Bacon's Rebellion, 1676

by Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

It was soon after the Restoration that the people of Virginia learned that "all the lands and water lying between Potomac and Rappahannock, together with all the royalties belonging thereto," had been granted to Lord Hopton and several other noblemen. In alarm they appealed "for relief" to the King, and were greatly relieved when the grant was recalled. And though another patent was issued, it contained reservations to protect "the rights, privileges, and properties of the inhabitants." But their joy was tempered by a provision giving the patentees the quit rents with eleven years arrears. This would be more than the entire value of many men's estates, it was complained.

So they employed agents to plead their cause in London. In the meanwhile the patent had been assigned to the Earl of St. Albans, Lord John Berkeley, Sir William Moreton, and John Trethney. When the agents proposed that they surrender their rights in return for a large sum of money to be raised by taxing the people of the colony, most of them agreed. But at this point the King issued a patent to the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpeper, "which not only included the lands formerly granted ... but all the rest of the colony." The Virginians were in despair. The two lords were to have many powers rightly belonging to the government. They were to pocket all escheats, quit rents, and duties belonging to the Crown; they had the power to create new counties and parishes, to issue patents for land; they could appoint sheriffs, surveyors, and other officers, and induct ministers. The Assembly complained that this nullified all previous charters and promises and made the people subjects to their fellow subjects.

So negotiations had to begin again. In the end Arlington and Culpeper agreed to give up their patent in return for a new one for the Northern Neck assuring them the quit rents and escheated property. Having gained this concession the agents then pleaded for a charter for the colony guaranteeing the liberties of the colonists. In it there were to be promises that they should continue to have their immediate dependence on the Crown, and that no tax should be laid upon them but by the consent of the Assembly. The King in Council assented to the charter, and twice it reached the Great Seal. But there it was held up. In the meanwhile news came of Bacon's Rebellion, and the King reversed his order. Later he did grant letters patent, but they contained little more than the promise that the colony should be directly dependent on the Crown.

This whole affair caused universal resentment in the colony, and the expense of the negotiations in England made the people "desperately uneasy." Berkeley reported that "the two great taxes of sixty pounds per poll to buy in the Northern patent made those that thought they were not concerned in it ripe for mutiny." The agents, too, warned that the Arlington and Culpeper grant might cause the common people to rise in arms and perhaps bring about "the utter dispersion" of the planters.

With the staple crop of the colony a drug on the market because of the Navigation Acts, with tax piled on tax to buy back the liberties of the people from favorites of the King, with self-government made a mockery by the corrupting of the Burgesses, with the small farmers in rags, the people were ready to rise in arms at the least excuse. Before young Nathaniel Bacon set foot on Virginia soil Berkeley and his henchmen were trembling in their boots. The governor thought that if an opportunity offered itself the planters might go over to the Dutch "in hopes of bettering their condition by sharing the plunder of the country with them."

Into this mass of dynamite an Indian war threw a torch. The resulting explosion was Bacon's Rebellion.

In 1674 two mutinies had failed, it was said because the people, after assembling in arms, could not find a leader. Two years later, when again angry men gathered, they found their leader in Bacon. This young man was the son of Thomas Bacon, a wealthy English squire. At an early age he entered St. Catherine's Hall, Cambridge, as a fellow-commoner. There he seems to have idled away his time, and when he "broke into some extravagances" his father withdrew him. This apparent misfortune was turned to good effect when his father secured for him as tutor the great naturalist, John Ray. Ray found Nathaniel a lad of "very good parts and a quick wit," but "impatient of labor." When he was sixteen he accompanied Ray on a tour of Europe. On his return he re-entered Cambridge and later studied at Gray's Inn.

In 1670 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward Duke. Her father had positively forbidden the match, and when she disobeyed him cut her off without one groat. But Thomas Bacon, and after Sir Edward's death, her brother John, made ample provision for the young couple. All would have been well had not Nathaniel been tricked by two sharpers in a deal with a guileless youth named Jason, and left with a long and tedious lawsuit.

It was at this juncture that he decided to seek his fortune in Virginia. There he might hope for quick advancement, because his cousin, also named Nathaniel Bacon, had attained a position of influence, and because he was related to Lady Berkeley, wife of the governor. Upon the advice of his grandmother, Lady Brooke, he left his wife behind until he had prepared a place for her "answerable to her quality." Upon his arrival in Virginia he was welcomed by Sir William, and it was at his advice "or at least friendly approbation" that he purchased a plantation at Curles Neck, on the James, forty miles above Jamestown, and a tract of land at the site of Richmond, on what was then the frontier. "When first I designed Virginia my chiefest aims were a further inquiry into those western parts in order to which I chose to seat myself so remote," he said, "I having always been delighted in solitude."

Bacon had been in Virginia but a few months when the governor appointed him to the Council of State. This seemed a great honor indeed for a young man of twenty-eight. But Berkeley explained: "Gentlemen of your quality come very rarely into this country, and therefore when they do come are used by me with all respect." Bacon was greatly surprised. "As to anything of public employment in the country, my tender age and manner of living, not free from follies and youthful excesses, forbad me to hope or expect any such thing.... This sudden change were enough to stagger a philosopher of more settled temper than I am."