CHAPTER 3: PERSONS OF MEAN AND VILE CONDITION
Bacon's Rebellion
- In 1676, seventy years after Virginia was founded & 100 years before it supplies leadership for the American Revolution the colony faced a rebellion of white frontiersmen joined by slaves and servants, so threatening the governor fled the burning capital of Jamestown and England sent 1000 soldiers, hoping to maintain order among forty thousand colonists.
- Nathaniel Bacon: atheist, melancholy, laws + taxes = oppression.
- The Royal Commission report said of him:
"He seduced the Vulgar and most ignorant people to believe (two thirds of each county being of that Sort) Soc that their whole hearts and hopes were set now upon Bacon. Next he charges the Governour as negligent and wicked, treacherous and incapable, the Lawes and Taxes as unjust and oppressive and cryes up absolute necessity of redress."
- Whites who had been ignored when huge land grants around Jamestown were given away had gone west to find land, and there they encountered Indians.
- They became resentful towards colony's gov in Jamestown for pushing them into Indian territory and then seeming indecisive in fighting Indians.
.'. Bacon's Rebellion = anti-Indian AND anti-aristocrat
- Governor = William Berkeley
- Gov = desperate to suppress rebellion because
1. Divide indians
2. Show Virginians not to rebel
- In 1676 the economy was bad.
- Berkeley wrote that 6/7 of Virginia was poor.
- Bacon came from the upper class. He was enthusiastic about killing Indians. Became a symbol of defiane. Voted in to the House of Burgesses in 1676.
* Aside: Paman Key Indians
- When Bacon insisted on armed detachments outside official control, Berkeley had him captured, whereupon 2000 Virginians marched into Jamestown in support of Bacon.
- Berkeley let him go and Bacon gathered a militia and began raiding Indians.
- Bacon got sick & died in the fall at 29.
- Rebellion shortlined afterwards.
- A ship with 30 guns disarmed the rebel forces.
- 23 rebel leaders were hanged.
- Oppression in Virginia ~ Indians plundered by White Frontiersmen who were taxed by Jamestown Elite, the entire colony was exploited by England.
- A member of the Governor's Council said that Bacon's Rebellion started over Indian Policy but got so much support because of the People's desire for leveling --> equalizing the wealth.
***
- Servants who joined the rebellion were oft part of a large underclass of whites from European cities that wanted to be rid of them.
- In England, capitalism & enclosing of land in the 1500s and 1600s filled cities with poverty. Elizabethan Reign had no sympathy for vagrants and would punish beggars.
- Poor people wanting to go to America became commodities for merchants, captains, etc.
- They signed contracts with masters in exchange for importation. Voyage to the USA -> lamentable conditions.
- Servants -> abused, raped, whipped.
* Aside: Virginia House of Burgesses , born in 1619, was the 1st representative assembly in the USA. Also the year of the 1st importation of black slaves.
- Fear of servant rebellion existed but no large-scale conspiracies succeeded. Escape was easier & more common.
- More than half of the colonists who came to NA in colonial period = servants. Mostly English in 17th century, Irish + German 18th century.
- More and more slaves replaced them but in 1755 10% of Maryland was made up of white servants.
- 8 barons owned 40% of the colony's land
- Class lines hardened throughout colonial period
- Fundamental Constitutions written in the 1660s by John Locke --> philosophical father of Founding Fathers & the American system
* Class Struggle * Colonial America --> VERY rich and very poor
- Ostentatious democracy
- No servants in jury and you needed property to vote
- Town meetings led by merchant aristocrats
- In NY, under Gov. Ben Fletcher, 3/4 of the land belonged to 30 people.
- Colonies grew fast in the 1700s (Irish, Germans, slaves)
- Black slaves --> 21% of the pop in 1770
- Still the rich take everything
- Refer to p49, para 5 for stats
- Cities built poorhouses in the 1730s
- Contending classes often obscured by history by focus on England and the revolution. America was not born free.
-1630s - 1750s, onwards..
- free white workers also faced their ordeals. Some rebelled against working conditions or gov. control of the fees they charged.
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