WEBVTT NOTE 11. Bacon's Rebellion 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Volume 1, Chapter 11, Bacon's Rebellion. Why? Why revolution? 2 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:15.000 This question is asked in fascination by contemporary observers and historians of every revolution in history. 3 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:21.000 What were the reasons, the true motives behind any given revolution? 4 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:27.000 The tendency of historians of every revolution, Bacon's Rebellion included, 5 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:35.000 has been to present a simplistic and black and white version of the drives behind the revolutionary forces. 6 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:45.000 Thus, the orthodox version holds Nathaniel Bacon to have been a conscious torchbearer of the later American Revolution, 7 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:49.000 battling for liberty and against English oppression. 8 00:00:49.000 --> 00:01:05.000 The version of revisionist history marks down Bacon as an unprincipled and Indian-hating demagogue rebelling against the wise statesman Berkeley. Neither version can be accepted as such. 9 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:17.000 The very search by observers and historians for purity and unmixed motives in a revolution betrays an unrealistic naïveté. 10 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:32.000 Revolutions are mighty upheavals made by a mass of people, people who are willing to rupture the settled habits of a lifetime, including, especially, the habit of obedience to an existing government. 11 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:38.240 They are made by people willing to turn from the narrow pursuits of their daily lives to 12 00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:45.080 battle vigorously and even violently together in a more general cause. 13 00:01:45.080 --> 00:01:51.380 Because a revolution is a sudden upheaval by masses of men, one cannot treat the motives 14 00:01:51.380 --> 00:01:57.120 of every participant as identical, nor can one treat a revolution as somehow planned 15 00:01:57.120 --> 00:01:59.960 and ordered in advance. 16 00:01:59.960 --> 00:02:07.520 On the contrary, one of the major characteristics of a revolution is its dynamism, its rapid 17 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:12.000 and accelerating movement in one of several competing directions. 18 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:19.640 Indeed, the enormous sense of exhilaration or of fear, depending on one's personal values 19 00:02:19.640 --> 00:02:26.860 and one's place in the social structure, generated by a revolution is precisely due 20 00:02:26.860 --> 00:02:33.220 due to its unfreezing of the political and social order, its smashing of the old order, 21 00:02:33.220 --> 00:02:40.140 of the fixed and relatively stagnant political structure, its transvaluation of values, its 22 00:02:40.140 --> 00:02:46.820 replacement of reigning fixity with a sense of openness and dynamism. 23 00:02:46.820 --> 00:02:53.220 Hope, especially among those submerged by the existing system, replaces hopelessness 24 00:02:53.220 --> 00:02:55.340 and despair. 25 00:02:55.340 --> 00:03:01.700 The counterpart of this sudden advent of unlimited social horizons is uncertainty. 26 00:03:01.700 --> 00:03:07.780 For if the massive gates of the political structure are at last temporarily opened, 27 00:03:07.780 --> 00:03:10.620 what path will the people now take? 28 00:03:10.620 --> 00:03:18.340 Indeed, the ever-changing and developing revolution will take paths and entail consequences, perhaps 29 00:03:18.340 --> 00:03:23.100 only dimly, if at all, seen by its original leaders. 30 00:03:23.100 --> 00:03:29.380 A revolution, therefore, cannot be gauged simply by the motivations of its initiators. 31 00:03:29.380 --> 00:03:34.780 The paths taken by the revolution will be determined not merely by these motives but 32 00:03:34.780 --> 00:03:41.680 by the resultant of the motives and values of the contending sides as they began and 33 00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:47.980 as they change in the course of the struggle, clashing with and interacting upon the given 34 00:03:47.980 --> 00:03:53.900 and Social and Political Structure. In short, by the interaction of the various subjective 35 00:03:53.900 --> 00:04:00.980 values and the objective institutional conditions of the day. For masses of men to turn from 36 00:04:00.980 --> 00:04:08.300 their daily lives to hurl themselves against existing habits and the extant might of a 37 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:15.660 ruling government requires an accumulation of significant grievances and tensions. No 38 00:04:15.660 --> 00:04:20.740 No revolution begins in a day and on arbitrary whim. 39 00:04:20.740 --> 00:04:26.540 The grievances of important numbers of people against the state pile up, accumulate, form 40 00:04:26.540 --> 00:04:32.140 an extremely dry forest waiting for a spark to ignite the conflagration. 41 00:04:32.140 --> 00:04:38.620 That spark is the crisis situation, which may be intrinsically minor or only distantly 42 00:04:38.620 --> 00:04:45.500 related to the basic grievances, but it provides the catalyst, the emotional impetus for the 43 00:04:45.500 --> 00:04:56.500 This analysis of revolution sheds light on two common but misleading historical notions about the genesis of revolutions in colonial America. 44 00:04:56.500 --> 00:05:05.500 Conservative historians have stressed that revolution in America was unique, in contrast to radical European revolutions. 45 00:05:05.500 --> 00:05:11.500 American rebellion came only in reaction to new acts of oppression by the government. 46 00:05:11.500 --> 00:05:22.500 American revolutions were, therefore, uniquely conservative, reacting against the disruption of the status quo by new acts of tyranny by the state. 47 00:05:22.500 --> 00:05:27.500 But this thesis misconceives the very nature of revolution. 48 00:05:27.500 --> 00:05:35.100 Revolutions, as we have indicated, do not spring up suddenly and in vacuo. Almost all 49 00:05:35.100 --> 00:05:42.300 revolutions, European or American, are ignited by new acts of oppression by the government. 50 00:05:42.300 --> 00:05:48.780 Revolutions in America, and certainly this was true of Bacon's Rebellion, were not more 51 00:05:48.780 --> 00:05:55.780 conservative than any other. And since revolution is the polar archetype of an anti-conservative 52 00:05:55.780 --> 00:06:15.780 Neither, incidentally, can we credit the myth engendered by neo-Marxian historians that revolutions like Bacon's Rebellion were class struggles of the poor against the rich, of the small farmers against the wealthy oligarchs. 53 00:06:15.780 --> 00:06:30.780 The revolution was directed against a ruling oligarchy, to be sure, but an oligarchy not of the wealthy, but of certain wealthy, who had gained control of the privileges to be obtained from government. 54 00:06:30.780 --> 00:06:45.780 As we have pointed out, the bacons and birds were large planters, and the revolution was a rebellion of virtually all the people, wealthy and poor, of all occupations, who were not part of the privileged clique. 55 00:06:45.780 --> 00:06:53.780 This was a rebellion not against a Marxian ruling class, but against what might be called a ruling caste. 56 00:06:53.780 --> 00:07:05.780 No common purity of doctrine or motive can be found among the bacon rebels, or for that matter in the succeeding rebellions of the late 17th century in the other American colonies. 57 00:07:05.780 --> 00:07:17.780 But the bulk of their grievances were certainly libertarian. A protest of the rights and liberties of the people against the tyranny of the English government and of its Virginia agency. 58 00:07:17.780 --> 00:07:24.100 We have seen the accumulation of grievances against English mercantilist restrictions 59 00:07:24.100 --> 00:07:31.300 on Virginian trade and property rights, increasing taxation, monopolizing of trade by political 60 00:07:31.300 --> 00:07:37.980 privilege, repeated attempts to impose feudal land holdings, tightening rule by the governor 61 00:07:37.980 --> 00:07:45.400 and his allied oligarchs, infringements of home rule and local liberties, and, to a far 62 00:07:45.400 --> 00:07:49.900 For a lesser extent, persecution of religious minorities. 63 00:07:49.900 --> 00:07:54.240 On the other hand, there is no denying that some of the grievances and motives of the 64 00:07:54.240 --> 00:08:01.360 rebels were the reverse of libertarian, hatred of the Indians and a desire for land grabbing, 65 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:08.800 or as in the allied and later rebellions in neighboring Maryland, hatred of Roman Catholicism. 66 00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:15.460 Their motive in later rebellion was a desire for compulsory cartel in unsound and desperate 67 00:08:15.460 --> 00:08:20.340 attempts to force a rise in tobacco prices. 68 00:08:20.340 --> 00:08:26.940 But even though the spark of Bacon's rebellion came from an anti-libertarian motif, pursuit 69 00:08:26.940 --> 00:08:32.880 of more rigorous war against the Indians, and Bacon's motives were originally limited 70 00:08:32.880 --> 00:08:40.040 to this, it is also true that as the rebellion developed and the dynamics of a revolutionary 71 00:08:40.040 --> 00:08:47.880 situation progressed, the other basic grievances came to the fore and found expression, even 72 00:08:47.880 --> 00:08:51.960 in the case of Bacon himself. 73 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:58.200 It should also be recognized that any revolt against a tyrannical state, other things being 74 00:08:58.200 --> 00:09:06.720 and Equal is, ipso facto, a libertarian move. This is all the more true because even a revolution 75 00:09:06.720 --> 00:09:14.120 that fails, as did Bacon's, gives the people a training ground and a tradition of revolution 76 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:20.800 that may later develop into a revolution more extensively and clearly founded on libertarian 77 00:09:20.800 --> 00:09:27.240 motives. If cherished in later tradition, a revolution will decrease the awe in which 78 00:09:27.240 --> 00:09:32.560 which the constituted authority is held by the populace and in that way will increase 79 00:09:32.560 --> 00:09:39.760 the chance of a later revolt against tyranny. Overall, therefore, Bacon's rebellion may 80 00:09:39.760 --> 00:09:46.760 be judged as a step forward to liberty and even a microcosm of the American Revolution. 81 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:54.360 But despite, rather than because of, the motives of Bacon himself and of the original leaders. 82 00:09:54.360 --> 00:10:09.360 Nathaniel Bacon was scarcely a heroic and conscious torchbearer of liberty and yet the dynamics of the revolutionary movement that he brought into being forged such a torch out of his rebellion. 83 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:21.360 After the start of the mutiny at Jordan's Point, Berkeley, having tried to stop the movement, denounced Bacon and his followers as rebels and mutineers and proceeded west against them. 84 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:29.360 He missed Bacon, however, who had gone north to New Kent County to gather men who were also ripe for rebellion. 85 00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:37.360 Meanwhile, masses of Virginians began to join Bacon on the most hysterical and bigoted grounds. 86 00:10:37.360 --> 00:10:49.360 Berkeley's unfortunate act of War of March 1676 had declared war not only against enemy Indians, but just as roundly against neutrals. 87 00:10:49.360 --> 00:11:02.360 The peaceful and neutral Pamunkey Indians, fearful and unhappy at this prospect, and terrorized by the Baconians, fled to the wilderness of Dragon Swamp on the Gloucester Peninsula. 88 00:11:02.360 --> 00:11:14.360 To many Virginians, it was incomprehensible that Berkeley should proclaim man as traitors whose only crime seemed to be hard-line pursuit of victory against all Indians. 89 00:11:14.360 --> 00:11:18.360 At the same time, Berkeley was clearly soft on the Pamunkeys. 90 00:11:18.360 --> 00:11:28.360 The protests poured in. How can anyone tell friendly Indians from enemy Indians? Are not the Indians all of a color? 91 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:34.360 Thus, racism and war hysteria formed a potent combination to sweep away reason. 92 00:11:34.360 --> 00:11:42.360 As a time-honored phrase of the racist, you can't tell one from another, became logically transmuted into, 93 00:11:42.360 --> 00:12:10.360 The only good Indian is a dead Indian. Or, as the Baconian rebels put it, away with these distinctions. We will have war with all Indians which come not in with their arms, and give hostages for their fidelity, and to aid against all others. We will spare none. If we must be hanged for rebels for killing those that will destroy us, let them hang us. 94 00:12:10.360 --> 00:12:16.160 Alarmed, Berkeley rushed back to the Capitol to appease the people called an election at 95 00:12:16.160 --> 00:12:22.120 long last for the House of Burgesses. The election was called in mid-May for a session 96 00:12:22.120 --> 00:12:26.460 to begin in early June. This was the first election since the beginning of Berkeley's 97 00:12:26.460 --> 00:12:33.080 second reign. This in itself was a victory against tyranny. Meanwhile, Bacon and his 98 00:12:33.080 --> 00:12:38.260 band of Indian fighters proceeded against the Susquehannocks, but soon veered their 99 00:12:38.260 --> 00:12:46.420 Pay attention, as usual, to the friendly but far less powerful Okaniches, whom Bacon had 100 00:12:46.420 --> 00:12:52.180 even persuaded to attack the Susquehannocks. The Okaniches had given Bacon's exhausted 101 00:12:52.180 --> 00:12:57.500 and depleted band food and shelter, and had attacked the Susquehannocks themselves in 102 00:12:57.500 --> 00:13:02.960 Bacon's behalf. The Okaniches presented their prisoners to Bacon, and the prisoners were 103 00:13:02.960 --> 00:13:09.960 were duly tortured and killed. A dispute, however, arose over the plunder from the raid 104 00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:16.240 and especially over a half-dozen friendly mannequin and anilectin Indians who had been 105 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:23.080 prisoners of the Susquehannocks and had helped the Okaniches destroy the Susquehanna camp. 106 00:13:23.080 --> 00:13:27.720 The Okaniches naturally wanted to keep the plunder from the Susquehannock raid and to 107 00:13:27.720 --> 00:13:34.080 To free the friendly Indians they had liberated, but Bacon demanded the plunder for himself 108 00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:40.160 and insisted that the mannequins and analectins be turned over to him as slaves. 109 00:13:40.160 --> 00:13:46.080 Bacon fell into a dispute with the Okonichi chief, who balked at selling food to his men, 110 00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:51.680 whereupon Bacon launched a surprise attack on the Indians, burning and slaughtering over 111 00:13:51.680 --> 00:13:57.580 a hundred Indian men, women and children, and kidnapping others. 112 00:13:57.580 --> 00:14:04.500 To Bacon went the plunder and, in addition, an Okonichi stock of valuable beaver fur. 113 00:14:04.500 --> 00:14:10.700 Some contemporary accounts assert the fur was Bacon's major aim in the surprise attack. 114 00:14:10.700 --> 00:14:16.660 In any case, Bacon returned from this irrelevant act of butchery as the leader of a band of 115 00:14:16.660 --> 00:14:22.140 heroes in the eyes of the bulk of the Virginia people and insisted more than ever that all 116 00:14:22.140 --> 00:14:33.660 Undaunted by Berkeley's denunciation of Bacon for treason and rebellion and his expulsion 117 00:14:33.660 --> 00:14:40.740 of Bacon from the Council, the free men of Henrico County unanimously elected Bacon and 118 00:14:40.740 --> 00:14:45.180 his associate, James Cruz, as virgesses. 119 00:14:45.180 --> 00:14:51.500 Joining the inner councils of Bacon's rebellion were two wealthy and influential Virginians, 120 00:14:51.500 --> 00:14:57.620 William Drummond, tobacco planter and former governor of Albemarle Colony, and the intellectual 121 00:14:57.620 --> 00:15:03.980 Richard Lawrence, who had lost land through legal plunder to a favorite of Berkeley's. 122 00:15:03.980 --> 00:15:09.620 Ignoring the election results, Berkeley sent an armed force to capture Bacon and bring 123 00:15:09.620 --> 00:15:11.820 him back to Jamestown. 124 00:15:11.820 --> 00:15:18.580 Here ensued a patently spurious reconciliation scene, with Bacon in open assembly confessing 125 00:15:48.580 --> 00:15:56.580 The House of Burgesses, largely supporters of Bacon and certainly anti-Berkeley, did very little. 126 00:15:56.580 --> 00:16:02.580 A few fable essays in reform were quickly stifled by the domineering governor, 127 00:16:02.580 --> 00:16:08.580 except for acts restricting trade with the Indians and imposing dictates on avowedly friendly Indians 128 00:16:08.580 --> 00:16:13.580 by forbidding them to hunt with guns, even on their own reservations. 129 00:16:13.580 --> 00:16:19.300 Reconciliation, the assembly did little and certainly nothing against Berkeley. Indeed, 130 00:16:19.300 --> 00:16:25.020 they saw fit to eulogize Berkeley's rule. Bacon warned of a plot on his life and seeing 131 00:16:25.020 --> 00:16:32.020 how reconciliation had only succeeded in dangerously weakening the revolutionary movement, calming 132 00:16:32.020 --> 00:16:39.020 the people and taming the assembly, escaped from Jamestown. He still lacked official sanction 133 00:16:39.020 --> 00:16:49.500 to Fight Indians. Returning home, Bacon raised an armed troop and on June 23rd invaded Jamestown, 134 00:16:49.500 --> 00:16:54.620 where under bayonet he forced Berkeley and the assembly to grant him the commission to 135 00:16:54.620 --> 00:17:01.380 fight the Indians, the original point of the rebellion. But now the Baconian assembly, 136 00:17:01.380 --> 00:17:07.140 emboldened by the Bacon victory, pushed through in a few days a series of reform measures 137 00:17:07.140 --> 00:17:14.140 that became known as Bacon's Laws. Several of these measures were invasive of liberty, 138 00:17:14.400 --> 00:17:19.900 the inevitable laws for more stringent war and regulation against the Indians, prohibition 139 00:17:19.900 --> 00:17:26.060 on the export of corn, restrictions on the sale of liquor. But the bulk of the laws were 140 00:17:26.060 --> 00:17:32.900 in the libertarian direction, requiring annual rotation of the powerful office of sheriff, 141 00:17:32.900 --> 00:17:39.020 prohibiting anyone from holding two local offices at the same time, penalizing excessive 142 00:17:39.020 --> 00:17:44.860 charges levied by public officials, providing for triennial elections for the local vestry 143 00:17:44.860 --> 00:17:51.260 boards by the freemen of the parish, thus ending the closed oligarchal control of the 144 00:17:51.260 --> 00:17:52.260 vestries. 145 00:17:52.260 --> 00:17:59.060 Moreover, the assembly ended the absolute control of the appointed justices of the peace, 146 00:17:59.060 --> 00:18:05.300 Finding in Secret Conclave over County Taxes and Expenditures. 147 00:18:05.300 --> 00:18:10.800 Annual election by all the free men was provided for choosing an equal number of representatives 148 00:18:10.800 --> 00:18:15.740 to sit with the judges imposing the county levies and expenditures. 149 00:18:15.740 --> 00:18:22.860 Furthermore, the law of 1670, taking the voting for Burgesses away from non-land-holding 150 00:18:22.860 --> 00:18:25.340 free men was repealed. 151 00:18:25.340 --> 00:18:32.460 Thus, a true revolution had developed from a mere movement to crush Indians more efficiently. 152 00:18:32.460 --> 00:18:40.180 Indeed, some leading conservatives hinted darkly of anarchy and menace to private property. 153 00:18:40.180 --> 00:18:46.780 One leading Berkleyan sneered that Bacon's followers were too poor to pay taxes and therefore 154 00:18:46.780 --> 00:18:49.400 wanted none levied at all. 155 00:18:49.400 --> 00:18:55.320 In the meanwhile, Bacon protested that revolution was farthest from his mind, as perhaps he 156 00:18:55.320 --> 00:19:01.960 it was, that all he wanted was to fight the Indians. Armed with his coveted commission, 157 00:19:01.960 --> 00:19:08.360 he proceeded west to do so. Governor Berkeley, however, was not content with this relatively 158 00:19:08.360 --> 00:19:15.000 peaceful resolution of the problem, and he determined on civil war. Berkeley once more 159 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:20.520 cried treason and rebellion against Bacon, and proceeded into Gloucester County to raise 160 00:19:20.520 --> 00:19:24.340 is a counter-revolutionary armed force. 161 00:19:24.340 --> 00:19:29.080 Hearing of this treachery, Bacon and his men marched eastward, where the militia of 162 00:19:29.080 --> 00:19:36.080 Gloucester County mutinied and to the governor's face chanted, Bacon, Bacon, Bacon! 163 00:19:37.240 --> 00:19:43.520 Berkeley, in disgrace and opposed by the bulk of the people, fled to obscure Acomac County 164 00:19:43.520 --> 00:19:50.520 on the eastern shore, where he lamented, How miserable that man is that governs a people! 165 00:19:50.520 --> 00:19:58.520 of People. Bacon was now impelled by the logic of events to a radical and revolutionary position, 166 00:19:58.520 --> 00:20:05.320 for despite his wishes, he was now irrevocably a rebel against Governor Berkeley. And since 167 00:20:05.320 --> 00:20:12.220 Berkeley was the agent of the King, a rebel against the King of England as well. The logic 168 00:20:12.220 --> 00:20:17.600 of events now compelled Bacon to favor total independence from England. For him, it was 169 00:20:17.600 --> 00:20:26.240 was now independence or death. So swiftly had the dynamic of revolution pushed events forward 170 00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:32.000 that the man who just three months before had had no thoughts of rebellion, who only 171 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:38.560 a few weeks before had only wished to crush Indians more effectively, was now forced to 172 00:20:38.560 --> 00:20:44.000 fight for the independence of Virginia from the crown. 173 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:49.040 The grievances were abounding in neighboring Maryland and Albemarle. 174 00:20:49.040 --> 00:20:56.840 Bacon began to envisage a mighty Al-Chesapeake uprising, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, 175 00:20:56.840 --> 00:21:00.240 to gain freedom from subjection to England. 176 00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:04.320 The neighboring colonies were indeed ripe for rebellion. 177 00:21:04.320 --> 00:21:09.600 And William Drummond, a leading Baconian and former governor of North Carolina, helped 178 00:21:09.600 --> 00:21:15.600 Thus stir up a rebel movement there led by John Culpepper, who visited Jamestown during 179 00:21:15.600 --> 00:21:23.640 the turbulent rebellion of 1676. But Bacon had a critical problem. If the choice was 180 00:21:23.640 --> 00:21:31.440 only independence or death for him, that choice did not face the rest of the Virginians. Thus, 181 00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:37.440 one of Bacon's followers on hearing him talk of plans to fight English troops exclaimed, 182 00:21:37.440 --> 00:21:44.600 Sir, you speak as though you designed a total defection from His Majesty and our country. 183 00:21:44.600 --> 00:21:49.120 Why have not many princes lost their dominions so? 184 00:21:49.120 --> 00:21:51.600 Bacon calmly replied. 185 00:21:51.600 --> 00:21:57.080 Last cherry of a radical policy was Sarah, wife of William Drummond, who, breaking a 186 00:21:57.080 --> 00:22:02.440 stick in two, exclaimed, I care no more for the power of England than for this broken 187 00:22:02.440 --> 00:22:04.240 straw. 188 00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:10.300 Bacon now faced a two-fold chore, the cementing of the Virginian people behind the new, difficult 189 00:22:10.300 --> 00:22:16.120 and radical task, and the smashing of the Berkeley forces before they could rally. 190 00:22:16.120 --> 00:22:22.320 Unfortunately, it is not surprising that a man dedicated to a hard line against the Indians 191 00:22:22.320 --> 00:22:27.960 would not hesitate in a hard line against his own people. 192 00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:33.520 Bacon began to wield the weapon of the compulsory public loyalty oath from his headquarters 193 00:22:33.520 --> 00:22:39.560 Years at the Middle Plantation, later Williamsburg, Bacon issued a call for a convention of the 194 00:22:39.560 --> 00:22:47.440 leading men of the colony. Once at the convention, Bacon issued a manifesto, grandiosely entitled 195 00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:53.960 the Declaration of the People, demanding surrender of Berkeley in nineteen of his closest cohorts 196 00:22:53.960 --> 00:23:01.740 in four days. Refusal to surrender would mean arrest for treason and confiscation of property. 197 00:23:01.740 --> 00:23:06.060 In the Declaration, several accusations were leveled against Berkeley. 198 00:23:06.060 --> 00:23:16.060 One, that upon spacious pretense of public works, he raised great unjust taxes upon the 199 00:23:16.060 --> 00:23:17.060 commonality. 200 00:23:17.060 --> 00:23:22.540 Two, advancing favorites to high public offices. 201 00:23:22.540 --> 00:23:26.900 Three, monopolizing the beaver trade with Indians. 202 00:23:26.900 --> 00:23:29.300 Four, being pro-Indian. 203 00:23:29.300 --> 00:23:35.980 Bacon now assumed dictatorial authority over the colony. 204 00:23:35.980 --> 00:23:40.160 He forced the Convention to subscribe to an oath of allegiance. 205 00:23:40.160 --> 00:23:45.580 The first clause caused no trouble, a pledge not to join Berkeley's forces. 206 00:23:45.580 --> 00:23:51.980 The second part caused a great deal of trouble, a pledge to oppose any English forces sent 207 00:23:51.980 --> 00:23:53.900 to aid Berkeley. 208 00:23:53.900 --> 00:23:57.660 The Virginians balked at open revolution against the Crown. 209 00:23:57.660 --> 00:24:03.660 Bacon, however, locked the doors and forced the assembled men to take the entire oath. 210 00:24:03.660 --> 00:24:11.660 Bacon now proceeded to terrorize the mass of Virginians to take the same oath and arrested any who refused. 211 00:24:11.660 --> 00:24:16.660 Terror is a poor way to persuade someone to be loyal. 212 00:24:16.660 --> 00:24:24.660 And from this moment, Bacon's formerly great popularity in the colony began to ebb. 213 00:24:24.660 --> 00:24:31.820 At this juncture, when smashing Berkeley's forces was the order of the day, Bacon permitted 214 00:24:31.820 --> 00:24:38.140 himself to be diverted to the old sport of killing Indians. Instead of pursuing the Indian 215 00:24:38.140 --> 00:24:44.260 War against the tribes actually fighting, Bacon again found it convenient to attack 216 00:24:44.260 --> 00:24:50.100 the hapless and neutral Pamunkey Indians, who had fled to the swamps and wilderness 217 00:24:50.100 --> 00:24:53.500 of Clouster County to be left alone. 218 00:24:53.500 --> 00:24:58.220 After wasting many days trying to find the Pamunkeys in the swamps, and of course plundering 219 00:24:58.220 --> 00:25:05.460 as they went, Bacon's forces found the Pamunkeys' camp and plundered, captured and slaughtered 220 00:25:05.460 --> 00:25:08.100 the unresisting Indians. 221 00:25:08.100 --> 00:25:11.220 Bacon was a hero once more. 222 00:25:11.220 --> 00:25:15.940 While Bacon was off to raid the Pamunkeys, Berkeley had seized the opportunity to win 223 00:25:15.940 --> 00:25:21.020 in Control of the Fleet, Jamestown and the Principal River Areas. 224 00:25:21.020 --> 00:25:27.300 In contrast to Bacon's reliance upon volunteers for his army, Berkeley raised his counter-revolutionary 225 00:25:27.300 --> 00:25:34.460 force by the promise of plunder from the estates of those who had taken Bacon's oath, and 226 00:25:34.460 --> 00:25:40.540 the promise of subsidy and exemption from virtually all taxes. Each party was soon promising 227 00:25:40.540 --> 00:25:44.860 and liberty to the servants of the opposing side. 228 00:25:44.860 --> 00:25:49.880 Marching on Jamestown again, Bacon now drove Berkeley out of the capital. 229 00:25:49.880 --> 00:25:53.700 In the course of the battle, Bacon used a new stratagem. 230 00:25:53.700 --> 00:25:58.940 He kidnapped some of the wives of the Berkeley leaders and threatened to place them in the 231 00:25:58.940 --> 00:26:04.940 front line if the Berkeley forces fired upon their fortifications. 232 00:26:04.940 --> 00:26:12.940 and the repeated use of aggressive violence spirals inevitably upward and outward. 233 00:26:12.940 --> 00:26:15.940 So with Nathaniel Bacon Jr. 234 00:26:15.940 --> 00:26:23.940 Beginning with the Indians, Bacon increasingly extended despotism and violence against Virginia citizens. 235 00:26:23.940 --> 00:26:29.940 After capturing Jamestown, Bacon burned it totally to the ground 236 00:26:29.940 --> 00:26:35.580 ground on the flimsy excuse of hypothetical military necessity. 237 00:26:35.580 --> 00:26:41.540 The forces of Giles Brent, now Colonel, in the northern counties, which had shifted from 238 00:26:41.540 --> 00:26:48.540 Bacon's to Berkeley's cause, were marching south, but Brent's men deserted him completely 239 00:26:48.540 --> 00:26:52.380 when they heard of Bacon's victory at Jamestown. 240 00:26:52.380 --> 00:26:57.840 After driving Berkeley's forces back to the eastern shore, Bacon enforced his loyalty 241 00:26:57.840 --> 00:27:05.840 on more masses of people, seized provisions for his army from the populace and punished several citizens by martial law. 242 00:27:05.840 --> 00:27:13.840 Even his cousin, Nathaniel Bacon Sr., was not spared the plunder meted out to the leading opponents of the rebellion, 243 00:27:13.840 --> 00:27:18.840 even though the elder Bacon had previously warned his cousin of an attempt on his life. 244 00:27:18.840 --> 00:27:23.840 The elder Bacon's property was looted to the loss of a thousand pounds. 245 00:27:23.840 --> 00:27:36.840 Justice Bacon made ready to proceed against Berkeley and the Eastern Shore. This leader of revolution fell ill and died on October 26, 1676. 246 00:27:36.840 --> 00:27:47.840 In a few short months, he had brought Virginia and perhaps the neighboring colonies to the brink of revolutionary independence from Great Britain. 247 00:27:47.840 --> 00:27:54.080 of Britain. Who knows what might have happened had Bacon lived. Without the inspiration provided 248 00:27:54.080 --> 00:27:59.900 by their leader, the rebellion fell apart and Berkeley's forces conquered the disorganized 249 00:27:59.900 --> 00:28:06.400 rebel units. One of the last of the rebel bands to yield was a group of 400 negro slaves 250 00:28:06.400 --> 00:28:12.780 and white servants fighting for their freedom in Bacon's army. Captain Thomas Grantham 251 00:28:12.780 --> 00:28:19.020 Some of the Berkley forces persuaded them to disarm by promising them their freedom, 252 00:28:19.020 --> 00:28:23.340 after which he delivered them back to their masters. 253 00:28:23.340 --> 00:28:28.860 Governor Berkley was not a forgiving soul, and he now instituted a veritable reign of 254 00:28:28.860 --> 00:28:35.860 terror in Virginia. As he defeated each of the rebel units, he court-martialed and hanged 255 00:28:36.200 --> 00:28:42.220 the leaders. Neither was Berkley very discriminating in his court-martialing and hanging parties. 256 00:28:42.220 --> 00:28:52.220 One of them, he included Thomas Hall, clerk of New Kent County, who had never taken up arms in the rebellion, but who had angered Berkeley in other matters. 257 00:28:52.220 --> 00:29:01.220 It was enough, however, that Hall, by diverse writings under his own hand and most notorious actor, aided and assisted in the rebellion. 258 00:29:01.220 --> 00:29:11.220 One of the hanged rebels protested, no doubt truthfully, that he had always been a loyal subject of the Crown and only meant to take up arms against Indians. 259 00:29:11.220 --> 00:29:41.220 When the eminent William Drummond, who had incurred the dislike of Berkeley even before the year's events, was captured in the swamps and dragged in before the Governor, Berkeley gloated, Mr. Drummond, you are very welcome. I am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia. Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an hour." 260 00:29:41.220 --> 00:29:53.220 To which Drummond steadfastly replied, I expect no mercy from you. I have followed the lead of my conscience and done what I might to free my country from oppression. 261 00:29:53.220 --> 00:30:02.220 Allowing for a few hours missed, the promise was indeed carried out in Drummond's ring confiscated by Berkeley for good measure. 262 00:30:02.220 --> 00:30:11.220 Most defiant of the captured rebels was Anthony Arnold, who delivered a trenchant attack on the rights of kings. 263 00:30:11.220 --> 00:30:24.220 They have no rights but what they got by conquest and the sword, and he that can by force of the sword deprive them of it has as good and just a title to it as the king himself. 264 00:30:24.220 --> 00:30:35.220 If the king should deny to do me right, I would make no more to sheath my sword in his heart or bowels than that of my mortal enemies. 265 00:30:35.220 --> 00:30:46.220 The court hung the horrible, resolved rebel and traitor, Arnold, in chains, openly regretting that it could not draw and quarter him as well. 266 00:30:46.220 --> 00:30:54.220 Berkeley also proceeded to confiscate the estates of one rebel after another, thus recouping his own personal fortunes. 267 00:30:54.220 --> 00:31:03.220 Unfortunately for Berkeley's uninterrupted pleasure, the King's commissioners arrived in January with a general pardon for all rebels. 268 00:31:03.220 --> 00:31:08.220 What is more, the commissioners promised that they would redress the grievances of the people. 269 00:31:08.220 --> 00:31:23.220 The King further ordered Berkeley back to England, but Berkeley, defying the commissioners, continued imposing his own loyalty oaths, seizing more property for his own use and delaying publication of the King's pardon. 270 00:31:23.220 --> 00:31:34.220 He finally published the pardon, but exempted 18 nameless people, an excellent way of cowing the Virginians so as to keep them from bearing their grievances to the commissioners. 271 00:31:34.220 --> 00:31:38.220 Civil trials for treason proceeded apace and several more were hanged. 272 00:31:38.220 --> 00:31:48.220 Furthermore, the subservient assembly now met and quickly repealed all of the bold acts of liberal reform of Bacon's assembly of June 1676. 273 00:31:48.220 --> 00:31:59.220 Under Berkeley's direction, the assembly proceeded to hang many more rebels by acts of attainder and to fine, imprison, banish and expropriate still more. 274 00:31:59.220 --> 00:32:22.220 Some rebels were ordered to pay heavy fines and appear before the assembly with halters around their necks, kneeling to repent of their guilt and beg for their lives. If freed by the assembly, they were forced to repeat the same ordeal before the county court. All leading supporters of the rebellion were barred thereafter from holding public office. 275 00:32:22.220 --> 00:32:31.220 Even the hapless indentured servants who followed Bacon were sentenced to imprisonment whenever their terms of service should expire. 276 00:32:31.220 --> 00:32:43.220 Anyone who had written or spoken anything favoring the rebellion or even criticizing anyone in authority received heavy fines, the pillory, flogging, or branding on the forehead. 277 00:32:43.220 --> 00:32:49.220 Yet the jails were not filled, being kept clear by banishments and executions. 278 00:32:49.220 --> 00:32:55.220 Some hapless Virginians were caught in the middle of the Civil War, thus Otto Thorpe. 279 00:32:55.220 --> 00:33:03.220 Wishing not to sign Bacon's compulsory loyalty oath, Thorpe finally did so when his wife was threatened. 280 00:33:03.220 --> 00:33:11.220 Later in the rebellion, Thorpe refused to aid Bacon further and had his property confiscated by the rebels as a consequence. 281 00:33:11.220 --> 00:33:20.220 Then, when Berkeley returned to power, he sent Thorpe to jail for swearing to the Baconian oath and confiscated his property once more. 282 00:33:20.220 --> 00:33:35.220 The commissioners sadly concluded that no peace could come to the colony, either internally or with the Indians, until Berkeley had been completely removed from his post and the general pardon carried out. 283 00:33:35.220 --> 00:33:41.660 The only real supporters of Berkeley in his fanatic campaign of vengeance were 20 friends 284 00:33:41.660 --> 00:33:46.940 of his among the oligarchy known as the Green Spring faction. 285 00:33:46.940 --> 00:33:51.820 The commissioners reported that the Green Spring group was continually pleading for the 286 00:33:51.820 --> 00:33:56.940 punishment of the guilty, who were little less than the whole country. 287 00:33:56.940 --> 00:34:02.140 The commissioners indeed estimated that of all the people in Virginia, who now numbered 288 00:34:02.140 --> 00:34:09.940 about 40,000. Only 500 had never supported the rebellion. Finally, the assembly, under 289 00:34:09.940 --> 00:34:15.840 pressures of the commissioners, forced the reluctant Berkeley to stop the hangings. As 290 00:34:15.840 --> 00:34:23.020 one assemblyman stated, if not for this interference, the governor would have hanged half the country. 291 00:34:23.020 --> 00:34:30.500 Under pressure of the commissioners, the assembly of February 1677 also reenacted a few of the 292 00:34:30.500 --> 00:34:35.500 the most innocuous of the reform laws of the previous year. 293 00:34:35.500 --> 00:34:41.000 Despite the intimidation and terror, a large number of grievances were sent to the assembly 294 00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:44.400 and the commissioners by the people of Virginia. 295 00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:51.280 The most common grievance concerned the levying of heavy and unjust taxes by officials, taxes 296 00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:56.900 that were used for expenditures over which the people had no control. 297 00:34:56.900 --> 00:35:06.900 Typical was a petition from Surrey County which prayed the authorities to ease us, His Majesty's poor subjects, of our great burdens and taxes. 298 00:35:06.900 --> 00:35:08.900 The petition asked, 299 00:35:08.900 --> 00:35:22.900 Whereas there yearly came a great public levy from James City, we never knew for what to the great grief and dissatisfaction of the poor upon whose shoulders the levy chiefly lay. 300 00:35:22.900 --> 00:35:39.900 We most humbly pray that for the future the collectors of the levy, who instead of satisfaction were wont to give churlish answers, may be obliged to give an account in writing what the levy is for to any who shall desire it. 301 00:35:39.900 --> 00:35:49.900 The Surrey County Petition also humbly asked for a free election for every assembly so that they could find redress for their grievances. 302 00:35:49.900 --> 00:35:53.900 Not surprisingly, this humble petition received its typical answer. 303 00:35:53.900 --> 00:36:02.900 Severe punishment for the petitioners by the assembly, for the high crime of speaking or writing disrespectfully of those in authority. 304 00:36:02.900 --> 00:36:17.900 Other grievances mentioned in petitions were favoritism, illegal fees charged by local officials, restriction of the right to vote, monopoly of the Indian trade, and the arbitrary seizing of property by the government. 305 00:36:17.900 --> 00:36:23.460 While the commissioners were hardly zealous in defending the people against Berkeley's 306 00:36:23.460 --> 00:36:29.220 oppression, they at least arranged a peace with the Indians, and the Great Indian War 307 00:36:29.220 --> 00:36:32.060 was happily ended. 308 00:36:32.060 --> 00:36:37.000 Finally the commissioners decided to carry the king's order into effect, and they ousted 309 00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:39.100 Berkeley. 310 00:36:39.100 --> 00:36:44.780 Leaving for England, Berkeley made his exit in characteristic fashion, kicking and snarling 311 00:36:44.780 --> 00:36:51.660 all the way, and bitterly denouncing the ambition, incompetence, and ignorance of the appointed 312 00:36:51.660 --> 00:36:59.660 Lieutenant Governor left in charge. At long last, on May 5, 1677, Berkeley embarked 313 00:36:59.660 --> 00:37:06.900 for England, dying soon after his arrival. Perhaps Berkeley's most appropriate epitaph 314 00:37:06.900 --> 00:37:13.980 was the reported comment on the Virginia affair by King Charles II. That old fool has hanged 315 00:37:13.980 --> 00:37:20.600 and more men in that naked country than I did here for the murder of my father. 316 00:37:20.600 --> 00:37:25.300 The shadow of Berkeley still fell over the unhappy colony, however, as Virginia, not 317 00:37:25.300 --> 00:37:31.260 knowing of his death, still believed that Berkeley would soon engineer his return. 318 00:37:31.260 --> 00:37:36.380 The colony was still in the hands of Berkeley's henchmen, the Green Spring oligarchs who had 319 00:37:36.380 --> 00:37:40.860 been reestablished in their lucrative and powerful offices. 320 00:37:40.860 --> 00:37:46.520 Many members of this faction were Colonel Philip Ludwell, Colonel Thomas Ballard, Colonel 321 00:37:46.520 --> 00:37:52.140 Edward Hill, and Major Robert Beverly. It also included Colonel John Washington and 322 00:37:52.140 --> 00:37:57.980 Richard Lee. Green Spring's control was especially strong after the commissioners had returned 323 00:37:57.980 --> 00:38:04.500 to England in July. The Green Spring faction ran the council and engineered corrupt elections 324 00:38:04.500 --> 00:38:10.740 to the House of Burgesses. They continued to drag rebels into court to seize their property 325 00:38:10.740 --> 00:38:15.980 and they levied another large poll tax on the colony, again laying the heaviest burden 326 00:38:15.980 --> 00:38:21.820 on the poorest citizens. Petitions from the counties to redress grievances continued to 327 00:38:21.820 --> 00:38:27.420 be punished in the by now traditional manner, severe punishment for statements highly scandalous 328 00:38:27.420 --> 00:38:36.420 and injurious to authority. Finally, in October, news of Berkeley's death arrived in Virginia, 329 00:38:36.420 --> 00:38:42.740 The King was finally able to get his complete and general pardon published. The Baconian 330 00:38:42.740 --> 00:38:49.420 remnants still hiding in the woods were able to emerge and resume their normal lives. But 331 00:38:49.420 --> 00:38:56.260 if Berkeley was at last truly dead, his system was not. Berkeleyism and the Green Spring 332 00:38:56.260 --> 00:39:02.500 faction continued to rule the colony. In fact, the next governor, Thomas Lord Culpepper, 333 00:39:02.500 --> 00:39:09.500 was a relative of Lady Berkeley. The revolution had failed, but it continued to live on in 334 00:39:09.500 --> 00:39:15.220 the hearts of Americans who cherished the memory of its near victory, a beacon light 335 00:39:15.220 --> 00:39:17.500 for future rebellions against tyranny.