Nathaniel Bacon's Life After A Scandal In England

On 22 April 1677 Charles II’s commissioners, Sir John Berry, Colonel Herbert Jeffreys and Francis Moryson, visited the colony’s governor, Sir William Berkeley, and his wife, Frances, at Green Spring House. The three men had been sent to Virginia with a large armed force to suppress Bacon’s Rebellion and discover its causes by hearing the people’s grievances. The commissioners’ purpose was to bid farewell to the governor, whom the king had summoned to England. Colonel Jeffreys, who commanded the English troops, was designated to replace Berkeley during the latter’s absence. However, Berkeley was old and frail and unlikely to return to the colonyOn 22 April 1677 Charles II’s commissioners, Sir John Berry, Colonel Herbert Jeffreys and Francis

Bacon’s followers into rebellion. Frances Berkeley’s statement was witnessed and signed by Sir William, Sir Henry Chicheley, a member of the Council of State, the Reverend John Clough, rector of James City Parish, and Captain James Crews. The latter’s presence at Green Spring is puzzling.19 Crews had urged Bacon to take the illegal action of leading armed men against the Indians without a commission from Berkeley. He was executed at Green Spring in January 1677 for his part in the rebellion. Crews may have visited the Berkeleys after his election to the June Assembly, 1676, perhaps to try and bring about some resolution of the struggle between Berkeley and Bacon.

Bacon’s Rebellion was a historical event that demonstrated Nathaniel Bacon being a hero and left many short and long-term effects on the nation. Bacon’s rebellion happened in 1676 in Virginia in a time of unrest between the colonists and the Native Americans that lived there. Bacon rebellion was between Nathaniel Bacon and Governor William Berkeley. As stated in Bacon’s Rebellion by Jill Kauffman, it was over the “Indian policy on the colony’s frontier.” (1) Bacon had many reasons to lead a rebellion against Governor William Berkeley.

In 1676, almost a hundred years prior to the revolution, the farmers gathered and attacked the Indians. Consequently, this lead to the farmers rebellion against the colony, the farmers believed that the governor wasn't trying to protect the people of the colony, the government was betraying its peoples trust. As a result, Bacon and his followers raided

The Revolutionary War had a greater impact on American history. Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 was due to a dispute between Native Americans and former Indentured Slaves. These Slaves worked for seven years and were released to start a new life. But they started pushing into Native American territory.

Bacon’s Rebellion is well known to students of colonial America, although no-one has succeeded in writing a convincing account of it. The first question historians asked was who was responsible for the widespread anarchy that followed the breakdown of government authority in the colony between 1676 and 1677. One historian attributes the rebellion to Nathaniel Bacon, and describes Governor Berkeley as a man doing his best to implement sensible policies. Another sees the Rebellion as prefiguring the American Revolution, with Bacon as an early George Washington, already defying British authority.

In the 17th century Jamestown was the capital of Virginia. The Governor Sir William Berkley, welcomed his cousin by marriage Nathaniel Bacon who was sent to Virginia in hopes he would “mature”. (nps.gov, n.d.) Problems began to arise for the Virginia colony from economic downfalls and Mother Nature’s ugly side. Bacon began developing a rebellious group accusing Governor Berkley of siding with Indian’s against the goodwill of the colony.

Nathaniel Bacon is one of the few rebellious people whose name has been taught from school to school in America. “Why is that?” , you may ask, “Why him? Why is his rebellion significant in American history?”. Bacon’s rebellion used to be seen as the start of the American Revolution, but now, modern historians have uncovered the truth of the Virginian Rebellion of 1676.

At the dawn of the 1770s, American colonial resentment of the British Parliament in London had been steadily increasing for some time. Retaliating in 1766, Parliament issued the Declaratory Act which repealed most taxes except issued a reinforcement of Parliament’s supremacy. In a fascinating exchange, we see that the Parliament identifies and responds to the colonists main claim; Parliament had no right to directly tax colonists who had no representation in Parliament itself. By asserting Parliamentary supremacy while simultaneously repealing the Stamp Act and scaling back the Sugar Act, Parliament essentially established the hill it would die on, that being its legitimacy. With the stage set for colonial conflict in the 1770s, all but one

Many of the reasons the American colonies believed they were justified in their rebellion from England lay in trade and taxes. When George III inherited the throne at the end of the Seven Years’ War England’s debt had risen to 145 million pounds and his chief minister believed that the American colonies needed to help shoulder the debt. (Nash, et al., 2007. , p. 134) In attempting to collect these taxes from the colonies to relieve the mounting debt Parliament passed a range of acts, which led to discontent among the colonists as many of them restricted trade, their political maneuverability and left many believing they infringed upon their “right to be taxed only by their own consent.”

In Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Conspiracies of 1800 & 1802, Douglas R. Egerton examines the events that led Gabriel to form his emancipation plan, and the subsequent aftermath that resulted. Through the use of a variety of primary sources—most notably trial records—Egerton paints an extensive and well written narrative. His account stretches from the American Revolution and the promise of freedom, to the end of the 1802 conspiracy and the Virginia Assembly’s bitter intentions to curtail the possibility of future rebellions. Yet, Egerton includes a wide assortment of asides, different characters, background information, and quotes that blend together to form a cohesive story. Through this book, Egerton argues that Gabriel, and consequently

Forced Founder’s, written by Woody Holton, sheds new light on one of the best-known events in American History. Holton challenges the traditional narrative of the great land-owning elite leading the revolutionary war. He does not believe it was one single factor but in fact, a web of influences that pushed Virginia into the war of independence. Holton’s main argument consists of the idea that the Indians, merchants, slaves, and debtors helped propel free Virginians into the independence movement. Virginia’s gentry were joining their peers in declaring independence from Britain in response to grassroots rebellions against their own rule.

King Philips War was strictly the English settlers clashing with the Indians throughout New England over the expansion of the English in the Indians land. During Bacon’s Rebellion, Bacon was labeled a rebel by the Governor and other wealthy government officials, which lead to Bacon and his men fighting the Indians as pay back over the Indian raids and fighting against the government over disagreements about land distribution and the lack of protection provided against the

Nathaniel Bacon lead a failed rebellion to take the not only more Indian land for farming, but also the colonies due to rising anger amidst yeomen farmers due to rising prices on tobacco, Indian raids, and political reforms brought upon by Governor William Berkley. 4. The Puritan Exodus was when the Pilgrims, who were in fact Puritan Separatists, sailed to the New World for religious freedom, where they landed in Massachusetts Bay, which was governed by the Mayflower Compact and founded by John Winthrop, a Pilgrim who envisioned a perfect city on a

Evaluation of The Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson’s The Declaration of Independence is a significantly important and well presented argument as to why the colonies should not be under the ruler of King George III of England. Jefferson provides a clearly laid out yet strongly worded reason using basic syllogisms which lead any reader into believing the argument provided. The rhetoric used outlines the deistic nature of the writers, the overarching theme of equality through parallelism, and especially the that it is not a “revolt” or “rebellion” against England but rather a natural order that requires the colonies to become an independent nation.