Rough Draft Number 1 v1.1

In the summer of 1676, a revolution began in the colony of Virginia that changed England’s policies for governing it’s colonies for ever. This revolution was a battle of two individuals using various excuses, such as unfair taxation and Indian policy, to get the people of Virginia behind their ideas of what should be done to make their colony a place of their own personal utopia. The revolution was later called Bacon’s Rebellion, named after Nathaniel Bacon Jr., the renegade leader of the people rebelling against William Berkeley, the corrupt governor of Virginia for 15 years. These two men were very influential in the Virginia colony, and they both were deeply entrenched in their views about how the “encroaching” Indian threat should be handled. Unfortunately they could in no way agree on how it should be handled. Bacon thought that all trade and land agreements with the local tribes should be forgone and the colonists should slaughter the Indians, so as to prevent any further retaliatory attacks from them, while Berkeley wanted to maintain the peace with the Indians and follow the laws that had been set in place for a long time, so as to keep benefiting from the beaver pelt trade that was making him one of the richest people in America at the time. Sadly, Berkeley’s policy came at the cost of not allowing the frontiersmen the ability to adequately defend themselves from the tribes that were in fact hostile, and to add insult to injury (or vice versa as the case may be) he had forts built in less than ideal locations, using extra taxes to pay for them. Thus, this as well as several other issues such as unfair taxation and low profits from the tobacco being grown in the Chesapeake area, turned into a prolonged rebellion, with both sides labeling the other as a traitor to the crown of England. Though it seems a common occurrence for people who read about Bacon’s Rebellion to take Bacon’s side in their historical analysis, I find too many faults in both Bacon as well as Berkeley to feel comfortable saying that either person had the correct ideas of how the situation should have been handled. I believe that both Nathaniel Bacon and William Berkeley were equally responsible for inciting Bacon’s Rebellion.
Bacon had a history of disobeying the laws before he ever even arrived in Virginia. “A contemporary remembered him as being tall and slender, ‘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” (http://www.answers.com/topic/nathaniel-bacon), which paints Bacon as a man who did not want any sort of authority over him, and would do whatever he needed to get what he wanted. To further exemplify this, he had to leave Cambridge University after being caught attempting to defraud an acquaintance there. He was given a chance at a new beginning when his father and brother-in-law sent him to Virginia, giving him £1800 to start up his own plantation. Upon his arrival, William Berkeley helped Bacon buy two estates with which to start up his farm. Later, Berkeley even gave Bacon the honorary seat on the council, saying “Gentlemen of your quality come very rarely into this country, and therefore when they do come are used by me with all respect," (http://www.answers.com/topic/nathaniel-bacon). Berkeley even gave Bacon permission to trade with the Indians, a privilege he allowed only a few people in Virginia. Bacon would later throw this in his face, once he had decided that any dealing with the Indians was a traitorous act.
Berkeley was not an innocent bystander by any accounts, no matter how bad a person Bacon was. He had delayed having a re-election of the council, or of course his own seat as governor, for 16 years. Because of this, he had a strong monopoly of the trade with the Indians, allowing only a select few to also participate in such dealings as the beaver pelt business, which was insanely lucrative during the 1600-mid 1800s (and is indeed still a fairly productive trade). With all of his money and influence as governor, Berkeley put into effect many taxes that took money from people, often with little to no gain for said payees. One example of this was when he ordered the construction of several forts at the heads of various rivers in response to the complaints of the farmers of Indian attacks on their farms. This was in fact a heavy factor in inciting Bacon’s Rebellion, as it was one of the things that caused common farmers to form their own community militias that Bacon took over.