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BACON'S REBELLION, 1676
by
THOMAS J. WERTENBAKER
Edwards Professor of American History, Emeritus
Princeton University
Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation
Williamsburg, Virginia
1957
Copyright©, 1957 by
Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration
Corporation, Williamsburg, Virginia
Second Printing, 1959
Third Printing, 1964
Jamestown 350th Anniversary
Historical Booklet, Number 8
[Illustration: From Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson, Torchbearer
of the Revolution
Map of Virginia at the time of Bacon's Rebellion]
BACON'S REBELLION, 1676
The months just preceding the year 1676 were marked in Virginia by
ominous signs of disaster. A great comet streamed through the sky
"like a horsetail," and it was well known that that meant pestilence
or war. Then came tens of thousands of pigeons, stretching across the
sky as far as the eye could see. They were followed by vast swarms of
what seem to have been cicadas, which rose out of the ground, ate the
fresh leaves of the trees, and then disappeared. So those who believed
in omens were not surprised when the year was marked by the greatest
catastrophe in the history of the colony.
But to understand what happened it is necessary to go back thirty-five
years to the appointment by Charles I of Sir William Berkeley as
Governor of Virginia. No doubt the King considered this an especial
act of grace to the colony, for Berkeley was a member of the Privy
Chamber, and as such lived in the royal palace. It was this, perhaps,
which fired him with an intense loyalty for the House of Stuart which
endured to the day of his death. To dispute the omnipotence of the
king was in his eyes the darkest of crimes. A Master of Arts at
Oxford, a writer of some merit, polished in manner, he seemed out of
place in the forests of Virginia. Perhaps it was his passion to rule
which brought him to the colony, perhaps it was cupidity, for he
accumulated there a fortune of considerable size.
He had been in Virginia but a few months when word reached him of the
outbreak of the Civil War in England. He must have been horrified that
anyone should dare to take up arms against the sacred person of the
King, and he sought permission to return to England to defend him. So,
in the summer of 1644, when Charles was bearing down on the
Parliamentary forces under Essex in Cornwall, Berkeley was with him.
And he looked on with deep satisfaction as Sir Richard Grenville
ransacked Lord Roberts' house at Lanhydrock, eight miles north of
Fowey, and made off with silver plate worth £2000.
It was probably soon after this that word came of the terrible Indian
massacre of April 18, 1644, for Berkeley was back in Virginia on June
7, 1645. Placing himself at the head of the forces which had been
bringing fire and destruction to the Indian villages, he soon forced
the savages to seek refuge in the woods and swamps. After he had
captured their aged chief Opechancanough, they sued for peace.
Upon receiving news of the execution of Charles I, Sir William
proclaimed Charles II King. And when, in 1652, a Parliamentary fleet
sailed up the James to reduce the colony, he summoned the militia and
prepared for a stubborn resistance. It was only when his Council
pointed out the folly of defying the might of Britain that he
reluctantly agreed to surrender. But his soul was filled with
bitterness. So, with the restoration of Charles II to the throne, when
once more he was governor of Virginia, he was determined to permit no
more of representative government than his commission and instructions
made necessary.
This he did by corrupting the Burgesses and continuing them by
prorogations for many years. He took on himself "the sole nominating"
of all civil and military officers, picking out such persons as he
thought would further his designs. Collectors', sheriffs', justices'
places were handed out to the Burgesses with a lavish hand. The list
of Burgesses in the so-called Long Assembly sounds like a military
roll call, for of the thirty members in 1666, six were colonels of
militia, two lieutenant-colonels, one a major, and fourteen captains.
Philip Alexander Bruce states that "a large proportion of the justices
were also members of the House of Burgesses." In this way he "gained
upon and obliged" the "men of parts and estates" in the Burgesses, and
made them subservient to his will. "He has so fortified his power over
us as of himself without respect to our laws to do what so ever he
pleased," it was said.
Sir William further bound his favorites to him by granting them great
tracts of the best land. "Some take up 2,000 acres, some 3,000, and
others 10,000, and many more have taken up 30,000." They cultivated
only a fraction or perhaps not any of these great tracts, merely
putting up "a hog house to save the lapse." So when newcomers looked
around for land, they were faced with the alternative of becoming
tenants or of taking up "remote barren lands" on the frontiers.
The poor planters complained bitterly of the great sums voted by the
Assembly for their own salaries, those of certain officers, and for
various other expenses. In 1675 the Speaker of the House received
15,000 pounds of tobacco, the clerk 15,000. The total cost of this
session was 539,390 pounds of tobacco, that of the session of
February, 1676, 616,652 pounds. When the salary of collectors was
added the total was 1,601,046 pounds, or perhaps an average of 150
pounds for every family.
The people were convinced that the heavy taxes served no other purpose
than to enrich Berkeley's favorites. "Consider their sudden
advancement," said Bacon. "See what sponges have sucked up the public
wealth, and whether it hath not been privately contrived away by
unworthy favorites, by vile juggling parasites, whose tottering
fortunes have been repaired and supported." And it was obvious that
Berkeley himself had taken care to get the largest share of the
plunder. At the outbreak of Bacon's Rebellion he owned the plantation
at Green Spring, five houses in Jamestown, four hundred cattle,
several hundred sheep, sixty horses, "near £1,000 worth of wheat,
barley, oates, and corn," and some valuable plate.
Part of this fortune came to him through a monopoly of the beaver
trade with the Indians. He seems to have cashed in on this by
licensing the traders on the frontier and taking a large part of
their profits. Though he had trouble in collecting his dues, he
received each year several hundred pounds of beaver fur. His obedient
Assembly added to his wealth by voting him money from time to time.
This they excused to the indigent tax payers as due him for what he
had laid out in "beneficial designs." But the poor planter, in his
rags, leaning on his hoe in his little tobacco patch, secretly cursed
as Lady Berkeley drove past in her coach.
The people complained bitterly that they had been cheated of the right
to govern themselves. That no power whatsoever should tax them without
their own consent was the basic principle of English liberty. Yet it
was but a mockery to contend that men who had sold themselves to the
governor and whom they were given no opportunity to oust from office,
were their true representatives in voting away their money.
In local government Sir William was supreme. He it was who appointed
the sheriffs and the justices of the peace who, as members of the
county courts, had judicial, legislative, and executive powers. The
county tax was usually larger than that laid by the Assembly, for it
had to cover the salaries of the Burgesses, the cost of building
courthouses, prisons, and bridges, and of killing wolves, etc. When
the justices in levying taxes retired to a private room and locked the
door, there was grave suspicion of fraud. Is it not obvious, men said,
that they do not tell us what the taxes are for, because part of the
money they put in their own pockets?
Much of the money wrung from the taxpayers was squandered upon foolish
projects. In 1662, at the advice of the King, the Assembly voted to
build thirty-two brick houses at Jamestown, and levied thirty pounds
of tobacco per poll to pay for them. Since the mere erection of houses
when there was no need for them could not make a town, this experiment
was an utter failure. The houses were never "habitable, but fell down
before the finishing of them."
Equally futile was the attempt to turn the people from raising tobacco
to the production of manufactured goods. After the expenditure of
large sums on industrial plants, "for want of care the said houses
were never finished ... and the ... manufactury wholly in a short time
neglected and no good effected." Bacon's rebellious men denounced
Berkeley's parasites "for having upon specious pretences of public
works raised great unjust taxes upon the commonalty for the
advancement of private favorites and other sinister ends, but no
visible effects in any measure adequate."
Berkeley denied the charges of favoritism and misgovernment. He called
on God to witness that he knew of nothing in which he had not
distributed equal justice to all men. His friends rallied to his
support. "The whole are sensible of his great integrity, constant
care, and diligence," the Council wrote to the Lords of Trade. Bacon
had loaded him with all the base calumnies and scandals, and with as
much malice and ingratitude as all the black devils in hell could
tempt him to. It was hard indeed that so good a governor should have
his honor and reputation "ravished away" in his old age.
Though we may discount the testimony of those who had been partners
with Berkeley in his misgovernment, it is clear that he was in no way
responsible for the chief cause of poverty in the colony--the
Navigation Acts. Prior to 1660 the Virginians carried on an extensive
trade with Holland, selling their tobacco to Dutch merchants and
taking Dutch manufactured goods in exchange. When the tobacco reached
Holland it was "manufactured" and then distributed to other countries.
This trade brought prosperity to the colony, for the Dutch paid well
for the tobacco and sold their goods cheaply. But the Navigation Acts
required that tobacco exported from the colonies must be shipped to
England or to her dominions, and that manufactured goods imported must
come from England.
The result was disastrous. England was not able by herself to consume
the entire crop. Nor could the merchants re-export it to the continent
because they did not have access to the markets. So the tobacco piled
up in the English warehouses, while the price sank lower and lower.
The Dutch had given three pence a pound for tobacco, but now the crop
was sold at half a penny a pound. Formerly the poor planter who raised
a thousand pounds of tobacco each year could count on an income of
£12, which was ample for his needs. After the passage of the
Navigation Acts he was fortunate if he made forty-five shillings. This
was so little that Secretary Ludwell attributed it to nothing but the
mercy of God that he had "not fallen into mutiny and confusion." In
1662 Berkeley and others complained that the price of tobacco was so
low that it would not bear the charge of freight and customs, give
encouragement to the merchants, and subsistence to the planters.
As though this were not enough, a series of disasters struck the
colony bringing ruin and suffering in their wake. In 1667, when
England and Holland were at war, a fleet of five Dutch warships
entered Chesapeake Bay and captured the _Elizabeth_, an English
frigate of forty-six guns. They then turned on the tobacco fleet and
captured twenty vessels. Six years later nine Dutch warships came in
and engaged the English in a desperate battle off Lynnhaven Bay while
the tobacco ships scurried for shallow water. Unfortunately nine or
ten ran aground and were taken.
Even nature seemed bent on completing the ruin of the planters. "This
poor country ... is now reduced to a very miserable condition by a
continual course of misfortune," wrote Thomas Ludwell in 1667. "In
April ... we had a most prodigious storm of hail, many of them as big
as turkey eggs, which destroyed most of our young mast and cattle. On
the fifth of June following came the Dutch upon us.... They were not
gone before it fell to raining and continued for forty days
together.... But on the 27th of August followed the most dreadful
hurricane that ever the colony groaned under.... The nearest
computation is at least 10,000 houses blown down, all the Indian grain
laid flat upon the ground, all the tobacco in the fields torn to
pieces."
It was soon after the Restoration that the people of Virginia learned
that "all the lands and water lying between Potomac and Rappahannock,
together with all the royalties belonging thereto," had been granted
to Lord Hopton and several other noblemen. In alarm they appealed "for
relief" to the King, and were greatly relieved when the grant was
recalled. And though another patent was issued, it contained
reservations to protect "the rights, privileges, and properties of the
inhabitants." But their joy was tempered by a provision giving the
patentees the quit rents with eleven years arrears. This would be more
than the entire value of many men's estates, it was complained.
So they employed agents to plead their cause in London. In the
meanwhile the patent had been assigned to the Earl of St. Albans, Lord
John Berkeley, Sir William Moreton, and John Trethney. When the agents
proposed that they surrender their rights in return for a large sum of
money to be raised by taxing the people of the colony, most of them
agreed. But at this point the King issued a patent to the Earl of
Arlington and Lord Culpeper, "which not only included the lands
formerly granted ... but all the rest of the colony." The Virginians
were in despair. The two lords were to have many powers rightly
belonging to the government. They were to pocket all escheats, quit
rents, and duties belonging to the Crown; they had the power to create
new counties and parishes, to issue patents for land; they could
appoint sheriffs, surveyors, and other officers, and induct ministers.
The Assembly complained that this nullified all previous charters and
promises and made the people subjects to their fellow subjects.
So negotiations had to begin again. In the end Arlington and Culpeper
agreed to give up their patent in return for a new one for the
Northern Neck assuring them the quit rents and escheated property.
Having gained this concession the agents then pleaded for a charter
for the colony guaranteeing the liberties of the colonists. In it
there were to be promises that they should continue to have their
immediate dependence on the Crown, and that no tax should be laid upon
them but by the consent of the Assembly. The King in Council assented
to the charter, and twice it reached the Great Seal. But there it was
held up. In the meanwhile news came of Bacon's Rebellion, and the King
reversed his order. Later he did grant letters patent, but they
contained little more than the promise that the colony should be
directly dependent on the Crown.
This whole affair caused universal resentment in the colony, and the
expense of the negotiations in England made the people "desperately
uneasy." Berkeley reported that "the two great taxes of sixty pounds
per poll to buy in the Northern patent made those that thought they
were not concerned in it ripe for mutiny." The agents, too, warned
that the Arlington and Culpeper grant might cause the common people to
rise in arms and perhaps bring about "the utter dispersion" of the
planters.
With the staple crop of the colony a drug on the market because of the
Navigation Acts, with tax piled on tax to buy back the liberties of
the people from favorites of the King, with self-government made a
mockery by the corrupting of the Burgesses, with the small farmers in
rags, the people were ready to rise in arms at the least excuse.
Before young Nathaniel Bacon set foot on Virginia soil Berkeley and
his henchmen were trembling in their boots. The governor thought that
if an opportunity offered itself the planters might go over to the
Dutch "in hopes of bettering their condition by sharing the plunder of
the country with them."
Into this mass of dynamite an Indian war threw a torch. The resulting
explosion was Bacon's Rebellion.
In 1674 two mutinies had failed, it was said because the people,
after assembling in arms, could not find a leader. Two years later,
when again angry men gathered, they found their leader in Bacon. This
young man was the son of Thomas Bacon, a wealthy English squire. At an
early age he entered St. Catherine's Hall, Cambridge, as a
fellow-commoner. There he seems to have idled away his time, and when
he "broke into some extravagances" his father withdrew him. This
apparent misfortune was turned to good effect when his father secured
for him as tutor the great naturalist, John Ray. Ray found Nathaniel a
lad of "very good parts and a quick wit," but "impatient of labor."
When he was sixteen he accompanied Ray on a tour of Europe. On his
return he re-entered Cambridge and later studied at Gray's Inn.
In 1670 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward Duke. Her father
had positively forbidden the match, and when she disobeyed him cut her
off without one groat. But Thomas Bacon, and after Sir Edward's death,
her brother John, made ample provision for the young couple. All would
have been well had not Nathaniel been tricked by two sharpers in a
deal with a guileless youth named Jason, and left with a long and
tedious lawsuit.
It was at this juncture that he decided to seek his fortune in
Virginia. There he might hope for quick advancement, because his
cousin, also named Nathaniel Bacon, had attained a position of
influence, and because he was related to Lady Berkeley, wife of the
governor. Upon the advice of his grandmother, Lady Brooke, he left his
wife behind until he had prepared a place for her "answerable to her
quality." Upon his arrival in Virginia he was welcomed by Sir William,
and it was at his advice "or at least friendly approbation" that he
purchased a plantation at Curles Neck, on the James, forty miles above
Jamestown, and a tract of land at the site of Richmond, on what was
then the frontier. "When first I designed Virginia my chiefest aims
were a further inquiry into those western parts in order to which I
chose to seat myself so remote," he said, "I having always been
delighted in solitude."
Bacon had been in Virginia but a few months when the governor
appointed him to the Council of State. This seemed a great honor
indeed for a young man of twenty-eight. But Berkeley explained:
"Gentlemen of your quality come very rarely into this country, and
therefore when they do come are used by me with all respect." Bacon
was greatly surprised. "As to anything of public employment in the
country, my tender age and manner of living, not free from follies and
youthful excesses, forbad me to hope or expect any such thing.... This
sudden change were enough to stagger a philosopher of more settled
temper than I am."
But it was not possible for the dictatorial governor and the hotheaded
youth to get along together. Berkeley was accustomed to having
obedience in return for favors. Bacon was not the man to knuckle
under. It was prophetic of what was to follow that the first
difference grew out of relations with the allied Indians. When poor
immigrants took up holdings on the frontier rather than become tenants
to wealthy men in the east, they encroached on the reservations of
those Indian tribes which were under the protection of the government.
They even laid out farms within the very limits of their villages.
When the Indians, driven by hunger, killed any of their cattle or
hogs, the frontiersmen "beat and abused them."
Apparently it was a dispute with the Indians which caused the first
temporary breach between Bacon and Berkeley. We do not know just what
happened, but Bacon in a letter to the Governor speaks of his
"unbecoming deportment in your Honor's presence," and said he was
sorry for it. Sir William's reply makes it probable that Bacon had
suffered some losses from neighboring Indians, and had retaliated.
"This sudden business of the Indians," Berkeley said, had raised in
him "high distemper." And he asked Bacon to consider that relations
between the whites and the Indians was his responsibility, so that it
was important that he be advised of all dealings with them. Should
there be serious trouble he would be criticised both in England and
Virginia.
Bacon must have resented Berkeley's monopoly of the fur trade. He
tells us that a desire to have a share in this lucrative business had
been one of his motives for settling on the frontier. But he made a
virtue of necessity and, in partnership with his neighbor, William
Byrd I, applied to the governor for a license. They would pay him 800
pounds of beaver fur for the first year and 600 pounds a year
thereafter. This looked good to Sir William. "I am in no such
plentiful condition that I should refuse a good offer," he replied,
"and therefore am likely to accept your and my cousin Byrd's offer."
With the opening months of 1676 there were ominous rumblings of
revolt. From New England came word that the English there were engaged
in a deadly war with the Indians, which Berkeley thought was not
merely a local affair, "but a general combination of all from New
England thither." The so-called allied tribes on the Virginia
frontiers were sullen and resentful. "They also would be rid of us if
they could," said Berkeley. Their efforts to wipe out the English in
previous wars had failed only because their bows and arrows were no
match for the muskets of the English. Now that they had firearms might
not their efforts be more successful?
It was the Marylanders who had given firearms to the Susquehannocks, a
fierce tribe living on their northern border. This they did so that
they could protect them from the Senecas, one of the tribes of the
Iroquois confederation. But in 1674, when the Marylanders made a
separate treaty with the Senecas, the latter fell on the
Susquehannocks, defeated them in battle, and swept them out of their
fortified villages. Fleeing through Maryland the remnant of the tribe
established themselves on the north bank of the Potomac directly
across from the site of Mount Vernon.
Here they were safe from their enemies, but not from hunger. They
might catch fish from the river, but they lacked space for corn
fields, and the plantations of the English spread out over what had
once been hunting grounds. It was inevitable that they would seek food
where they could find it, and having robbed nearby farms they could
not resist the temptation to commit a few murders. Associated with
them were the remnants of the Doegs who had been driven out of
Virginia a few years before because of the "execrable murders" they
had committed.
In the summer of 1675 a party of Indians paddled across the Potomac,
and after killing several men, made good their escape back to
Maryland. Shortly afterwards people returning from church found a man
covered with ghastly wounds lying across his threshold, who managed to
gasp out, "Doegs, Doegs." Immediately the alarm was sounded, and a
party of thirty or more men assembled on the south bank of the river
opposite the Indian reservation under the command of Colonel George
Mason and Captain George Brent.
At dawn they crossed over to the Maryland side. Here they divided
their forces, Mason leading part in one direction through the woods
and Brent the other in another. Brent came upon a cabin full of Doegs.
Their chief denied knowledge of the murders, but when he started to
run Brent shot him. At this the Indians in the cabin made a dash for
safety in the face of a volley which brought down ten of them.
In the meanwhile Mason, too, had come upon a cabin full of Indians,
and had killed fourteen of them. But when he found out that they were
not Doegs but Susquehannocks, he shouted: "For the Lord's sake shoot
no more, these are our friends the Susquehannocks." But they now were
their friends no longer. They began a series of bloody raids in
Stafford County on the Virginia side of the river and Charles
County in Maryland. Governor Calvert was quite right in complaining to
Berkeley of the invasion of his province by an armed force to turn
friendly Indians into mortal enemies.
[Illustration: Courtesy Cook Collection, Valentine Museum. From
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Sept. 6, 1866
Bacon's Castle, Surry County, Virginia]
[Illustration:
STRANGE NEWS
FROM
VIRGINIA;
Being a full and true
ACCOUNT
OF THE
LIFE and DEATH
OF
Nathanael Bacon Esquire,
Who was the only Cause and Original of all the late
Troubles in that COUNTRY.
With a full Relation of all the Accidents which have
happened in the late War there between the
Christians and Indians.
LONDON,
Printed for William Harris, next door to the Turn-Stile
without Moor-gate, 1677.
From the Church Catalogue
Photo by T.L. Williams]
But since it was now too late to restore peace, the Virginians and
Marylanders agreed upon a joint campaign to force the Susquehannocks
to leave the region and give hostages for their peaceful conduct. It
was late in September when the Maryland troops, under Major Thomas
Trueman, arrived on the north bank of the Piscataway Creek, the site
of Fort Washington. A few days later a body of Virginians under
Colonel John Washington, great-grandfather of George Washington, and
Colonel Isaac Allerton, landed from a fleet of sloops.
Across the creek, on a low bit of land, protected by patches of swamp,
the Susquehannocks had built a fort. Had it been no more than a round
stockade, after the traditional Indian style, it could have been taken
with ease. But the Marylanders themselves had taught the
Susquehannocks the art of fortification. So they had laid out a large
square, raised embankments on all four sides, with an outer defence of
palisades, and a ditch between. At each corner was a bastion, from
which an attacking force could be enfiladed. Lacking artillery to
batter down these works the three commanders decided to invest the
fort and starve out the defenders.
In the meanwhile Major Trueman invited the "great men" to a parley.
When five of them came out, he charged them with recent murders in
Maryland. The Indians placed the blame on prowling bands of Senecas.
This was an obvious lie, for Susquehannocks had been seen wearing the
clothing of some of the murdered whites, and raiding parties had come
directly to the fort, their canoes laden with beef. Seeing himself in
imminent danger, one of the Indians produced a medal bearing the image
of Lord Baltimore, and a paper which he said was a pledge from a
former governor of Maryland to protect the tribe from harm. Despite
this, and despite the fact that the "great men" had come under a truce
to discuss peace, Trueman ordered his men to knock them on the head.
When word of this outrage reached Governor Berkeley he was furious.
"If they had killed my grandfather and my grandmother, my father and
mother and all my friends, yet if they had come to treat of peace,
they ought to have gone in peace," he blurted out. Major Trueman was
impeached in Maryland, fined and sentenced to imprisonment, but this
did not undo the wrong or prevent the terrible consequences.
The Indians in the fort put up a desperate resistance. Weeks passed,
and they still held out. To every suggestion of parley they asked:
"Where are our great men?" At last, when "brought to great distress"
through hunger, they broke through the encircling English with their
wives and children, and vanished into the forest. Making their way up
the Maryland side of the river, they crossed over to Virginia, and
began a series of raids upon the frontier plantations on the upper
Rappahannock and Mattapony rivers.
Within a few days they had killed sixty persons. The fortunate ones
were those who fell at the first volley, for the miserable captives
were subjected to tortures that would have baffled the imagination of
a Dante. "Some they roast alive, offering their flesh to such English
prisoners as they keep languishing by a lingering death, pulling their
nails off, making holes and sticking feathers in their flesh. Some
they rip open and make run their guts round trees."
For the moment the old spirit which had made him so ardent a fighter
in the English Civil War and in the battles against Opechancanough
flared anew in Governor Berkeley. Calling together a force of horse
and foot, he placed them under the command of Sir Henry Chicheley with
orders to pursue the murderers. But when all was ready and Chicheley
was expecting the order to march Berkeley changed his mind, withdrew
his commission and disbanded his forces.
This sudden change has long puzzled historians. Berkeley himself had
taken the lead in carrying the war to the enemy following the massacre
of 1644; why did he hang back now? It may have been the offer of peace
from the new chief of the Susquehannocks, which Sir William was
willing to accept but which the Indians themselves ignored. It may
have been the fear that Chicheley's men might not discriminate between
friend and foe and by attacking some of the allied Indians involve
them in the war. He stated later that he would have preserved those
Indians so that they could be his "spies and intelligence to find out
the more bloody enemies." Certainly in this he was foreshadowing the
policy followed by his successors for more than a century. But it did
not justify leaving the frontier open to attack, while the murders and
torturing continued.
It is not necessary to accept the accusation of Bacon and his
followers that Berkeley adopted this policy so as not to interfere
with the beaver trade. It might have been effective had not the
Pamunkeys, the Appomatox, and other nearby tribes been dissatisfied
and resentful. As it was, the governor was soon obliged to abandon it.
"As soon as I had the least intelligence that they were our
treacherous enemies I have given out commissions to destroy them all,"
he said. To Colonel Goodrich, when he was about to lead an expedition
up the Rappahannock, he wrote: "I believe all the Indians, our
neighbors, are engaged with the Susquehannocks, therefore I desire you
to spare none ... for they are all our enemies."
Berkeley blamed Bacon and his men for the defection of the allied
Indians. It was they, he said, who had driven them out of their towns
and forced them "to live remote in the woods." It was only then, when
they became desperate through hunger, that they joined in the raids on
the English. One can never be certain which side started hostilities.
Probably both were to blame. But Berkeley did not stop to consider
that the fault was basically his own. Had he not granted all the best
lands in the east to his favorites, poor planters would not have had
to encroach on the Indian reservations, in which case the Indians
might have remained peaceful, and even fought side by side with the
English against the Susquehannocks.
After recalling the expedition under Chicheley, Berkeley remained
inactive until, in February, he received word that the Indians had
made new raids. Then he summoned the Assembly. Several weeks passed
before they convened, since it took time to reach the Burgesses who
lived in the distant counties, and for them to travel, perhaps by
boat, down the Potomac or the Rappahannock, and up the James to
Jamestown. At last, on March 7, the session opened.
Berkeley had determined on a defensive war, and the Assembly
obediently carried out his wishes. So they declared war on all Indians
who were known to have taken part in the murderous raids, provided for
the enlistment of friendly Indians, called out a force of 500 men,
prohibited trade in firearms with the savages, and ordered the
erection of eight forts on the frontiers.
This policy might have been successful had Berkeley made the forts
bases for expeditions against the enemy. The Indians seem to have made
their raids in small parties, and with rangers spying upon them,
forces could have rushed out from the nearest fort to intercept or
pursue them. In fact this seems to have been Berkeley's original plan.
The spread of hostilities "puts us on an absolute necessity not only
of fortifying our frontiers more strongly, but of keeping several
considerable parties of both horse and foot still in motion to
confront them wherever they shall attack us," he wrote in a report to
the English government late in March.
Berkeley stated that the forts served their purpose well. "In April
and May we lost not one man," he stated. But this Bacon and his men
denied. Even when a garrison received word that Indians were near,
they were not permitted to pursue them until they had notified the
governor, who might be fifty or sixty miles away, and received his
permission. The forts proved useless, they said, for the Indians
sneaked in between them and fell upon the outlying plantations,
burning, plundering, and killing. This it was easy to do in a country
full of "thick woods, swamps, and other covert." So, as houses went up
in flames, as men, women, and children were murdered, as miserable
captives were led off to await torture, a cry arose for relief. What
is needed, people said, is some considerable force in motion to seek
out the enemy and destroy them.
So petition after petition came to Berkeley begging him to send them a
leader. We have the arms, they said, all we ask is permission to
defend ourselves. But they met with peremptory refusal. As one group
stood before him, hat in hand, one of them spoke of themselves as his
honor's subjects. "Why you are a set of fools and loggerheads. You are
the King's subjects, and so am I," Berkeley blurted out. "A pox take
you."
The frontier planters were in despair. Many deserted their homes and
fled to the more settled parts of the country. Some declared they
would plant no more tobacco, since it would be taken from them to pay
for the useless forts. And they were deeply angered when it was
reported to them that Berkeley had said that if they had no tobacco,
"they had cows and feather beds sufficient to discharge their levies."
At last, "the cries of their women and children growing grievous and
intolerable to them," and hearing that large bodies of Indians were
encamped on the upper James ready to descend on them, the people of
Charles City County assembled in arms near Merchants Hope.
They found their leader in Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon, despite his youth,
was looked up to as one of the Council, and a member of the English
gentry. Not only did he sympathize with the people in their fear and
hatred of the Indians, but he had a personal grievance, since they
had plundered his outer plantation and killed his overseer. So when
several of his neighbors urged him to cross the James to visit the men
in arms, he readily consented.
When they saw the slender, black-haired youth, they set up a great
cry: "A Bacon! A Bacon! A Bacon!" This was too much for him to resist.
It is stated by one of the old chroniclers that he had "a most
imperious and dangerous hidden pride of heart." The leadership thus
thrust upon him must have pleased him. He was now no longer the
erratic youth who had been withdrawn from Cambridge, had caused his
father great trouble and anxiety, and had been duped by sharpers. He
was the leader of men. But there can be no doubt that he yielded to
the pleas of his friends and neighbors in part at least because of his
loathing of the Indians and his horror at their cruelty. He yielded
also because his spirit revolted at Berkeley's system of government by
corruption, because he sympathized with the people in their outcry
against the killing burdens placed on them, and because he hoped to
redress their grievances. His rough followers listened with approval
as he denounced the government as "negligent and wicked, treacherous
and incapable, the laws unjust and oppressive," and declared that
reform was absolutely necessary. So he listed their names on a huge
round-robin, and "enjoined them by an oath to stick fast together and
to him." As word spread throughout the colony that at last the people
had a champion, almost overnight he became the popular hero, and "the
only patron of the country and the preserver of their lives and
fortunes."
He first wrote Berkeley asking for a commission to go out to attack
the Indians, and then, without waiting for a reply, crossed the
Chickahominy into New Kent to overawe or perhaps attack the Pamunkeys.
He found the people of this county "ripe for rebellion" and eager to
wipe out their treacherous neighbors. But when he heard that the
Pamunkeys had fled from their villages to the inaccessible Dragon's
Swamp, he turned back to pursue a body of Susquehannocks who had
moved south to the Roanoke river.
When the news reached Berkeley that the frontier planters had
assembled in arms, chosen Bacon their leader, denounced his
administration, and driven the Pamunkeys into hiding, he was furious.
But as he had broken up previous mutinies by proclamations, he tried
the same expedient now. He declared the action of Bacon and his men
illegal and rebellious. But pardon would be granted provided they
disperse at once and return to their duty and allegiance.
Bacon had already written the governor to assure him that in taking up
arms he was acting only in self-defense and for the country's safety.
But now he sent another letter reiterating that he had no evil
intentions to him or the government. "I am now going out to seek a
more agreeable destiny than you are pleased to design me," he added.
As to the money he owed him he enclosed an order for its payment.
He then turned his back on the settlements and plunged into the
forests. Although he said he distrusted all Indians, he went out of
his way to enlist a few warriors from the allied Nottoways and
Meherrins. He then followed a trail used by fur traders and headed for
an island in the Roanoke river. Here a friendly tribe, the
Occaneechees, had established two forts and a village. They welcomed
Bacon, ferried his men over to the island, and went themselves to
attack a band of Susquehannocks in a nearby fort. With the aid of some
Mannikins, whom the Susquehannocks had forced to accompany them, they
took the fort and came back leading a number of captives.
Having accomplished what he had set out to do without the loss of a
man, Bacon probably would have started home, had he had provisions
enough for the long march through the wilderness. As it was his men
faced starvation. So he demanded supplies of food from the Occaneechee
chief. Berkeley's friends later accused him of demanding also beaver
taken from the Susquehannock fort. The ensuing dispute led to a
bloody battle on the island, in which the English rushed up to the
palisaded fort, began firing in at the portholes, and set fire to the
village. The next day the Indians sallied out, and hiding behind
trees, tried to pick off the English. But when many of their warriors
had been killed, the chief, with twenty men, tried to circle the
English. This too failed, the chief was killed, and the remaining
Indians with their wives and children, taking to their canoes, made
their escape. Bacon and his men gathered up the spoils, plundered the
Occaneechee larder, swam their horses over to the mainland, and
started on the return march.
When Berkeley found that his proclamation had had no effect, he
gathered a force of about three hundred men, and set out for the falls
of the James. But he was too late. When he arrived Bacon and his men
had disappeared into the forest on their way to the Roanoke. So the
governor had to content himself with issuing another proclamation.
Nathaniel Bacon, junior, of Henrico County, with divers rude,
dissolute, and tumultuous persons, contrary to the laws of England and
their allegiance to the King, had taken up arms without obtaining from
him any order or commission. Since this tended to the ruin and
overthrow of the government, he declared that Bacon and his aiders
were unlawful, mutinous, and rebellious.
At the same time, Lady Berkeley issued a statement of her own. It had
been rumored among the people that Bacon would not only be their
captain, but provide out of his own pocket for their wives and
children. This was a vain hope, she said. His entire estate was bound
over, his father had refused to honor his bills of exchange, he owed
William Byrd £400 and his cousin Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, senior,
£200. "I do accuse him of a worse crime than poverty," she added, "I
do accuse him of ingratitude, and that of a deep dye, to return the
favorable amity of the governor with casting all kinds of aspersions
upon his courage and conduct in the government of this colony."
In the meanwhile, awaiting Bacon's return, the governor turned his
attention to the defences on the upper James. He commanded the queen
of the Pamunkeys to return to her reservation, and when she refused,
prepared to drive her out of the Dragon Swamp. But at this moment word
reached him that the people in all parts of the colony were rising
against him. Now that they had a leader to redress their wrongs, in
many an humble cabin men seized their fusils, swords, and halberds,
and waited for him to call them to his side. They expected him to end
corruption and favoritism in the government, to lower taxes, to
correct private injustices, to give them a really representative
Assembly.
Berkeley was astonished. Hastening back to Green Spring he questioned
his Council. What do they want? What have I done in all the years I
have been governor to turn so many thousands against me? What do you
advise me to do? The Council replied that his keeping the Assembly for
so many years was one of the chief grievances and advised him to have
a new election. Later he stated that it was Bacon who made "the rabble
cry out for a new Assembly." Reluctantly he complied. He had every
reason to expect that the new House of Burgesses would be
overwhelmingly hostile to him, and as the returns came in he saw that
his worst fears would be realized. The final count showed that one
after another the old Burgesses were defeated at the polls until in
the end all but eight of the new House were of "Bacon's faction."
When Bacon returned from the Occaneechee fight, he was elated with the
acclaim of the people, not only on the frontier but in all parts of
the colony, but he was aggrieved that the governor had proclaimed him
a rebel and threatened his life. On May 25, he wrote to Berkeley: "I
am sorry to find that for the expence of our estates and hazard of our
lives in the country's service we should by misinformers have our true
intentions so falsely represented to you.... We have all along
manifested our abhorrence of mutiny and rebellion.... If your honor
were in person to lead or command I would follow and obey." But then
he continued with a veiled threat. If he sought to revenge himself he
had only to listen to all the stories of "your honor's falsehood,
cowardice, treachery, receiving bribes." He had heard that Lady
Berkeley had raised "several scandalous and false reports" against
him, that he was not worth a groat and that his notes had been
protested. He could hear enough about her, he retorted, if he would
permit himself to listen.
When Berkeley showed this letter to the Council, they wrote Bacon:
"Our advice to you is that the most honorable, the most secure, and
most safe way for yourself [is for] you forthwith in the most humble
manner present yourself to the governor and, acknowledging your
errors, humbly crave his pardon." If he preferred to justify his
conduct, they promised him a fair trial either in Virginia or in
England.
But with the plaudits of the people ringing in his ears, Bacon was
unwilling to humble himself. "My submissions are unacceptable, my real
intentions misunderstood," he wrote Berkeley. "I am sorry that your
honor's resentments are of such violence and growth as to command my
appearance with all contempt and disgrace and my disowning and belying
so glorious a cause as the country's defence. I know my person safe in
your honor's word, but only beg what pledge or warranty I shall have
for my reputation."
So, when the sheriff of Henrico rose in court to read Berkeley's
proclamation, he was interrupted by Bacon, who was there with thirty
or forty of his men. "If you dare read a line of that proclamation, I
will make you regret it," he said. Then, as though to show their
defiance of the governor, the people elected Bacon and his ardent
friend, Captain James Crews, to represent them in the House of
Burgesses.
It would have been well for Bacon had he chosen to ride down to
Jamestown with a heavy escort. Instead he decided on the easier and
usual method of travel by boat, and so set out in his sloop with
forty armed men. On June 6, when they came abreast Jamestown, they
were fired on by the guns of the fort. So they turned about and sailed
further up the river. With the coming of darkness Bacon, with twenty
of his men, rowed ashore, and held a long conference with Richard
Lawrence and William Drummond, Berkeley's inveterate enemies. It is
obvious that Bacon had known these men before. It is even possible
that he had boarded at Mrs. Lawrence's tavern while a member of the
Council, and that her husband had done his best to turn him against
Sir William with charges of arbitrary and corrupt government.
One wishes that one might have sat in on that night meeting. What did
the young popular leader discuss with these two embittered men? The
Indian war beyond doubt. But also Berkeley's "French despotism," and
how best to curb it. With an Assembly hostile to Berkeley in session,
Lawrence and Drummond must have recognized their chance. In fact
Berkeley had warned the Burgesses not to be misled by these "two
rogues." So it seems extremely probable that they drilled Bacon on
what measures to propose when he took his seat in the House.
At early dawn, when Bacon was returning, he was discovered and chased
up the river by several armed boats. He seems to have reached his
sloop, but when he tried to escape up the river, he was forced under
the guns of the _Adam and Eve_, a warship commanded by Captain Thomas
Gardiner, and forced to surrender.
When Bacon was led before the governor, the old man exclaimed: "Now I
behold the greatest rebel that ever was in Virginia."
Then, after a pause, he asked: "Mr. Bacon, have you forgot to be a
gentleman?"
"No, may it please your honor."
"Then, I'll take your parole."
Soon after this scene Bacon had a conference with his cousin in which
the latter pleaded with him to make his submission and give up the
idea of reforming the government and going out to fight the Indians.
If he would promise to do so, he said, he would turn over to him a
part or his estate and leave him the remainder after his own and his
wife's deaths. In the end the younger Bacon yielded and signed a paper
engaging to refrain from further disobedience to the government.
A few days later the governor summoned the Burgesses to meet with the
Council in the Court Room of the State House. When all were seated he
stood up and said: "If there be joy in the presence of the angels over
one sinner that repenteth, there is joy now, for we have a penitent
sinner come before us. Call Mr. Bacon."
When Bacon stepped forward, fell on his knees, and handed in his
submission, the governor resumed: "God forgive you! I forgive you!"
"And all that were with him?" asked one of the Councillors.
"Yes, and all that were with him," replied the governor.