Berkeley’s perverseness.
Indian atrocities.
Colonel Washington’s force proved too small to hold in check the infuriated Susquehannocks, who seem to have entered into alliance with the Algonquins of the country. Soon the whole border, from the Potomac to the falls of the James, was swarming with painted barbarians, and day after day renewed the tale of burning homes and slaughtered wives and children. This sort of thing went on through the fall and winter, driving people into frenzy, but Berkeley would not call out a military force for the occasion. He insisted that it was enough to instruct the county lieutenants, each in his county, to keep his militia in readiness. It was charged against him that fear of losing his share in a very lucrative fur trade made him unwilling to engage in war with the Indians. However this may have been, the spirit of the people had become so mutinous that he was probably afraid to entrust himself to the protection of a popular militia. Whatever the motive of his conduct, its consequences were highly disastrous. On a single day in January, 1676, within a circle of ten miles’ radius, thirty-six people were murdered; and when the governor was notified, he coolly answered that “nothing could be done until the assembly’s regular meeting in March”![39] Meanwhile the work of firebrand and tomahawk went on. In Essex County (then known as Rappahannock), sixty plantations were destroyed within seventeen days. It was thought by some persons that the Indians were stimulated by reports of the fearful havoc which their brethren were making in New England, where King Philip’s war was raging. Surely the wrath of the planters must have been redoubled when they heard of the stalwart troop led by Josiah Winslow into the Narragansett country, and noted the stern vengeance it wrought there on a December day of 1675, and contrasted these things with what they saw before them. As the Charles City people afterward declared with bitterness, “we do acknowledge we were so unadvised then ... as to believe it our duty incumbent on us both by the laws of God and nature, and our duty to his sacred Majesty, notwithstanding ... Sir William Berkeley’s prohibition, ... to take up arms ... for the just defence of ourselves, wives, and children, and this his Majesty’s country.”[40] At length, in March, the Long Assembly, as people called it, which had been elected in 1661, was convened for the last time; a force of 500 men was gathered, and all things were in readiness for a campaign, when Berkeley by proclamation disbanded the little army, declaring that the frontier forts, if duly prepared and equipped, afforded all the protection the country needed. To many people this seemed to be adding insult to injury; for while no fortress could prevent the skulking approach of the enemy through the tangled wilderness, it was widely believed that the repairing of forts was simply a device for enabling the governor’s friends to embezzle the money granted for the purpose.
Nathaniel Bacon.
Drummond and Lawrence.
At this time there was a young man of eight-and-twenty living on his plantation on James River, hard by Curl’s Wharf. His name was Nathaniel Bacon, son of Thomas Bacon, of Friston Hall, Suffolk, a kinsman of the great Lord Bacon.[41] His mother was daughter of a Suffolk knight, Sir Robert Brooke. He had studied law at Gray’s Inn, and after extensive travel on the continent of Europe had come to Virginia with his young wife shortly before the beginning of these Indian troubles. His father’s cousin, Nathaniel Bacon, of King’s Creek, who had dwelt in the colony since about 1650, was a man of large wealth and influence. The abilities and character of the young Nathaniel were rated so high that he already had a seat in the council. He was clearly an impetuous youth, brave and cordial, fiery at times, and gifted with a persuasive tongue. He was in person tall and lithe, with swarthy complexion and melancholy eyes, and a somewhat lofty demeanour. One writer says that his discourse was “pestilent and prevalent logical,” and that it “tended to atheism,” which doubtless means that he criticised things freely. Two other prominent men were much of his way of thinking. One was a hard-headed and canny Scotchman, William Drummond, who had been governor of the Albemarle colony in Carolina.[42] The other was Richard Lawrence, an Oxford graduate of scholarly tastes, whom an old chronicler has labelled for posterity as “thoughtful Mr. Lawrence.” Both Drummond and Lawrence were wealthy men, and lived, it is said, in the two best built and best furnished houses in Jamestown, which, it should be remembered, had scarcely more than a score of houses all told.
Bacon’s plantation attacked, May, 1676.
He defeats the Indians.
Beside the estate where Bacon lived, he had another one farther up, on the site still marked by the name “Bacon Quarter Branch” in the suburbs of Richmond. “If the redskins meddle with me,” quoth the fiery young man, “damn my blood but I’ll harry them, commission or no commission!” One May morning in 1676 news came to Curl’s Wharf that the Indians had attacked the upper estate, and killed Bacon’s overseer and one of his servants. A crowd of armed planters on horseback assembled, and offered to march under Bacon’s lead. He made an eloquent speech, accepted the command, and sent a courier to the governor to ask for a commission. Berkeley returned an evasive answer, whereupon Bacon sent him a polite note, thanking him for the promised commission, and forthwith started on his campaign. He had not gone many miles when a proclamation from the governor overtook him, commanding the party to disperse. A few obeyed; the rest kept on their way and inflicted a severe defeat upon the Indians. Then Bacon and his volunteers marched homeward.[43]
Election of a new House of Burgesses.