
Speaker 1: lives with mosquitoes and any other manner of way that
Speaker 1: death may creep up upon them, because of the promise
Speaker 1: that afterwards, through the head right system, they would receive
Speaker 1: a plot of land and be able to strike out
Speaker 1: on their own. However, as a component of the head
Speaker 1: right system, the Virginia Company and its various successors divided
Speaker 1: up the land amongst those who paid for the passage,
Speaker 1: and so all the good land, the land around the Chesapeake,
Speaker 1: the land around what we call the Tidewater region, the
Speaker 1: land around the James Rivers, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: In other words, all the good land for growing tobacco,
Speaker 1: all that went to the wealthy planters, All that went
Speaker 1: to the men who were paying the passage for the
Speaker 1: people to come across. The land that was given formerly
Speaker 1: indentured servants and some independent persons of less means who
Speaker 1: made their way across the Atlantic was further to the
Speaker 1: west and decidedly not as productive. These individuals, after they
Speaker 1: had spent the better part of their lives at this
Speaker 1: point working and risking all that they had, found themselves
Speaker 1: bitterly disappointed when they finally received their reward. And this,
Speaker 1: perhaps even more than fear of Native Americans, is what
Speaker 1: drove those American colonists to finally rise up in a
Speaker 1: great rebellion. Now to this appropriately primed powder keg stepped
Speaker 1: a charismatic spark. Nathaniel Bacon, a young, well connected Englishman
Speaker 1: who had only recently arrived in the colony. Though he
Speaker 1: was Berkeley's cousin by marriage and a member of the
Speaker 1: governor's council, Bacon was ambitious and hot tempered. He quickly
Speaker 1: aligned himself with the disgruntled settlers and demanded action against
Speaker 1: the native tribes. Denied a commission to lead an expedition,
Speaker 1: Bacon took matters into his own hands. In the spring
Speaker 1: of sixteen seventy six, he gathered a militia of angry
Speaker 1: farmers and launched unauthorized attacks against native villages, including friendly
Speaker 1: groups by the Panumki. Berkeley declared him a traitor. Bacon,
Speaker 1: in turn declared war not just against the indigenous nations
Speaker 1: this time, but against the colonial government itself. In July
Speaker 1: sixteen seventy six, after skirmish's and political theater, Bacon issued
Speaker 1: one of the most remarkable documents of the early colonial era,
Speaker 1: the Declaration of the People. A fiery manifesto, it accused
Speaker 1: Berkeley of corruption, favoritism, and outright tyranny. Quote, we do
Speaker 1: declare and can prove that Sir William Berkeley hath protected, favored,
Speaker 1: and emboldened the Indians against his Majesty's loyal subjects that
Speaker 1: he hath abused and rendered contemptible the magistrates of justice
Speaker 1: by advancing to places of judicial scandalous and ignorant favorites
Speaker 1: that he hath raised and framed an Indian war purposely
Speaker 1: to the advancement of his private interest end quote. This
Speaker 1: was not just frontier revenge. It was now revolutionary rhetoric,
Speaker 1: framing the rebellion in the language of popular sovereignty. Bacon's forces,
Speaker 1: now estimated between three and five hundred men, marched on
Speaker 1: Jamestown twice in the summer of sixteen seventy six. The
Speaker 1: first time in June, they surrounded the capitol and forced
Speaker 1: Berkeley to flee. Bacon returned briefly to the wilderness, but
Speaker 1: came back in September when Berkeley attempted a to offensive.
Speaker 1: The second confrontation would become legendary. On September nineteenth, sixteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, Bacon's men set fire to Jamestown, reducing the
Speaker 1: colonial capital to ashes. One eyewitness wrote, quote, we saw
Speaker 1: the town in flame, and smelt the smoke and heard
Speaker 1: the crackling of the burning houses all night, long end quote.
Speaker 1: It was the first time in American history that settlers
Speaker 1: had burned their own capital in open revolt. For weeks,
Speaker 1: Bacon ruled much of Virginia like a warlord. He seized
Speaker 1: plantations from loyalists, redistributed supplies, and hunted down suspected royalists.
Speaker 1: But his army, though passionate, was unstable. Some were former
Speaker 1: indentured servants, others enslaved Africans, and still others free men
Speaker 1: with little to lose. Unity when it existed at all,
Speaker 1: was fleeting. In October, the wheel of fate turned again.
Speaker 1: Nathaniel Bacon died suddenly of dysentery in a makeshift camp
Speaker 1: near present day Gloucester. Without his fiery leadership, the rebellion
Speaker 1: crumbled almost overnight. Berkeley regained control, and loyalist forces quickly
Speaker 1: rounded up the rebels. The governor unleashed a wave of retribution.
Speaker 1: Twenty three men were hanged, despite pleas from England to
Speaker 1: show restraint. One of the condemned was named Thomas Hansford,
Speaker 1: who told the court quote, I am a soldier and
Speaker 1: a gentleman, and dare die Berkeley. Later the following year,
Speaker 1: when summoned before Parliament was forced to defend his brutal conduct.
Speaker 1: King Charles the Second informed him of the bloodshed, reportedly remarked,
Speaker 1: quote that old fool has hanged more men in that
Speaker 1: naked country than I did for the murder of my
Speaker 1: father end quote. Berkeley was recalled to England, where he
Speaker 1: died in disgrace in sixteen seventy seven. Bacon's rebellion had failed,
Speaker 1: but its consequences were what mattered. Its consequences would shape
Speaker 1: the future of colonial America and then into the Republic
Speaker 1: and beyond. Terrified by the ease with which poor whites
Speaker 1: and enslaved Africans had joined forces, Virginia's elites quickly moved
Speaker 1: to shore up their authority. They passed new racial codes
Speaker 1: that deepened the divide between black and white laborers, ensuring
Speaker 1: that poor whites would align with their social superiors, not
Speaker 1: their enslaved neighbors. The rebellion also accelerated the use of
Speaker 1: slavery within the United States, at least the colonies. For
Speaker 1: the time, it seemed increasingly that indentured servants weren't worth
Speaker 1: the risk, so instead, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Speaker 1: Georgia began turning to enslaved Africans to provide the labor
Speaker 1: that they so desperately needed, first for tobacco and rice,
Speaker 1: and then eventually for king cotton. Were it not for
Speaker 1: Bacon's rebellion, it's possible that the colonies would not have
Speaker 1: turned so decisively towards enslaved African labor, and the history
Speaker 1: of the United States could have been markedly different. Within decades,
Speaker 1: slavery had also become hereditary, life long, and exclusively African.
Speaker 1: One of the laws that was passed in the wake
Speaker 1: of Bacon's rebellion required that any child born of an
Speaker 1: enslaved woman was also enslaved, no matter who the father was.
Speaker 1: By dividing along racial lines, the ruling class now ensured
Speaker 1: that another multi racial class based uprising like Bacon's would
Speaker 1: be far less likely. Bacon's rebellion was a revolt, a
Speaker 1: civil war, and a cautionary tale all at once. It
Speaker 1: was not a democratic revolution nor a cry for liberty
Speaker 1: in the way we think of it today. But it
Speaker 1: was the first time that English settlers in America turned
Speaker 1: their weapons against their own government, demanding accountability, equity, and vengeance.
Speaker 1: The ashes of Jamestown still smoldered as Virginia began rebuilding.
Speaker 1: But beneath those ashes, a deeper fire had already been lit.
Speaker 1: The enduring struggle over who would wield power in the
Speaker 1: New World was at hand, and what cost the colonists
Speaker 1: did not know now, Bacon's uprising is one of the
Speaker 1: most notable events of early colonial history. Next week, I
Speaker 1: turned to the other one, which is in itself also
Speaker 1: a cautionary tale, because to the north, the colonists weren't
Speaker 1: looking for rebellion, and weren't looking for enslaved Africans or
Speaker 1: indentured white servants. Up in Salem, they were looking for witches.