Historic Events of Colonial Days

by Rupert Sargent Holland

I

There was great excitement in that part of the American colony of Virginia where Edmund Porter lived. It was in the month of May, 1676, and the place was the country just below the settlement of Henricus, on the James River, as one went down-stream toward the capital city of Jamestown. The Porters had a plantation not very far from Curles, which was the name of the place where their friend Nathaniel Bacon lived; and Nathaniel Bacon seemed to be the centre of the exciting events that were taking place.

Nathaniel Bacon was a young man, of a good family in England, who had come out to Virginia with his wife, and settled at Curles on the James. He had another estate farther up the river, a place called "Bacon Quarter Branch," where his overseer and servants looked after his affairs, and to which he could easily ride in a morning from his own home, or go in his barge on the James, unless he objected to being rowed seven miles around the peninsula at Dutch Gap. He was popular with his neighbors, and seemed as quiet as any of them until trouble with the Indians in the spring of that year made him declare that he was going to see whether the governor would protect the farms along the river, and if the governor wouldn't, then he had a mind to take the matter into his own hands.

Now Edmund, who was a well-grown boy of sixteen, wanted to be wherever there was excitement, and so spent as much time as he could at Curles. He was out in the meadow back of the house, watching one of the men break in a colt, when a messenger came with news that Indians had attacked Mr. Bacon's other estate; killed his overseer and one of his servants, and were carrying fire and bloodshed along the frontier. The news spread like wild-fire, as news of Indian raids always did, for there was nothing else so fear-inspiring to the white settlers. Edmund jumped on his pony, and rode home as fast as he could to tell his father. Then father and son, each taking a gun, with powder-horn and bullet-pouch, dashed back to Nathaniel Bacon's. Other planters had already gathered there, armed and ready to ride on the track of the Indians. There was much talk and debate; some wanted to know whether Governor Berkeley, down the river at Jamestown, would send soldiers to protect the plantations farther up the James; others wondered whether the governor, who was not very prompt or ready in dealing with the Indians in this far-off part of the colony, would be willing to commission the planters to take the war into their own hands. In the midst of all the talk Bacon himself appeared, and the crowd of horsemen called on him to take command, it being known he had often said openly that he intended to protect Curles and his other farms from the redskins.

Bacon agreed to lead his neighbors, but told them he thought it would be best to send a messenger to Sir William Berkeley, and ask for the governor's commission. A man was sent at once down the river to Jamestown, and the neighbors rode home to wait for the governor's answer. Next afternoon they met again at Curles, and heard the answer Sir William Berkeley sent. It was very polite, and spoke highly of Nathaniel Bacon and his neighbors. It further said that the times were very troubled, that the governor was anxious to keep on good terms with the Indians, and was afraid that the outcome of an attack on them might be dangerous, and urged Mr. Bacon, for his own good interests, not to ride against them. He did not actually refuse the commission that Bacon had asked for, but, what amounted to the same matter, he did not send it.

The horsemen were very angry. Sir William Berkeley, a man seventy years old, and safe at Jamestown, might care little what the Indians did, but the men whose plantations were threatened cared a great deal. Again they urged Bacon to lead them, and he, nothing loath now that he had set the matter fairly before the governor, jumped into his saddle and put himself at the head of the troop. All were armed, some had fought Indians before; in those days such a ride was not uncommon. A few boys rode with their fathers, and among them Edmund Porter.

Bacon's band rode fast, and were marching through the woods of Charles City when a messenger came dashing after them. The company stopped to hear him. He said that he came from Sir William, and that Sir William ordered the band to disperse, on pain of being treated as rebels against his authority. The message made it clear that they would ride on at their peril.

This threat cooled the ardor of some, but not of many. Bacon snapped his fingers at the governor's messenger, and rode on, with fifty-seven other followers. They were not the men to leave their frontiers unguarded, no matter what Sir William might call them.

Bacon led on to the Falls, and there he found the Indians entrenched on a hill. Several white men went forward to parley, but as they advanced an Indian in ambush fired a shot at the rear of the party, and their captain gave the word to attack. Edmund and a few others formed a rear-guard by the river, while the rest waded through a stream; climbed the slope; stormed and set fire to the Indian stockade, and so blew up a great store of powder that the red men had collected. The rout of the marauding Indians was complete, and when the fighting was over one hundred and fifty of them had been killed, with only a loss of three in Bacon's party. Victory had been won, the Indians were driven back to the mountains, leaving the plantations along the James safe, for some time at least. With a train of captives, Bacon and his neighbors rode homeward. The Porters went to their plantation, and the others scattered to their houses farther down the river. Edmund and his father thought the excitement was over, and everybody in the neighborhood had only words of the highest praise for the gallant Nathaniel Bacon.

Sir William Berkeley, however, was very angry, and he was a man of his word. He had sent his messenger to say that if Bacon marched against the Indians he should consider Bacon a rebel and the men who rode with him rebels as well. He meant to be master in Virginia, and therefore as soon as the news of what was called the Battle of Bloody Run came to him he made his plans to teach all rebellious colonists a lesson. He called for a company of officers and horsemen and set out hot foot, in spite of his seventy years, to capture the upstart Bacon and make an example of him.