Rough draft: Bacon's Rebellion Essay

The Poor Get Poorer, the Rich Get Richer

One of the most intriguing years of American history was 1676. That’s right, not 1776 – which was also intriguing, to say the least – but rather 1676. In that year, Jamestown, Virginia, the first recognized American colony to be settled by Europeans, was the hub of “Bacon’s Rebellion”, a confusing series of affairs which has been scrutinized by historians ever since.

Sometimes referred to as the “Virginia Rebellion of 1676”, Bacon’s Rebellion has been tagged by some as a glorious fight against unfair taxation and tyranny, an early signal and precursor of the American Revolution which followed exactly 100 years later. More recently, others have argued that Bacon’s Rebellion was simply a power struggle between a couple of selfish, stubborn leaders, namely Governor William Berkeley and colonist Nathaniel Bacon. Probably the most common interpretation has been that the uprising was a dispute over colonial “Indian policy”. While there had been skirmishes with certain groups of native Americans, there were so many causes leading to the rebellion that it was easy for Indian policy to become a convenient scapegoat.

Virginia depended on tobacco plantations as her primary industry and source of income. Through imports and taxation, King Charles II of England also came to depend greatly on the tobacco crops. Requiring huge amounts of labor, the Virginia plantation owners depended heavily on indentured servants. Poor English immigrants were enticed to leave England with free transportation to the other side of the Atlantic, where they were promised cheap land and/or higher wages, following a period of indentured servitude in the tobacco fields.

Rarely were the promises for a richer life ever fulfilled. Most prime land was already taken by established and prosperous plantation owners. Freed servants who tried to compete by clearing and developing land on the “outskirts” usually experienced extreme physical and economic hardship, and they feared raids by threatened or angry Indians. Instead, they became hired workers or “tenant farmers” of the large plantation “proprietors”. The proprietors could afford to pay the King’s high taxes. Plantation workers and tenant farmers, however, first had to pay half their income to the proprietors, so the King’s taxes almost ate them alive, and there was nothing they could do about it.

Until 1670, all freemen were allowed to vote, but in that year, the House of Burgesses (the legislative body for Virginia) voted to allow voting only by men who owned land and were the head of a household. Nevertheless, colonists were accustomed to European monarchies; they “accepted social hierarchy and inequality as long as they believed that government officials ruled for the general good. When rulers violated that precept,” however, “ordinary people felt justified in rebelling.” (Roark, et al, The American Promise: A History of the United States, 2009)

It is generally agreed that Bacon’s Rebellion was sparked in large part because the government tried to calm disputes between Indians and colonists, instead of seeking revenge after Indian raids. Also, Bacon “urged the colonists to ‘see what spounges have suckt up the Publique Treasure.’ He charged that ‘Grandees,’ or elite planters, operated the government for their private gain, a charge that made sense to many colonists.” (Roark, p. 91)

The fact that Bacon’s charges made sense to the colonists is the point. No matter what the actual “cause” of the rebellion, it would never have gained such momentum had not the colonists empathized with Bacon’s cause. Bacon’s Rebellion was successful because there was such economic, political and social distance between Virginia’s wealthy elite and her poor.

The historian, T.H. Breen (PhD Yale, 1968), speaks of social discrimination and economic oppression in “Labor Force and Race Relations in Virginia.” (The name of the paper is self explanatory regarding content of the text.) On page 10 of the text, Breen quotes Bacon, “The poverty of the country is such that all the power and sway is got into the hands of the rich, who by extorious advantages, having the common people in their debt, have always curbed and oppressed them in all manner of wayes.” Breen proceeds to explain that “Although historians may discover the Virginian gentry was not as selfish as Bacon claimed, the leader’s class rhetoric appealed to a large number of colonists.” It is evident that Breen is giving consideration to Bacon’s thoughts, but I don’t think he is justifying Bacon’s purpose for the rebellion. I also don’t justify the rebellion by Bacon’s reasoning, but this quote, I think, isn’t exaggerated far beyond the truth.

Another Historian, Howard Zinn (PhD Columbia University, 1958), speaks about Bacon’s Rebellion within Volume One, Chapter Three of his writing “A Young People’s History of the United States.” Included in the text, Zinn writes about the distance between the rich and the poor. Zinn states,

Class lines hardened during the colonial period. The difference between rich and poor grew sharper. At the very beginning of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1630, Governor John Winthrop showed the thinking of colonial leaders when he said that “in all times some must be rich, some poore.” The leaders of the colonies were men of money and status. They wanted society in North America to mirror England, where a small number of people controlled the best land and much of the wealth.

As I read this passage, I felt it marked the genesis of a superior upper class, impervious and careless of the sufferings of lower classes. Indeed, it seems evident from Bacon that the intentions of the leaders quoted manifested themselves in future colonies.


On page 7 of “Labor Force and Race Relations in Virginia, Breen writes

Although little is known about the relative treatment of whites and blacks in Virginia before Bacon's Rebellion, it is doubtful that English servants fared better than Negroes. Evidence from Barbados at this time reveals that planters there regarded white servants as a short-term investment to be exploited ruthlessly and thus, "for the time the servants have the worser lives [than the Negroes] ,for they are put to very hard labour, ill lodging, and their dyet very sleight." If such conditions prevailed on the mainland, it would help explain why some poor and indentured whites voluntarily joined with black men to challenge the planters' authority.

In summary, T.H. Breen is suggesting that because some poor and indentured whites were treated similarly if not the same as blacks, lower class whites felt compelled to assemble with the blacks to form a larger authority in order to confront the elite planters. I interpreted this to mean that different categories of class felt compelled to congregate regardless of race. So, at this time, social discrimination seemed to exist within class.

On page 11 of “Labor Force and Race Relations in Virginia,” T.H. Breen explains the accounts of Thomas Grantham. After Bacon had died, Thomas Grantham, an English sea captain, volunteered to serve as an intermediary between Governor Berkeley and his enemies, Bacon’s followers. Governor Berkeley accepted the offer. Breen proceeds to state, “The presence of so many black rebels at West’s plantation provides evidence that many Virginians in Berkeley’s time regarded economic status, not race, as the essential social distinction. Even the gentry seems to have viewed the blacks primarily as a component of the ‘giddy multitude.’” In general, Breen is stating, based on Thomas Grantham’s witnessing, that the occurrence of mass congregation of different races within the lower class suggests that class determined social discrimination. In my perspective, this makes it evident that at this time, class discrimination was similar to racism.

It wasn’t until more slaves began to be imported into Virginia that the economy became much less dependent on indentured servants. When indentured servants were substituted for slaves, social discrimination didn’t exist as “classism”, but as racism instead. Black and white colors in the lower class no longer meshed together. Later, as slaves began to represent an independent class, the lowest class, a harsh differentiation was created between whites and blacks. Social discrimination of the poor, by the wealthy, distanced the common poor from the wealthy elite, intensifying the discontent among the impoverished at that time.


Remainder of the body, discussion and conclusion will be completed.