Bacon's Rebellion, 1676

by Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

By this time anyone less stubborn and arbitrary than Berkeley would have learned his lesson. On June 12, when Bacon was still in the governor's power, Philip Ludwell wrote his brother: "It now looks like general ruin for the country.... The governor seems determined to leave for England.... If he does he leaves a lost country." Had he given Bacon a commission to fight the Indians and permitted the Assembly to carry out adequate reforms in the government, the people might have been satisfied. But when the Assembly met things seemed to be going in the old way.

If we are to understand the transactions of this historic Assembly it is necessary to divide the session into two parts, the part when Berkeley had Bacon in his power, and the part when Bacon had escaped and was once more at the head of his army. During the first part Berkeley seems to have dominated the Assembly despite the pro-Bacon majority, during the second part the threat of coercion by Bacon's angry frontiersmen undoubtedly affected all legislation. Without this division many of the known facts seem incongruous and conflicting; with it they fit together like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle.

At the opening of the session "some gentlemen took this opportunity to endeavor the redressing several grievances the country then labored under," and a committee was about to be named for this purpose when they "were interrupted by pressing messages from the governor to meddle with nothing until the Indian business was dispatched." So the matter of grievances was sidetracked.

Then followed a heated debate on whether the House would ask that two Councillors sit with the committee on Indian Affairs. In the end "this was huddled off without coming to a vote, and so the committee must submit to be overawed, and have every carped at expression carried straight to the governor."

And the governor, closing his eyes to the fact that the Pamunkeys hated the English and were sullen and resentful, insisted that they return to their towns and join in the defence of the colony. So their queen was brought in and asked how many men she would furnish. In reply she reproached the English for not giving her people compensation for their aid in a former war in which her husband had been killed. In the end she promised twelve men, but it must have been obvious to all that she and they were not to be trusted. When she had gone the committee proceeded with their plans for prosecuting the war. Some of the forts were to be abandoned and their garrisons distributed among fourteen frontier plantations, and an army of 1,000 men was to be raised and sent out against the enemy.

Bacon was a discontented spectator of these proceedings. The governor was as overbearing as ever, the Burgesses were overawed, the plans for reform were set aside, the Indian war was mismanaged. He must have been disgusted that the Burgesses were too cowardly to vote down a resolution requesting the governor not to resign. The Assembly did not prove "answerable to our expectations", he said later, for which he thought they should be censured. So, telling Berkeley that his wife was ill, he got permission to visit her. No sooner had he gone than the governor heard that he intended to place himself once more at the head of his volunteer army. In desperate haste horsemen galloped off to intercept him. But they were too late. Bacon had made good his escape.

In Henrico angry men gathered around him. And when he told them that the governor had not given him a commission and that he still persisted in carrying out essentially the old plan for the war, they were furious. In Bacon's absence the Indians had renewed their raids, and had wiped out many whole families. The frontiersmen vowed that they would have a commission or they would march on Jamestown and "pull down the town."

So off they went, some mounted, others on foot. There was talk of sharing the estates of the rich, of making Lady Berkeley discard her fine gowns for "canvas linen," of ending all taxes. "Thus the raging torrent came down to town."

When the governor heard that they were coming he made desperate efforts to gather a force to resist them. But it was too late. It was rumored that Bacon had threatened that if a gun was fired at his men he would "kill and destroy all." Since resistance was useless, Berkeley threw the guns from their carriages and waited for Bacon's arrival.

So the motley band came streaming into town. "Now tag, rag and bobtail carry a high hand." Bacon drew up a double line before the State House and demanded that some members of the Council come out to confer with him. When Colonel Spencer and Colonel Cole appeared he told them he had come for a commission. Then he said that the people would not submit to taxes to pay for the proposed new army. And his men shouted: "No levies! No levies!"