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Nathaniel Bacon (Virginia colonist)

Fact: Despite recent historians' views of the conflict, many in the early United States, including Thomas Jefferson, saw Bacon as a patriot and believed that Bacon's Rebellion was a prelude to the later American Revolution against the control of the Crown.

MLA Citation: McAvoy, Thomas T. “Studies in American Origins - 1.Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker: Torchbearer of the Revolution: The Story of Bacon's Rebellion and Its Leaders. Princeton University Press, 1940. $2.2$. - 2.Samuel Hugh Brockunier: The Irrepressible Democrat Roger Williams. New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1940. $4.00. - 3.Perry Miller: The New England Mind of the Seventeenth Century. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1939. $3.75. - 4.Marcus Lee Hansen: The Atlantic Migration 1607–1860, A History of the Continuing.” The Review of Politics, vol. 3, no. 2, 1941, pp. 264–268.

Quote: When discussing the nature of early America - "Perhaps, when we have sighted the limits of our riches, we can take time out and examine certain things more important than 'free land'. Our democracy has been one of those treasures. But the dignity of man is more basic. And in the study of American origins, it is well that our social and cultural historians are not neglecting the eternal and inalienable goods for the protection of which democratic government exists".

DOI: 10.1017/S0034670500001182 Phase 3

Schmidt, Ethan A. To Ruin and Extirpate All Indians in General: The Rebellion of Nathaniel Bacon. University Press of Colorado, April 2015. Project Muse, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/38487.

This chapter highlights the rising tensions between the Virginians and native Americans of that time period, addressing the “myriad [of] internal and external factors” that supported these issues. There was broad discrimination among whites, both wealthy and poor, but nothing like the poor treatment of the Indians. According to this document, the events of the rebellion towards the Indians turned this into a “widespread social rebellion”.

Schmidt, Ethan A. The Divided Dominion: Social Conflict and Indian Hatred in Early Virginia. Boulder, University Press of Colorado, 2015. Project Muse, https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1461238.

This chapter highlights “the role of class antagonism” towards the Indians and their heritage, and shines light on the events of Bacon’s rebellion. This text addresses the complex social factors that lead to the issues between the tribes and their need for land.

Phase 4

Paragraph of Text:

"Specifically, in this book I argue that while the Lawne’s Creek plot stemmed from many of the same social conflicts that later fed Bacon’s Rebellion, it lacked the ability to break the powerful bonds of dependence that bound the various groups of disgruntled Virginians to the wealthy and powerful planters who controlled the colony’s government. A call for the extermination of all Indians constitutes the critical element missing from the Lawne’s Creek rising, but that call was so powerfully present in Bacon’s Rebellion, so compelling in fact, that it helped unite enough of the disparate strands of disaffection in the colony to forge a widespread social rebellion. The differences in the two incidents demonstrate that the imbalance in political power and the burdens of regressive taxation were not enough in and of themselves to spark an uprising in Virginia. Something or someone needed to unite dissatisfied Virginians across class, geographic, political, and social boundaries. I contend that that something was a desire to violently displace Indians, and the man who exploited that hatred most effectively was Nathaniel Bacon."

Summary:

The combined distaste for the Indian population of Virginia is a very under discussed catalyst of Bacon's Rebellion, as the rebellion was equally about "violently [displacing] Indians" and "[exploiting] that hatred" as it was about British frontier policy.

Paragraph of Text:

"Yet less than twenty-five years after Butler’s report, Virginia’s leaders would experience the final defeat of the Powhatans, an extremely lucrative trade in tobacco, and the arrival of a nearly thirty-year “golden age” of relative peace and prosperity (for some) the likes of which the colony had never experienced. The years between the marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas in 1614 and the end of the Second Anglo-Powhatan War in 1632 were critical not only to the Subduing the Indians and Advancing the Interests of the Planters 64 establishment of the belief that all Virginians could utilize violence against Indians for the purpose of land acquisition but also to the creation of a society boasting a more hierarchical social order based on one’s ability to control the labor power of others, engross as much land as possible, and exploit opportunities to hold multiple offices for personal gain. Specifically, during this period a small group of elite planters came to dominate the Council of State, the burgesses, and the county benches. They used the power inherent in that control to address what they saw as a lack of authority and order in the colony. While some may have done so out of a belief that therein lay the best hope of creating a society beneficial to all Virginians, many undoubtedly did so as a means of enhancing their own wealth and power. Whatever their root motivations, they responded to challenges from below with swift action and governed the colony in ways designed to enhance planter elites’ control of the colony’s political and social life. This, in turn, caused many of those outside that elite to view their relationship in antagonistic terms and thus contributed to a growing consciousness of class based on the divergent interests of the two groups."

Summary:

Predating Bacon's Rebellion, the Anglo-Powhatan Wars instituted the distinct hierarchical separation and selfishness between the Indians and the Virginians that would eventually mold into the basis for the subduing of the Indians during Bacon's Rebellion.

4.3 - Edit attempt

Before the "Virginia Rebellion" (as it came to be called) began in earnest in 1674, some freeholders on the Virginia frontier demanded that Native Americans, including those in friendly tribes living on treaty-protected lands, should be driven out or killed. The combined distaste for the Indian population of Virginia is a very under discussed catalyst of Bacon's Rebellion, as the rebellion was equally about "violently [displacing] Indians" and "[exploiting] that hatred" as it was about British frontier policy. They also protested against corruption in the government of Governor Berkeley, which has been described as "incorrigibly corrupt, inhumanely oppressive, and inexcusably inefficient, especially in war".

Predating Bacon's Rebellion, the Anglo-Powhatan Wars instituted the distinct hierarchical separation and selfishness between the Indians and the Virginians that would eventually mold into the basis for the subduing of the Indians during Bacon's Rebellion. Following a raid by Doeg Indians in Stafford County, Virginia, in which were killed two white men associated with a trader named Mathews (whom later reports found regularly "cheated and abused" Indians), a group of Virginia militiamen raided settlements of the Susquehannock tribe, instead of the Doeg tribe, including some across the Potomac River in Maryland. Maryland Governor Calvert protested against the incursion, and the Susquehannocks retaliated. Maryland militia then joined Virginia forces, and attacked a fortified Susquehannock village. After five chiefs had accepted the Maryland leader's invitation to parley, they were slaughtered, an action which provoked later legislative investigations and reprimands. The Susquehannocks retaliated in force against plantations, killing 60 settlers in Maryland and a further 36 in their first assault on Virginia soil. Then other tribes joined in, killing settlers, burning houses and fields and slaughtering livestock as far as the James and York rivers.