WEBVTT NOTE 14. The Aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion in the Other Southern Colonies 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Volume 1, Chapter 14, The Aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion in the Other Southern Colonies 2 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:16.000 As Bacon's Rebellion entered its radical phase, Bacon tried to spread the revolutionary movement to the neighboring colonies, 3 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:24.000 each of which had severe and often similar grievances against its government and the Crown. 4 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:44.000 At the height of Bacon's Rebellion, in September 1676, sixty persons, led by William Davies and John Pate, assembled in Calvert County, Maryland, to declare their opposition to crushing taxation and to Lord Baltimore's disfranchisement of the freemen. 5 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:50.000 They also declared their refusal to swear to a new loyalty oath proposed by the proprietor. 6 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:57.000 They refused to obey the governor's order to disband on promise to consider their grievances in the next assembly, 7 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:02.000 pointing out that the manipulated assembly no longer represented the people. 8 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:08.000 But the death of Bacon caused the quick collapse of the embryo Davies-Pate rebellion, 9 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:13.000 and Davies and Pate were hanged after being denounced as traitors. 10 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:19.000 The governor observed with satisfaction that the people were now suitably terrified. 11 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:29.000 The threat was over, but the governor wrote in warning to Lord Baltimore that never had a people been more replete with malignancy and frenzy. 12 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:38.000 Apparently the Maryland regime had had a close call. The result increased the bitterness in the colony against the proprietor. 13 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:44.600 However, the struggle against the oppression of the feudal proprietary in Maryland had 14 00:01:44.600 --> 00:01:52.200 not been crushed. The veteran rebel Josiah Fendel of Charles County, elected to the assembly 15 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:59.540 but barred from his seat for his rebellious activities in 1660, now took up the libertarian 16 00:01:59.540 --> 00:02:07.440 torch. In particular, Fendel led a movement against high taxes and quit rents imposed 17 00:02:07.440 --> 00:02:14.920 by the Proprietor. Fendel also championed freedom of speech, a rarity in that era. Philip 18 00:02:14.920 --> 00:02:22.020 Calvert denounced Fendel for telling the people they were fools to pay taxes and for allegedly 19 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:28.780 saying that now nothing was treason, a man might say anything. Assisting Fendel were 20 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:37.400 Thomas Gerard, a veteran rebel and a Catholic, and John Coode, an ex-Catholic and ex-clergyman, 21 00:02:37.400 --> 00:03:07.400 In 1681, Lord Baltimore had a law passed forbidding the dissemination of false news, that is news aiming to stir up unrest and rebellion, in an attempt to hamper the Fendel movement. Finally, in the same year, a Fendel-couped plan for rebellion was betrayed and the leaders imprisoned. The jury, drawn necessarily from the populace, favored the defendants, whereas 22 00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:12.800 as the judges, being appointees of the proprietor, were hostile. 23 00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:18.080 Fendel was convicted, fined heavily and exiled forever from the province. 24 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:21.080 Coode and Assemblyman won acquittal. 25 00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:26.920 Lord Baltimore denounced Fendel and Coode as rank-baconist and wrote afterwards to a 26 00:03:26.920 --> 00:03:34.400 friend that, had these leaders not been secured in time, you would have heard of another bacon. 27 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:41.600 North Carolina, Albemarle, was also in a rebellious frame of mind in the mid-1670s. 28 00:03:41.600 --> 00:03:48.880 Most grievous was the Navigation Act of 1673, which placed a prohibitory tax of one penny 29 00:03:48.880 --> 00:03:54.480 per pound on all inter-colonial trading of tobacco. 30 00:03:54.480 --> 00:04:00.560 The tobacco farmers of North Carolina, growing over one million pounds of tobacco a year, 31 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:05.920 were heavily dependent on New England shipping for exporting their tobacco 32 00:04:05.920 --> 00:04:10.440 and in turn for importing other products needed by the Carolinians. 33 00:04:10.440 --> 00:04:13.120 The tax crippled Carolinian trade 34 00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:15.980 and the result was continual evasion 35 00:04:15.980 --> 00:04:21.760 and sporadic attempts by the government to crack down on the now illegal trade. 36 00:04:21.760 --> 00:04:25.260 Another important grievance was the feudal quit rent 37 00:04:25.260 --> 00:04:30.860 that the proprietary tried to extract from the North Carolinian landholders. 38 00:04:30.860 --> 00:04:31.820 At first, 39 00:04:31.820 --> 00:04:35.740 land grants were made there at a relatively small quit rent of 40 00:04:35.740 --> 00:04:38.100 two shillings per one hundred acres, 41 00:04:38.100 --> 00:04:41.860 the usual quit rent rate in Virginia. 42 00:04:41.860 --> 00:04:46.380 Then in the sixteen sixties the proprietary tried to double the imposed 43 00:04:46.380 --> 00:04:49.420 quit rent to one-half penny per acre, 44 00:04:49.420 --> 00:04:51.700 payable in specie. 45 00:04:51.700 --> 00:05:00.700 After vigorous protests, the proprietary in the Great Deed of 1668 retained the quit rent at the former rate. 46 00:05:00.700 --> 00:05:08.700 However, the proprietary tried again to raise the quit rent, this time to quadruple the rate to one penny per acre. 47 00:05:08.700 --> 00:05:14.700 Rumors, indeed, circulated about an eventual six pence per acre levy. 48 00:05:14.700 --> 00:05:22.700 Attempts, eventually abandoned, to enforce the quadrupled quit-rents fanned the flames of rebellion. 49 00:05:22.700 --> 00:05:30.700 To encourage settlement, the Assembly of 1669 limited land grants to 660 acres. 50 00:05:30.700 --> 00:05:36.700 But this limitation did not apply to land given out by the proprietors directly. 51 00:05:36.700 --> 00:05:43.700 Land was to be subject to forfeit, if not worked by the grantees, within six months. 52 00:05:43.700 --> 00:05:51.700 Trouble began to come to a head in Albemarle upon the passage of the Crippling Navigation Act of 1673. 53 00:05:51.700 --> 00:06:00.700 With the colonists determined to avoid payment of the tax, Governor Peter Carteret resigned and fled the colony, 54 00:06:00.700 --> 00:06:03.700 and John Jenkins remained as acting governor. 55 00:06:03.700 --> 00:06:11.700 Jenkins, a pre-charter settler of Albemarle, belonged to the poplar opposition to the proprietary rule, 56 00:06:11.700 --> 00:06:19.700 Opposition led by wealthy planter George Durant, one of the founders of the original settlement. 57 00:06:19.700 --> 00:06:27.700 Upon his assumption of office, Jenkins heroically determined not to enforce the Navigation Act upon the colony. 58 00:06:27.700 --> 00:06:34.700 In short, to occupy the post of ruler in order to diminish the extent of his rule. 59 00:06:34.700 --> 00:06:41.700 Jenkins simply ignored the order of the king to appoint collectors of customs with the duty of enforcing the hated levy. 60 00:06:41.700 --> 00:06:48.700 Finally, in two years, in 1675, the king appointed a collector for the colony. 61 00:06:48.700 --> 00:07:01.700 Until the arrival of the collector, Governor Jenkins could appoint a temporary collector, and so he chose his closest associate, Valentine Byrd, who again simply failed to enforce the law. 62 00:07:01.700 --> 00:07:08.180 The Durant-Jenkins forces, though backed strongly by the bulk of the Albemarle people, were 63 00:07:08.180 --> 00:07:14.480 opposed by a faction led by the Speaker of the Assembly, Thomas Eastchurch and by Thomas 64 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:20.740 Miller. When Eastchurch and Miller moved to appeal to England for enforcement of the Navigation 65 00:07:20.740 --> 00:07:28.500 Act, Jenkins moved swiftly to crush the counterrevolution by jailing Miller for treasonable utterances 66 00:07:28.500 --> 00:07:34.940 and dissolving the East Church controlled assembly. The assembly, however, deposed and summarily 67 00:07:34.940 --> 00:07:40.440 imprisoned Jenkins and East Church went to England to induce the proprietary to crack 68 00:07:40.440 --> 00:07:46.580 down on the rebellious and independent colony. There he was joined by Miller, freed by the 69 00:07:46.580 --> 00:07:54.060 intervention of Sir William Berkeley. Thus, when Bacon's rebellion broke out in 1676, 70 00:07:54.060 --> 00:07:59.820 Bob Amaro was fortunate enough to be without a governor and the hated Navigation Act was 71 00:07:59.820 --> 00:08:06.060 still not being enforced. This happy state was not to last for long, however, for the 72 00:08:06.060 --> 00:08:12.260 proprietors proceeded to select the two leaders of the pro-Navigation Act clique as the new 73 00:08:12.260 --> 00:08:18.660 rulers of the colony. Eastchurch as governor and Miller as secretary and collector of the 74 00:08:18.660 --> 00:08:25.940 Customs. On the way to America in 1677, the two men stopped in the West Indies. East Church 75 00:08:25.940 --> 00:08:31.800 decided to stay for a while to get married and sent Miller on to North Carolina to act 76 00:08:31.800 --> 00:08:40.240 as governor in his stead. Miller quickly proceeded to use his double power with predictable ruthlessness. 77 00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:45.300 He zealously tried to suppress the illegal tobacco trade and also to enforce the higher 78 00:08:45.300 --> 00:08:54.300 and their quitterance. In addition, Miller interfered with elections and arbitrarily set a price on the head of many prominent leaders of the province. 79 00:08:54.300 --> 00:09:07.300 On the always convenient pretext of defense against the Indians, Miller organized a military guard that terrorized Albemarle and imposed a heavy debt on the struggling colony. 80 00:09:07.300 --> 00:09:16.300 With Miller now added to the provocation of the Navigation Act and other grievances, North Carolina was truly ripe for rebellion. 81 00:09:16.300 --> 00:09:23.300 George Durant had fearlessly threatened the proprietors with revolt upon hearing of East Church's appointment. 82 00:09:23.300 --> 00:09:30.300 The revolutionary ferment was stirred further by the example of Bacon's rebellion in neighboring Virginia, 83 00:09:30.300 --> 00:09:37.580 by the influx of rebellious Baconian refugees from that colony and by the influence in Albemarle 84 00:09:37.580 --> 00:09:45.260 of former Governor William Drummond, one of the Baconian leaders. Furthermore, the popular opposition 85 00:09:45.260 --> 00:09:52.300 had another dynamic leader in John Culpepper, Surveyor General of Carolina, who had years ago 86 00:09:52.300 --> 00:09:59.180 been arrested in South Carolina for sedition and rebellion and had escaped north to avoid the hangman. 87 00:10:00.300 --> 00:10:06.100 Arriving in Albemarle, he joined Durant and the opposition and called upon the people to 88 00:10:06.100 --> 00:10:09.960 resist the enforcement of the Navigation Act. 89 00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:14.820 The revolution, in short, needed but a spark to be ignited into flame. 90 00:10:14.820 --> 00:10:22.460 It found its spark in December 1677, when a New England merchant man arrived in Albemarle 91 00:10:22.460 --> 00:10:25.020 with a cargo of supplies. 92 00:10:25.020 --> 00:10:30.100 Miller arrested the skipper, who promised to leave at once and not return. 93 00:10:30.100 --> 00:10:35.540 When the North Carolinians tried to persuade the master of the cargo to stay, Miller arrested 94 00:10:35.540 --> 00:10:39.380 the eminent George Durant on the charge of treason. 95 00:10:39.380 --> 00:10:46.120 This tyrannical act touched off the rebellion, and Culpepper, Valentine Bird, and their men 96 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:53.400 arrested the governor and his council and called free elections for a new assembly. 97 00:10:53.400 --> 00:10:59.020 The elections revealed the overwhelming popular support for the rebellion, and the newly elected 98 00:10:59.020 --> 00:11:03.980 Assembly appointed a council and chose John Culpepper as governor and collector of the 99 00:11:03.980 --> 00:11:10.340 customs. The assembly proceeded to indict Miller, appoint new justices in the colony, 100 00:11:10.340 --> 00:11:16.980 and warn East Church, hurrying to the American mainland, to stay out of Albemarle. Culpepper 101 00:11:16.980 --> 00:11:23.620 and his allies governed Albemarle for a period of two years. Culpepper justified his actions 102 00:11:23.620 --> 00:11:53.620 The New Governor was clearly in a difficult spot. With Virginia again tightly under the rule of the Berkleyan oligarchy, and with the rebellion in Maryland a failure, Culpepper's tiny colony could hardly hold out in independence indefinitely against the might of England. Culpepper could hardly take the root of ultimate independence, which Bacon had in mind. 103 00:11:53.620 --> 00:11:59.180 had begun to envision before his death. An immediate threat from Virginia loomed when 104 00:11:59.180 --> 00:12:06.260 Governor Eastchurch arrived and prepared to lead a military force against the colony. 105 00:12:06.260 --> 00:12:12.700 Eastchurch's death, however, ended that menace. Culpepper felt that he had to move quickly. 106 00:12:12.700 --> 00:12:17.380 Going to England, he pleaded his case there in conflict with Miller, who had escaped from 107 00:12:17.380 --> 00:12:23.400 prison in Albemarle. Culpepper convinced the proprietors of the rightness of his case, 108 00:12:23.400 --> 00:12:30.520 But the Crown, more sensitive to rebellion, arrested Culpepper for treason. Culpepper 109 00:12:30.520 --> 00:12:37.600 was defended by the leading Carolina proprietor, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Ashley Cooper, 110 00:12:37.600 --> 00:12:44.800 and was acquitted, but he had been permanently deposed from power. Miller was deposed and 111 00:12:44.800 --> 00:12:52.040 Durant freed by the proprietors, but the whole system against which the rebellion had protested, 112 00:12:52.040 --> 00:12:57.700 including the attempt to levy a quit rent of a penny an acre, remained intact. 113 00:12:57.700 --> 00:13:05.120 For a few years, affairs proceeded smoothly as the newly appointed governor, Seth Sothel, 114 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:11.260 who had bought the Earl of Clarendon's one-eighth share of Carolina, was captured on his way 115 00:13:11.260 --> 00:13:16.560 to America by pirates and held captive for three years. 116 00:13:16.560 --> 00:13:21.800 In the interim, the Durant party remained in control with Jenkins selected by the Council 117 00:13:21.800 --> 00:13:34.720 Attempts by Miller and his associates to stir up counter-revolution met with no success. 118 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:41.560 In 1683, however, the supposedly moderate Southall was released from captivity, and 119 00:13:41.560 --> 00:13:47.180 the North Carolinians were soon to find that if they had been chastised with whips, they 120 00:13:47.180 --> 00:13:51.200 were now to be chastised with scorpions. 121 00:13:51.200 --> 00:13:56.760 Where Sotho proceeded to terrorize and plunder the colony without mercy, one of his favorite 122 00:13:56.760 --> 00:14:03.820 devices was to seize any property that he fancied, and then to imprison any owner who 123 00:14:03.820 --> 00:14:12.280 had the temerity to object. A typical incident. When two ships arrived from the West Indies, 124 00:14:12.280 --> 00:14:19.700 Sotho seized their perfectly legitimate captains as pirates and confiscated their property. 125 00:14:19.700 --> 00:14:25.560 One of the captains died in prison from maltreatment. Before death, the captain made a will, naming 126 00:14:25.560 --> 00:14:32.220 as executor of his estate one of the leading men of the Albemarle colony, Thomas Pollock. 127 00:14:32.220 --> 00:14:38.420 Governor Sotho, however, refused to probate the will and seized the dead man's property 128 00:14:38.420 --> 00:14:44.460 himself. When Pollock threatened to tell the story to England, Sotho imprisoned Pollock 129 00:14:44.460 --> 00:14:50.380 as well. The chain of imprisonments continued to lengthen. When George Durant protested 130 00:14:50.380 --> 00:14:56.820 against proceedings as unlawful, Sotho immediately jailed Durant and confiscated his entired 131 00:14:56.820 --> 00:15:03.820 estate. Sotho withheld and pocketed the salaries of subordinate officials and accepted bribes 132 00:15:03.820 --> 00:15:11.620 from criminals. To make the cup of the Carolinians still more bitter, Virginia passed a law in 133 00:15:11.620 --> 00:15:41.620 and Prohibiting Any Importation of Carolina Tobacco. The motives for the law were twofold, to stifle the competition of Albemarle tobacco and to assert an irredentist Virginia territorial claim to sovereignty over Albemarle. This crippled Albemarle's tobacco still further and left it even more dependent on the illegal smuggling to New England. Moreover, 134 00:15:41.620 --> 00:15:47.700 The Virginians incited border Indians to make war upon the Albemarle settlers.