Portfolio: Essay 1 (Bacon's Rebellion)

-----This year’s presidential election has been full of negative advertisements, advertisements intended to tarnish the other candidate’s reputation and image with the people of America. This is in no way a new or unique occurrence in history. In fact, it was going on even before America gained its freedom from England, some one hundred years before. At the time, two men were doing everything they could to accomplish what they desired. They were named Nathaniel Bacon Jr., who was a wealth plantation owner, and William Berkeley, the corrupt governor of the Chesapeake colony. They named each other traitors to England in attempts to get the populace of the Chesapeake Bay colony behind their policies on things such as taxes and prevention/retaliation against the Native American raids on the colonists settlements, much as current politicians attempt to discredit their opponent by commenting on all the negative things they have done, but with a much bloodier conclusion. Their “disagreement” came to be known as Bacon’s Rebellion. When most people look back at Bacon’s Rebellion, they seem to feel the need to victimize one of these men, and place all the blame for the event on the other. I, however, feel that both Nathaniel Bacon and William Berkeley were equally responsible for inciting and prolonging their brutal and violent war.
-----One example of someone who has chosen a side in the argument is Howard Zinn. In his book A Young People’s History of the United States: Volume One Columbus to the Spanish-American War, he says that “The frontiersmen felt that the colonial government had let them down. They were angry, and they weren’t the only ones. Times were hard. Many Virginians scraped out a living in poverty or worked as servants in terrible conditions. In 1676, these unhappy Virginians found a leader in Nathaniel Bacon”, painting Bacon as a savior of the people, but ignoring the fact that through his leadership, many friendly Indian tribes were decimated by the settlers. I believe that a more apt description of Bacon can be found in an excerpt from A True Narrative of the Late Rebellion in Virginia, by the Royal Commissioners, 1677, “[Nathanial Bacon was] of a most imperious and dangerous hidden Pride of heart, despising the wisest of his neighbors for their Ignorance and very ambitious and arrogant…For he pretended and boasted what great Service he would do for the country, in destroying the Common Enemy [The Indians]”, and http://www.answers.com/topic/nathaniel-bacon provides us with a quote from a contemporary of Bacon, who said that he was a, “blackhair'd and of an ominous, pensive melancholy Aspect … not much given to talk, … of a most imperious and dangerous Pride of heart, despising the wiser of his neighbours for their Ignorance, and very ambitious and arrogant”. These two different persons both pointed out that Bacon was not someone who was truly a capable leader who would have the best intentions of the people at heart. Instead it colors Bacon as someone who is dangerous and more than willing to trick the people of Virginia into doing his will.
-----Yet another reason that I have a difficult time taking Bacon’s side in any sort of historical analysis of Bacon’s Rebellion is that although many people attempt to portray him as the people’s man, someone who had grown up in the same poverty and faced the same unjust taxation, he was not. He had been born in England, and his father was a wealthy land owner, and he later married Elizabeth Duke, against her father’s wishes (which just further points out how disagreeable a person Bacon was), which would settle down most men into the role of the caring and homebound husband. Not Bacon. Instead he became involved in a scheme to defraud an acquaintance of his, and was caught. Bacon’s father was not in any way happy with his son’s illegal activities, and arranged to have him sent to the Chesapeake colony, I would assume in an attempt to restore his families honor. Now, one could make the assumption here that on Bacon’s arrival in Virginia he could have been poor. Once again however, this was not the case. As it turned out, William Berkeley was a distant relative of Bacon, and was more than willing to help his distant cousin out. He helped Bacon buy two plots of land with the substantial sum of money Bacon’s father had given him, and offered him a share in the trade with the Indians. So obviously, Bacon had no financial motives for rebellion, but why then did he choose to wage a war against the Native Americans and William Berkeley? Well, the short answer is for vengeance. During a Native American raid on his plantation, Bacon’s friend and overseer of labor was killed. I can bring myself to understand his anger at this, but his next couple actions baffle me. He sent a request to Berkeley for a military commission to form an army and attack the Native Americans. Not just the tribe that attacked his plantation, but all of the natives. In his arrogance he did not even wait for Berkeley’s reply to build his army and set out on his spree of pillaging and slaughtering of the Indians. I can’t understand why he did not even wait for a reply, or for that matter limit his request, and thus increase his chances of having it approved, to just the tribe that attacked him. All in all, Bacon simply showed more and more through his actions that he was not a fit leader for the people of Chesapeake. He was just a man who refused to allow other people to govern him, a man led only by his own desires.
-----On the other side of the table, there are those who feel that William Berkeley was in the right, and had only the best interests of the colonists in mind. An example of this type of opinion can be shown in The American Promise, page 91 (which just goes to show that even sources that intended to be neutral seem to choose a side on this topic), when they say that Berkeley was “Hoping to maintain the fragile peace on the frontier in 1676, Governor Berkeley pronounced Bacon a rebel, threatened to punish him for treason, and called for new elections of burgesses who, Berkeley believed would endorse his get-tough policy”. The key phrase here is “Hoping to maintain the fragile peace”, because although this was indeed his objective, it neglects to mention his ulterior motives. Berkeley wanted to have peace with the Native Americans because he had a monopoly on all trading done with them. Those he allowed to trade with them had to pay a tax of every 3rd fox or beaver pelt that they traded for, thus his main reason for not wanting war with the Indians or Bacon was that he would take a hit to his wallet, so instead of allowing Bacon his commission to attack the Indians, he denied the request. Then, upon hearing of Bacon’s continuing with his march against orders, he proclaimed Bacon a traitor and demanded that he turn himself in. This was a stupid decision on Berkeley’s part. All he had to do was demand that Bacon cease his attack on the Indians, and promise to launch an investigation on the attack. This would, I think, have appeased not only Bacon, but also the rest of the colonists, as they would see that the government was taking a proactive stand in defending them.
-----Somewhat surprisingly, Bacon was arrested and put on trial. He was found guilty of being a traitor, but instead of being put to death, he experienced no real punishment, as an army of angry farmers went to Jamestown to demand Bacon’s release. Intimidated, Berkeley held a reelection of officials, in an attempt to re-solidify his power. In a huge upset however, Bacon was voted into the seat of governor, and many of the rich plantation owners were also replaced by less wealthy farmers. After this, Bacon did something that I consider his one redeeming act of his campaign. He enacted a series of laws, later known as Bacon’s Laws, which put restrictions on people having multiple offices in the government, and made it illegal for officeholders to demand bribes to do their jobs, among other things. Although Bacon did do a great thing with the enactment of these laws, he ruined just a little later by stepping away from his seat of governorship to resume his attack on the natives.
-----Bacon’s Rebellion, when boiled down, was a war between two people who could not agree on the correct course of action. Because of this disagreement, hundreds of people died, and many farms and plantations were destroyed. Although Bacon was the one who lost in the end, I do not see either side as a winner. They both killed many people who were fighting for causes different than either Berkeley’s or Bacon’s, and neither got what they truly wanted in the end. If both of these people had died during this insurrection, I would have been quite pleased, as it would have ended much quicker. Those who feel that either side was in the right should really look deeper into their history texts, to see all of the things both sides had done.