This appeared a reasonably satisfactory compromise of the controversy to both sides. But suddenly in February, 1673, Charles made a grant of all Virginia to the Earl of Arlington and Lord Colepeper to hold for thirty-one years at an annual rent of forty shillings to be paid at Michaelmas. Thus was Virginia rewarded for her faithful loyalty to the Stuarts. When the news came to Jamestown the Colony flamed with resentment and anger; and now Berkeley and his Council were in hearty accord with the wrathful indignation of the Colonists. Even though the King had not intended to interfere with the title of individual planters in possession of their land, his action threw the whole situation, and particularly in the Northern Neck, into turmoil and confusion. Exasperation was directed against the holders of the Charter of 1669 as well as those of 1673 and again the original patentees appealed to the Privy Council for relief. Again the King sought to help them but by this time they had grown weary of the long controversy and indicated their willingness to sell out their rights to the Colony; before an agreement could be reached, Bacon's Rebellion flared up and the whole subject was again in abeyance.
We must now return to the Indians. The Dutch settlements along the Hudson had early developed a very lucrative and active trade with their native neighbours, particularly the Iroquois, who brought to them furs for which they were given European manufactures, especially spirits and firearms and when, in 1664, the English conquered and took possession of these Hudson settlements, they continued the Dutch trade and friendship with the Iroquois. To obtain furs, the hunters and warriors of the Five Nations ranged further and further afield and before long were in bitter conflict with the Susquehannocks who had their headquarters and principal stronghold fifty or sixty miles above the present Port Deposit in Maryland on the east bank of that river from which they derived their name. They were mighty men and warriors, these Susquehannocks. All the early English who mention them pay tribute to their splendid strength and stature. Smith who, it will be remembered, came in contact with them before his skirmish with the Manahoacs, said of them that "such great and well proportioned men are seldom seen, for they seem like giants to the English, yea to their neighbours." And in 1666 Alsop wrote that the Christian inhabitants of Maryland regarded them as "the most noble and heroic nation of Indians that dwelt upon the confines of America.... Men, women and children both summer and winter went practically naked," and adds, among other details, that they painted their faces in red, green, white and black stripes; that the hair of their heads was black, long and coarse but that the hair growing on other parts of their bodies was removed by pulling it out hair by hair; and that some tattooed their bodies, breasts and arms with outlines. Our American soil, from the beginning, appears to have favoured the art of the barber and beauty-shop.
From the English in Maryland these Susquehannocks acquired guns and ammunition and thus were able to hold their own with their Iroquois foe for over twenty years of the harshest warfare. But the Iroquois were relentless and though repulsed again and again, returned year after year to the attack. The Susquehannocks finally weakened by an epidemic of smallpox, were overcome, the Iroquois captured their main stronghold and completely overthrew their power. Fugitive bands of Susquehannocks, nominally friendly to the English of Maryland and Virginia, then roamed the western frontiers of those colonies and along both banks of the Potomac, still harassed by pursuing bands of Senecas.
Under such conditions it was not long before they came in open conflict with the English settlers, some say through Indian thefts, others because the English attacked a party of them, mistaking them for pilfering Algonquin Doegs. The fighting, once begun, spread rapidly and the settlers on their exposed frontiers, denied practical assistance by the Virginia Governor Berkeley and his colleagues (whom rumor said were making such substantial profits from the Indian trade that they were loath to antagonize the Indians by sending organized forces against them) turned for leadership to Nathaniel Bacon, a young planter of gentle birth, not long come out from England. Bacon was a natural leader, their cause was popular and soon Virginia found herself in the midst of an Indian war and a rebellion against the Jamestown government as well. Bacon led his men to victory over both Indians and Governor but suddenly dying from a dysentery or from poison—to this day the cause of his death is surrounded by uncertainty—the "rebellion collapsed with surprising suddenness," his former followers were overcome by the Governor with the aid of English troops and Berkeley proceeded to wreak a vindictive and merciless revenge.
Meanwhile knowledge of the turmoil had reached England and the King sent Commissioners to Virginia to investigate the causes of the trouble and Berkeley's wholesale executions and confiscations of estates. These men made a fair report of their findings to the King, which, added to the many complaints from the families of Berkeley's victims, caused Charles to exclaim: "As I live, that old fool has taken more lives in that naked country than I have done for the murder of my father." In the spring of 1677 the royal order for Berkeley's removal arrived and he sailed for England in an attempt to justify himself in an audience with Charles, his departure being "joyfully celebrated with bonfires and salutes of the cannon" by the Virginians. But in England he found that the King, resentful at his abuse of power, avoided meeting him and in July the old man fell ill and died, his end hastened, it is said, by his vexation and chagrin over the King's attitude.
Upon the death of Berkeley, the King appointed Lord Colepeper Governor of Virginia. As he was not ready nor, possibly, inclined to go immediately to his post, the King issued a special commission to Sir Herbert Jeffries, who had been one of his emissaries to investigate Berkeley, as Lieutenant Governor in immediate charge of affairs. Jeffries ruled until his death in 1678 when he was succeeded by Sir Henry Chicheley as Deputy Governor under an old Commission issued to him as early as 1674. Colepeper did not personally take charge on Virginia's soil until 1680, and then but for a brief period, soon returning to England and remaining there over two years. It was not until December, 1682, that we again find him in Virginia.
Colepeper, it will be remembered, was not only by inheritance a part owner of the patents of 1649 and 1669 to the Northern Neck but he was coproprietor with Arlington under the grant of 1673 of all Virginia and now in his own person Governor of the Colony as well. For good measure, his cousin, Alexander Colepeper, was also an owner by inheritance of a share in the grants of 1649 and 1669. It was apparent that he was in a position at long last to turn his Virginia interests to account; but in doing so he sought to make the new dispensation as personally profitable to his rapacious self as possible. Therefore he opened negotiations with his old associates, by 1681 had succeeded in buying most of them out, and declared himself sole owner of all these grants, although his cousin still owned his one-sixth interest. But the King had become annoyed at his conduct and the stories of his rapacity and, seeking an opportunity to punish him, seized upon the pretext that he had been absent from his post without leave. On this charge he, in 1682, was deprived of his office as Governor. Two years later (1684) Colepeper sold out his rights under the so-called Arlington Charter of 1673 to the English Crown for a pension of £600 a year for twenty-one years. He tried also to sell to Virginia his rights to the Northern Neck under the Charter of 1669, but in that transaction he was unsuccessful. A curiously ironic fate seemed intent upon keeping the Northern Neck Proprietary, reward of Cavalier loyalty and devotion, as an inheritance for the still unborn sixth Lord Fairfax, scion and representative of the family of two of the most able of the Parliamentary leaders.
Although Bacon and his men, when they took the field in 1676, had thoroughly disciplined the Indians in Virginia, the Iroquois and the Susquehannocks still entered Piedmont and roamed its forests. The Iroquois are believed to have driven out the Manahoacs and their kinsmen prior to 1670 and certainly claimed their lands by conquest; not coveting them for settlement but for hunting and particularly for such furs as they could trap and collect in a land plentiful of beaver and otter. The Virginians built forts at the navigation heads of the great rivers for the protection of settlers; but the northern Indians passed beyond and between them and not only attacked the tributary Virginia Algonquin tribes, from time to time, but were frequently in conflict with the English as well. Lord Howard of Effingham, successor to Colepeper as Governor, met Governor Dongan of New York in July, 1684, and with him closed a treaty with the Iroquois whereby the latter were to call out of Virginia and Maryland "all their young braves who had been sent thither for war; they were to observe profound peace with the friendly Indians; they were to make no incursions upon the whites in either state; and when they marched southward they were not to approach near to the heads of the great rivers on which plantations had been made."[3] But the treaty also contained a provision that the Iroquois, when in Virginia, should "Keep at the Foot of the Mountains" which seemed to acknowledge their right to be there and so continued the Indian menace to such settlers as pushed into Piedmont. Nevertheless the frontier forts of the Virginians were allowed to fall into disuse, the Colony depending on companies of armed and mounted rangers to patrol the back country and keep the Indians in order, and there seemed some prospect of peace though the outlying plantations, long keyed up to Indian alarms, remained alert and watchful. However for awhile there was less Indian trouble in the upper country and then a new alarm occurred, resulting in the first recorded exploration of the present Loudoun.