WEBVTT NOTE 16. Virginia After Bacon's Rebellion 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Volume 1, Chapter 16, Virginia After Bacon's Rebellion 2 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:18.000 The crushing of Bacon's Rebellion had left Virginia itself in the control of the despotic Governor Berkeley and his Green Spring clique. 3 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:33.000 Even after Berkeley was recalled at the urging of the King's commissioners, the Green Spring oligarchy continued to rule the colony until news arrived in the fall of 1677 of Berkeley's death. 4 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:39.000 At that point, news came of the appointment of Thomas Lord Culpepper as governor. 5 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:47.000 Until his arrival, Colonel Herbert Jeffries, one of the King's commissioners, was to continue as lieutenant governor. 6 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:54.440 But Jeffreys soon fell ill, and the council, dominated by the Green Spring faction, effectively 7 00:00:54.440 --> 00:00:58.560 continued its oppressive rule of the colony. 8 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:05.560 Jeffreys died at the end of 1678 and was succeeded by Sir Henry Chicharly, who at last held 9 00:01:05.560 --> 00:01:09.120 a fair election for the assembly the following year. 10 00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:16.280 The new assembly began to institute reforms, for example, re-enacting Bacon's laws, authorizing 11 00:01:16.280 --> 00:01:21.960 the free men and housekeepers of each parish to select two men to sit with the judges in 12 00:01:21.960 --> 00:01:28.720 the county courts. But Chicharley, too, was old and sick, and reforms were therefore not 13 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:35.220 pressed forward. Finally, the king forced the reluctant Lord Culpepper to sail personally 14 00:01:35.220 --> 00:01:42.220 for Virginia or give up his governorship. And Culpepper arrived in the spring of 1680. 15 00:01:42.220 --> 00:01:48.800 One of his first acts was to urge the assembly at the king's instigation to provide a permanent 16 00:01:48.800 --> 00:01:53.540 revenue for the support of the government. But the assembly refused to turn over the 17 00:01:53.540 --> 00:01:59.500 crucial power of the purse into the hands of the royal governor. The assembly however 18 00:01:59.500 --> 00:02:05.860 finally passed the bill after considerable bullying and threats by Culpepper. The governor 19 00:02:05.860 --> 00:02:12.380 Culpepper also tried to force a fantastically uneconomic plan on agricultural Virginia, 20 00:02:12.380 --> 00:02:18.660 compelling every county to construct a town and warehouse near water and coercively restricting 21 00:02:18.660 --> 00:02:22.020 all trade in the county to that town. 22 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:28.100 Fortunately, while the assembly passed the law, the Crown realized the impracticality 23 00:02:28.100 --> 00:02:32.660 of such hothouse plans and vetoed the bill. 24 00:02:32.660 --> 00:02:36.440 However, also faced the perennial tobacco problem. 25 00:02:36.440 --> 00:02:41.420 Tobacco had been suffering grievously from two-fold government interference, a fall in 26 00:02:41.420 --> 00:02:47.540 prices due to trade restrictions imposed by the Navigation Acts, and the restrictions 27 00:02:47.540 --> 00:02:50.000 of compulsory cartels. 28 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:55.040 The restrictions raised tobacco prices, but at the expense of the more efficient farmers 29 00:02:55.040 --> 00:03:01.240 and planters, of reducing trade for all, and of greatly injuring American and European 30 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:02.240 consumers. 31 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:07.800 Moreover, the bulk of the price fall had been because of increased tobacco production. 32 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:14.760 The fact that annual tobacco output in Virginia and Maryland in the 1680s reached the 28 million 33 00:03:14.760 --> 00:03:20.800 pounds shows that, for all the complaining, tobacco was still the most profitable line 34 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:22.440 of investment. 35 00:03:22.440 --> 00:03:28.560 The repeated attempts at compulsory cartels cannot be excused on pleas of poverty. 36 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:34.360 The fact that Virginia governors repeatedly tried to force the reduction of tobacco planting 37 00:03:34.360 --> 00:03:41.280 without success demonstrates that the profitability of tobacco was enough to overcome even government 38 00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:43.960 prohibition and trade restrictions. 39 00:03:43.960 --> 00:03:51.120 Thus, in 1640, the planter-dominated government had passed a law compelling the burning of 40 00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:56.960 half the colony's tobacco crop, fixing the price of tobacco and relieving debtors from 41 00:03:56.960 --> 00:04:08.960 In 1662, Berkeley and the leading Chesapeake planters petitioned the king to outlaw all planting and shipping of tobacco during the following year. 42 00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:21.960 In response, King Charles II, following the tradition of James and Charles I, in wanting to compel a shift from tobacco planting, ordered the restriction of planting. 43 00:04:21.960 --> 00:04:34.960 Commissioners from Virginia and Maryland met in May 1663 and resolved to limit tobacco planting jointly, but though the Virginia Assembly obediently agreed, the Maryland Assembly refused. 44 00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:47.960 Undaunted, the Virginia planters managed to arrange a conference of commissioners from the three tobacco colonies, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, in the summer of 1666, 45 00:04:47.960 --> 00:05:07.960 and they agreed to outlaw all tobacco planting for the year 1667. All three assemblies then approved this plan for injuring the consumers in order to raise tobacco prices, but the colonies were saved at the last minute by the veto of Lord Baltimore of Maryland. 46 00:05:07.960 --> 00:05:21.960 Now in 1680, with tobacco crops even more bountiful, Culpeper resumed the old pressure by urging the king to prohibit all tobacco planting in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina during the following year. 47 00:05:21.960 --> 00:05:30.960 The plan for total prohibition, incidentally, would have particularly benefited tobacco speculators who had purchased the crop. 48 00:05:30.960 --> 00:05:35.960 Their accumulated stocks would benefit most from the temporary price rise. 49 00:05:35.960 --> 00:05:42.960 Most gravely injured would be the most efficient, lowest-cost planters, as well as the consumers. 50 00:05:43.960 --> 00:05:50.160 When the King did not agree to total prohibition, the big planters put on pressure for a session 51 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:57.280 of the assembly to outlaw a year's tobacco planting in Virginia alone. Crowds in each 52 00:05:57.280 --> 00:06:03.440 county led by the prominent local planters sent petitions and held meetings clamoring 53 00:06:03.440 --> 00:06:11.500 for an Assembly Session. Under this pressure, the infirm, Sir Henry Chitcherley, again acting 54 00:06:11.500 --> 00:06:17.620 governor after Culpepper had returned to England, called a special assembly session for April 55 00:06:17.620 --> 00:06:25.280 1682, but Culpepper at the last minute vetoed the session, forcing it to wait until November 56 00:06:25.280 --> 00:06:31.900 when he would be back in the colony. Deprived suddenly of their assembly session, the planters 57 00:06:31.900 --> 00:06:39.300 Cudders Rose in the Plant Cutters Rebellion Beginning in Gloucester County on May 1, gangs 58 00:06:39.300 --> 00:06:46.980 of tobacco planters and their retinues engaged in an orgy of destroying tobacco plants, obviously 59 00:06:46.980 --> 00:06:52.320 the plants of those efficient and free-spirited planters who were willing to trust their fortunes 60 00:06:52.320 --> 00:06:59.340 to the marketplace. Despite arrest and patrols by the militia, the orgy of destruction spread 61 00:06:59.340 --> 00:07:02.900 to New Kent, Middlesex and other counties. 62 00:07:02.900 --> 00:07:07.460 Lord Baltimore was moved to place armed guards along the Potomac to keep the frenzy from 63 00:07:07.460 --> 00:07:09.380 spreading to Maryland. 64 00:07:09.380 --> 00:07:14.340 The opponents of the plant, cutting, gained control of the council and charged that the 65 00:07:14.340 --> 00:07:20.660 leader of the uprising was Major Robert Beverly, Clerk of the Assembly and the leader of the 66 00:07:20.660 --> 00:07:22.580 Green Spring clique. 67 00:07:22.580 --> 00:07:28.780 They charged also and with reason that Chicharley was under Beverly's influence. 68 00:07:28.780 --> 00:07:34.020 Beverly agreed to imprison Beverly, but otherwise issued a general pardon to the criminals, 69 00:07:34.020 --> 00:07:40.760 with one exception. For his punishment, one tobacco saboteur was ordered to build a bridge, 70 00:07:40.760 --> 00:07:46.120 a bridge conveniently near Chicharly's own plantation. 71 00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:51.480 Returning to Virginia in December, Culpepper, understandably enraged at the soft treatment 72 00:07:51.480 --> 00:07:57.860 of the plant cutters, went overboard and declared that tobacco destruction was treason and thereupon 73 00:07:57.860 --> 00:08:01.860 Colpepper hanged two of the leaders as an example to the people. 74 00:08:01.860 --> 00:08:08.860 Colpepper showed good economic sense in keeping secret and thus suppressing the King's authorization 75 00:08:08.860 --> 00:08:11.660 to end tobacco planting. 76 00:08:11.660 --> 00:08:16.740 He realized that if the planting of tobacco were really excessive, the inefficient producers 77 00:08:16.740 --> 00:08:20.260 would soon shift to other industries. 78 00:08:20.260 --> 00:08:25.740 Lord Colpepper's troubles with Virginia were aggravated by his unpopularity. 79 00:08:25.740 --> 00:08:32.540 Mr. Culpepper, along with Lord Arlington, had received in 1673 the proprietary grant 80 00:08:32.540 --> 00:08:39.060 of thirty-one years of quit rents and isheets in Virginia. He had not received the right 81 00:08:39.060 --> 00:08:45.580 to govern, but his gaining of the governorship had been an attempt to enforce his feudalistic 82 00:08:45.580 --> 00:08:54.080 proprietary claims. In 1681 Culpepper bought out Lord Arlington's share, but on being ousted 83 00:08:54.080 --> 00:09:02.360 by the King in mid-1683, he was happy in 1684 to sell his proprietary rights back to the 84 00:09:02.360 --> 00:09:11.080 Crown in return for a royal pension of 600 pounds a year for 21 years. But Culpepper's 85 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:17.780 removal by no means meant the end of conflict in the colony. On the contrary, the appointment 86 00:09:17.780 --> 00:09:24.620 of the despotic Francis Lord Howard began a four-year struggle in Virginia. Howard promptly 87 00:09:24.620 --> 00:09:30.380 launched a determined drive to exalt the royal prerogative over the assembly and over the 88 00:09:30.380 --> 00:09:36.700 liberties of the Virginians. Howard demanded a law to authorize the governor and council 89 00:09:36.700 --> 00:09:43.540 to levy a high poll tax up to the sum of twenty pounds of tobacco. Such a bill would eliminate 90 00:09:43.540 --> 00:09:48.940 the need to keep returning to the assembly for annual appropriations. The Burgesses, 91 00:09:48.940 --> 00:09:55.040 however, turned down the plan. Howard also wanted to revive the compulsory town building 92 00:09:55.040 --> 00:10:01.620 plan and disclosed the King's instructions to eliminate the cherished custom of allowing 93 00:10:01.620 --> 00:10:08.380 judicial appeals from the royally appointed General Court to the General Assembly. The 94 00:10:08.380 --> 00:10:13.500 The change meant that the administration of justice was now completely under the control 95 00:10:13.500 --> 00:10:18.540 of the governor and his appointed officials, including the council. 96 00:10:18.540 --> 00:10:24.660 Furthermore, Howard, under royal instructions, demanded that the assembly repeal all permission 97 00:10:24.660 --> 00:10:31.980 granted to county courts and parish officials to make local laws, and to replace it by insisting 98 00:10:31.980 --> 00:10:36.700 that all local laws receive approval of the central government. 99 00:10:36.700 --> 00:10:46.420 The Lower House, the House of Burgesses, was understandably disturbed at this comprehensive 100 00:10:46.420 --> 00:10:53.280 assault on their and Virginia's liberties, and a general struggle ensued between Governor 101 00:10:53.280 --> 00:11:01.700 and Burgesses. Howard also refused to disclose his instructions and thus to end rule by secrecy. 102 00:11:01.700 --> 00:11:09.840 When the Catholic James II succeeded to the throne in February 1685, a new issue arose 103 00:11:09.840 --> 00:11:16.040 to exacerbate relations between Lord Howard and the people of Virginia. For Howard was 104 00:11:16.040 --> 00:11:22.080 a Catholic, and he promptly proceeded to fire several officials of the colony and replace 105 00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:29.360 them with Catholics. To suppress the groundswell of criticism, Howard forbade all seditious 106 00:11:29.360 --> 00:11:58.240 In all of this, the majority of the governor's creatures, the council, supported his actions. 107 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:03.240 Another disturbing threat facing the House of Burgesses was use of the royal veto to 108 00:12:03.240 --> 00:12:08.080 impose laws, in effect by vetoing their repeal. 109 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:13.600 The Burgesses sent a vigorous protest to the King against this practice, but the King countered 110 00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:21.140 by ordering Robert Beverly's removal as Clerk of the House of Burgesses in late 1686, transforming 111 00:12:21.140 --> 00:12:25.100 the position into one appointed by the Governor. 112 00:12:25.100 --> 00:12:31.500 Now that the main threat to Virginian liberties had become the crown and the royal prerogative, 113 00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:39.460 the displaced Greenspring clique, out of favor, shifted to take the lead of Virginians opposed 114 00:12:39.460 --> 00:12:41.980 to royal encroachments. 115 00:12:41.980 --> 00:12:48.860 The clique was now led by Robert Beverly and Philip Ludwell, and Ludwell assumed the leadership 116 00:12:48.860 --> 00:12:55.060 of the liberal, popular opposition to royal tyranny in the council. 117 00:12:55.060 --> 00:13:01.940 Woodwell was expelled from the Council by Howard in 1687, the year of Beverly's Alster. 118 00:13:01.940 --> 00:13:08.340 Howard also dismissed two other leading burgesses from all public offices. 119 00:13:08.340 --> 00:13:16.140 Lord Howard raised fierce opposition by imposing a large fee of 200 pounds of tobacco for stamping 120 00:13:16.140 --> 00:13:22.720 official papers, and by shifting payment of quit rents from tobacco to the higher-valued 121 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:23.720 sterling. 122 00:13:23.720 --> 00:13:42.720 Furthermore, Howard quarreled with the Burgesses over the military. Howard naturally advocated a bigger militia, whereas the Burgesses wanted to relieve the colonists of the oppressive tax and resource burdens of the armed forces and urged disbandment of the troops of the colony. 123 00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:55.720 Howard also struck a grievous blow at local rights and assembly powers by personally decreeing repeal of permission given local courts and officials to make their own bylaws. 124 00:13:55.720 --> 00:14:07.720 After dissolving and discuss the assembly at the end of 1686, Lord Howard determined to continue his rule while the assembly met in session as little as possible. 125 00:14:07.720 --> 00:14:19.720 In early 1688, royal orders compelled Howard to call the assembly in the spring to pass a law prohibiting the export of bulk tobacco. 126 00:14:19.720 --> 00:14:35.720 Since tobacco was exported either in bulk or in hogshead, the scheme was clearly an attempt to grant special privileges to the tobacco merchants who packed their tobacco in hogsheads by outlawing their competition. 127 00:14:35.720 --> 00:14:56.720 The Assembly was also asked to aid New York in its projected war against the French, but the Assembly courageously and defiantly refused such aid, since New York, it saw perceptively, was in no real danger, and since it steadfastly refused to levy still higher taxes upon Virginia. 128 00:14:56.720 --> 00:15:01.800 The Burgesses persisted in their refusal to bow to the royal demands. 129 00:15:01.800 --> 00:15:08.040 The House of Burgesses also rejected the King's bill to outlaw bulk tobacco exports, pointing 130 00:15:08.040 --> 00:15:14.560 out acidly and correctly that the bill was originated by London tobacco merchants and 131 00:15:14.560 --> 00:15:17.520 not even by Virginia planters. 132 00:15:17.520 --> 00:15:23.640 During the Howard administration, the Burgesses and the Virginians had lost the right to receive 133 00:15:23.640 --> 00:15:30.120 Judicial Appeals to appoint their clerk and to control certain revenues and fees, but 134 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:35.800 the fierce struggle also helped retain many liberties for Virginians and the House of 135 00:15:35.800 --> 00:15:42.600 Burgesses, especially the general taxing power. Furthermore, a host of oppressive laws were 136 00:15:42.600 --> 00:15:48.700 spurned by the independent-minded assembly. The battle between Lord Howard and the bulk 137 00:15:48.700 --> 00:15:55.720 The book of Virginians came rudely to an end with the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Howard 138 00:15:55.720 --> 00:16:02.000 happened to be in England when the news came of James II's overthrow and the president 139 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:06.300 of the council became acting governor. 140 00:16:06.300 --> 00:16:12.460 The Glorious Revolution had an unusually mild impact upon Virginia as compared with its 141 00:16:12.460 --> 00:16:27.460 Rumors fed by anti-Catholic hysteria led the people of the Northern Neck, already disgruntled from opposing the Culpepper proprietary, to take up arms in their defense. 142 00:16:27.460 --> 00:16:38.460 The new climate meant the Crown would grant a much friendlier hearing to Virginia's numerous grievances and to Virginia's agent in England, Philip Ludwell. 143 00:16:38.460 --> 00:16:51.460 Howard made a determined attempt to stay in office, but Ludwell finally prevailed and the Crown ordered the end of the hated fee of 200 pounds of tobacco for the official stamping of documents. 144 00:16:51.460 --> 00:17:02.460 Howard kept the nominal title of Governor, but Captain Francis Nicholson, lately Lieutenant Governor of New York, was sent to Virginia to rule as Lieutenant Governor. 145 00:17:02.460 --> 00:17:08.620 Governor. During the Nicholson administration of 1690 to 92, the 146 00:17:08.620 --> 00:17:13.940 governor managed to harmonize with and reconcile the opposition, although no 147 00:17:13.940 --> 00:17:19.780 fundamental reforms were passed. Increasingly coming to the fore was one 148 00:17:19.780 --> 00:17:25.020 of Virginia's most bitter grievances, the problem of land monopoly in the 149 00:17:25.020 --> 00:17:32.300 northern neck. In 1649, Charles II had arbitrarily granted the enormous tract 150 00:17:32.300 --> 00:18:02.300 of Land between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers to Lord Hopton and a group of his friends including Sir John Berkeley. Hopton's circle now had proprietary control of revenues from the area, but not of political power. In 1669, however, a renewed grant gave control of the local governmental policies at Northern Neck to the proprietors. The proprietary menace to the Northern Neck could 151 00:18:02.300 --> 00:18:09.280 L'Odwell had been ended when Lord Culpepper sold his proprietary claim to Virginia in 1684. 152 00:18:09.280 --> 00:18:18.240 But not only did the King refuse to buy the Northern Neck claim, he transformed the 31-year grant into a permanent charter. 153 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:25.240 Phillip Lodwell was not destined to remain long in his new role as champion of the liberties of the people. 154 00:18:25.240 --> 00:18:35.240 Ludwell joined the employ of Lord Culpepper as agent for managing the neck, and soon Ludwell began to appoint government officials in the neck area. 155 00:18:35.240 --> 00:18:52.240 In early 1692, Lord Howard resigned from his nominal post as governor of Virginia and was succeeded by Sir Edmund Andros, formerly head of the Dominion of New England, who now came to Virginia to assume the reins of power. 156 00:18:52.240 --> 00:19:02.240 Andros was an arch-tory, fond of the royal prerogative, and so he resumed all the oppressions and conflicts of the Howard era. 157 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:15.240 Andros insisted on a forced town and port creation program, but this and another revived bill to prohibit the export of bulk tobacco failed to pass the House of Burgesses. 158 00:19:15.240 --> 00:19:21.840 The Burgesses also refused once more to send aid to New York, pointing out incisively that 159 00:19:21.840 --> 00:19:28.080 New York was not Virginia's first line of defense and indeed that the Iroquois, staunch allies of 160 00:19:28.080 --> 00:19:35.160 New York, were a most severe threat to Virginia. Finally, however, in 1695, the Burgesses gave 161 00:19:35.160 --> 00:19:41.560 in to Andros's pressure and sent military aid to New York, paying for it by a temporary liquor 162 00:19:41.560 --> 00:19:49.480 Andros also introduced a frightening new note into his struggle with the colonists, continued 163 00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:56.080 hints that Virginia land titles were really invalid. Nothing could have been better calculated 164 00:19:56.080 --> 00:20:01.600 to inflame the opposition of the landowners. One of the most important men in Virginia 165 00:20:01.600 --> 00:20:08.640 beginning in the 1690s was the Reverend James Blair, a young Scottish Anglican who had been 166 00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:17.120 and appointed in 1689 as representative or commissary in Virginia of the Bishop of London. 167 00:20:17.120 --> 00:20:22.960 This was the first such appointment in America. Blair was instrumental in inducing the assembly 168 00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:29.280 in 1691 to create a free governmental college, the College of William and Mary, rooted in 169 00:20:29.280 --> 00:20:35.000 the Anglican faith. Money for construction was raised from the crown and the bulk of 170 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:41.520 The governing trustees were selected by the Assembly, which also paid its operating support. 171 00:20:41.520 --> 00:20:46.520 Reverend Blair received a live appointment as President from the Assembly and was so 172 00:20:46.520 --> 00:20:50.000 confirmed by the Bishop of London. 173 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:56.040 Blair combined political, ministerial and educational activities, assuming a seat in 174 00:20:56.040 --> 00:20:59.700 the Council in 1694. 175 00:20:59.700 --> 00:21:04.720 He soon broke with Andros, who was apparently not theocratic enough for the young minister, 176 00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:18.720 Blair agitated for increased support for the established Church, and King William and Queen Mary responded by asking the Assembly to pay the clergy in money or in tobacco valued at current prices. 177 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:32.720 The House of Burgesses replied tartly that the ministers were well enough paid, whereupon in mid-1696 the Anglican clergymen of the colony petitioned the Assembly for greater salaries and subsidies. 178 00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:38.720 The legislature yielded to the pressure and increased subsidies for the ministers. 179 00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:54.720 Blair's pressure finally resulted in Andros's removal in the spring of 1698 and his replacement as governor by Francis Nicholson, now returning to Virginia as full-fledged governor rather than as Culpepper's deputy. 180 00:21:54.720 --> 00:22:17.720 Nicholson effected a few badly needed reforms on royal instructions. He had the great powers of the council over the colony reduced. No longer could councillors be customs collectors, naval officers and auditors all in one, thus reducing the practice of councillors sitting in judgement on their own actions. 181 00:22:17.720 --> 00:22:30.720 Nicholson also tried to institute land reforms. During the 1680s and 1690s, land engrossing through large arbitrary land grants had grown apace. 182 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:39.720 Governor Andros, in particular, had granted large tracts to individuals by selling to individual engrossers rights to land. 183 00:22:39.720 --> 00:23:04.720 The old headright system of granting 50 acres of land to each person settled in or brought to Virginia was hardly ideal, but selling rights to 50-acre plots at one to five shillings per right completely cut the natural link between land settlement and ownership, and added to the monopolizing of unused land by speculators. 184 00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:12.720 Typical of land abuses in Virginia was the case of a large planter, William Byrd II. 185 00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:22.720 The law required a land grantee to establish at least one settler to every 100 acres of his grant within 10 years of the date of issue. 186 00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:32.720 Now this was hardly a satisfactory safeguard against land abuses since the grantee, rather than the settlers themselves, was considered the property owner. 187 00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:49.720 The settlers either were forced into a quasi-feudal subservience to the privileged grantee or else had to buy the land at prices far higher than the zero price that would have obtained without the engrossment by the government and its pet grantees. 188 00:23:49.720 --> 00:24:01.720 Of course, the settlers still had to spend money immigrating, clearing the land, and so forth, but at least no arbitrary cost would have been imposed on top of these expenses. 189 00:24:01.720 --> 00:24:16.720 Yet, despite these grave weaknesses, the law at least tried to establish some connection between land ownership and settlement, and grantees like Byrd proceeded to evade even this vague limitation. 190 00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:23.720 Thus, in 1688, William Byrd obtained a grant from the government of over 3,000 acres. 191 00:24:23.720 --> 00:24:28.440 He failed to get the land settled within the ten years, but, being head of the Virginia 192 00:24:28.440 --> 00:24:35.960 Land Office, he managed to delay forfeiting the land until 1701. At that point, Bird got 193 00:24:35.960 --> 00:24:42.440 the same tract re-granted to his close friend, Nathaniel Harrison, who soon had the land 194 00:24:42.440 --> 00:24:48.840 re-granted to Bird for another ten years' chance. An additional tract of 6,000 acres 195 00:24:48.840 --> 00:24:56.080 was secured by Byrd. Failing to settle it in time, he had it transferred to his son. 196 00:24:56.080 --> 00:25:02.400 Nicholson tried to reform these practices, but accomplished little. In his first administration 197 00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:08.080 he tried to revoke some land grants, but the council refused to cooperate. In his second 198 00:25:08.080 --> 00:25:13.320 term he prohibited the practice of gaining more head-right land by bringing in more negro 199 00:25:13.320 --> 00:25:21.320 On the other hand, far less helpful were Nicholson's attempts to enforce quit-rent payments to the Crown. 200 00:25:21.320 --> 00:25:33.320 During the Nicholson administration, Virginia changed its capital from Jamestown nearby to the newly created city of Williamsburg in the spring of 1700. 201 00:25:33.320 --> 00:25:41.480 A more lasting achievement was Nicholson's proclamation in 1703 of the English Act of 202 00:25:41.480 --> 00:25:49.280 Toleration in Virginia. Liberty of conscience for all religions was guaranteed, except for 203 00:25:49.280 --> 00:25:55.160 non-Protestants. This action guaranteed religious freedom to the new and growing dissenting 204 00:25:55.160 --> 00:26:01.920 Protestant sects in Virginia, especially Presbyterians, whose form of worship was quite close to the 205 00:26:01.920 --> 00:26:12.920 The Erasable Nicholson soon felt quarreling with the Blair faction, by now intermarried with the powerful Ludwells. 206 00:26:12.920 --> 00:26:18.920 The Blair-Ludwell clique immediately began to plot for Nicholson's recall. 207 00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:30.920 Six counselors, led by Blair, submitted such a petition to Queen Anne in 1703, accusing Nicholson of personal bullying and despotic behavior. 208 00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:46.920 But the governor took his case openly to the assembly and the public in the spring of 1705 and the majority of the House of Burgesses as well as the great majority of the Anglican clergymen of the colony came to Nicholson's defense. 209 00:26:46.920 --> 00:26:53.920 The bulk of the clergy petitioned England, denouncing Blair's attack on the governor and hailing Nicholson's administration. 210 00:26:53.920 --> 00:26:59.560 One of Blair's friends published a bitter attack on the convocation of clergymen, the 211 00:26:59.560 --> 00:27:06.320 first stanza of which pointedly declared, bless us, what dismal times are these, what 212 00:27:06.320 --> 00:27:13.440 stars are in conjunction, when priests turn sycophants to please and hare-brained passion 213 00:27:13.440 --> 00:27:17.240 to appease, dare prostitute their unction. 214 00:27:17.240 --> 00:27:47.240 Finally, in the summer of 1705, Blair succeeded and Nicholson was removed as governor. He was replaced by a new system. Appointed as governor-in-chief of Virginia was the Earl of Orkney, who remained in England for forty years, drawing a good salary for his post while taking no interest whatever in colonial affairs. As lieutenant governor, in actual charge of Virginia, the Crown appointed Major Edward Knott. 215 00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:58.240 During the short-lived Knott administration, the new governor tried once again to push through a bill forcing Virginia to build ports and to restrict all trade to them. 216 00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:10.240 The port bill was instigated by English merchants, who would have found it cheaper and more convenient to concentrate their shipments at a few ports rather than having to trade at each planter's wharf. 217 00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:18.240 The Crown, however, disallowed the bill and thus finally ended the menace of compulsory ports in Virginia. 218 00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:26.240 The Crown also became alarmed that Virginians were shifting from tobacco to cotton or wool raising and manufacturing. 219 00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:34.240 In the imperial mercantilist framework, the colonies were not supposed to compete with imperial manufacturers. 220 00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:41.240 They were supposed only to supply raw material and then purchase the finished product from the mother country. 221 00:28:41.240 --> 00:28:47.240 The Board of Trade ordered Knot to discourage any cotton planting in Virginia. 222 00:28:47.240 --> 00:28:52.240 The big dispute of the Knot administration was over the established church. 223 00:28:52.240 --> 00:28:59.240 The oligarchic council, led by Blair, was anxious to put the Anglican church on a more secure footing 224 00:28:59.240 --> 00:29:05.240 by raising ministers' salaries and securing greater tenure in office. 225 00:29:05.240 --> 00:29:12.240 Nothing was done, since the relatively liberal House of Burgesses had opposite objectives. 226 00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:19.240 One objective was to reduce the Church oligarchy by periodically dissolving the ruling bodies of the Church, 227 00:29:19.240 --> 00:29:25.240 that is, the vestries which had become self-perpetuating bodies of Church elders. 228 00:29:25.240 --> 00:29:32.080 Both parties deadlocked, and neither set of changes could pass, an impasse aggravated 229 00:29:32.080 --> 00:29:38.200 by the Anglican clergy's denunciation of the high-handed tactics of the Scott-Hireline 230 00:29:38.200 --> 00:29:40.540 Blair. 231 00:29:40.540 --> 00:29:45.760 The deadlock meant that the overwhelming majority of Anglican ministers in Virginia, those not 232 00:29:45.760 --> 00:29:51.420 officially inducted into office, held office only on the sufferance of the particular board 233 00:29:51.420 --> 00:29:53.720 of vestrymen. 234 00:29:53.720 --> 00:29:59.400 Buck died a year after his induction, and the next four years were politically uneventful, 235 00:29:59.400 --> 00:30:04.600 as the president of the council served as acting governor of the colony. 236 00:30:04.600 --> 00:30:10.320 While Virginia, in the decades after Bacon's Rebellion, increasingly settled down to a 237 00:30:10.320 --> 00:30:17.980 rather placid, oligarchic rule, one element in Virginia society persisted in being the 238 00:30:17.980 --> 00:30:21.500 reverse of placid about its condition. 239 00:30:21.500 --> 00:30:29.100 From Bacon's Rebellion to 1710, the colonies seethed with incipient and actual revolts 240 00:30:29.100 --> 00:30:36.500 by the Negro slaves. Being an oppressed minority of the populace, the slaves, in revolt by 241 00:30:36.500 --> 00:30:43.540 themselves, and lacking mass white support, could not hope to succeed, and yet they continued 242 00:30:43.540 --> 00:30:50.180 to try to break through to freedom. In the early 1680s, the Virginia legislature was 243 00:30:50.180 --> 00:30:56.900 was troubled enough to pass the Act for Preventing Negro's Insurrections. Frequent meetings 244 00:30:56.900 --> 00:31:02.900 of Negro slaves were denounced as dangerous, as conspiratorial activity abounding under 245 00:31:02.900 --> 00:31:10.380 pretext of feast and burials. Yet, despite such precautions, slave revolts broke out 246 00:31:10.380 --> 00:31:23.540 in Virginia in 1687, 1691, 1694, 1709 and 1710 as well as in other years. The 1687 uprising 247 00:31:23.540 --> 00:31:29.540 was centered in Virginia's northern neck. The plan of uprising was uncovered and the 248 00:31:29.540 --> 00:31:37.440 leaders executed. The council, as a consequence, prohibited public slave funerals, which the 249 00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:44.420 The rebels had used as their meeting ground, but this did not prevent the uprising of 1691, 250 00:31:44.420 --> 00:31:50.360 in which the slave Mingo, having escaped his master in Middlesex County, gathered a guerrilla 251 00:31:50.360 --> 00:31:56.280 band and attacked plantations, especially in Rappahannock County. 252 00:31:56.280 --> 00:32:03.640 By 1694, Governor Andros condemned the lack of enforcement of anti-slave rebellion legislation, 253 00:32:03.640 --> 00:32:33.640 As Negro slaves increased in number after the turn of the century, threats of slave rebellion grew correspondingly. Early in 1709, a plot for rebellion by both Negro and Indian slaves in Surrey, James City, and Isle of Wight, Counties, was uncovered. The Court of the United States of America, the United States of America, and the United States of America, and the United States of America, and the United States of America, 254 00:32:33.640 --> 00:32:39.040 The revolt inquiry found that the late dangerous conspiracy was formed and carried on by great 255 00:32:39.040 --> 00:32:45.880 numbers of Negroes and Indian slaves for making their escape by force from the service of 256 00:32:45.880 --> 00:32:53.640 their masters and for the destroying and cutting off such as should oppose their design. 257 00:32:53.640 --> 00:33:02.140 The revolt conspiracy was led by four slaves, Scipio, Peter, Salvador and Tom Shaw. 258 00:33:02.140 --> 00:33:07.940 The following year a slave revolt planned for Easter in Surrey and James City Counties was 259 00:33:07.940 --> 00:33:14.180 betrayed by the slave Will, whose freedom was purchased by the Virginia legislature as 260 00:33:14.180 --> 00:33:20.160 a reward of his fidelity and for encouragement of such services. 261 00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:25.620 It was ironic that the informers should be rewarded with the very goal that the rebels 262 00:33:25.620 --> 00:33:30.000 were desperately trying to achieve, freedom. 263 00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:36.000 The two main rebel leaders were duly executed, said Lieutenant Governor Jennings, to strike 264 00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:42.880 such terror in the other Negroes as will keep them from forming such designs in the future.