Bacon's Rebellion

Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion
	The Burning of Jamestown by Howard Pyle
Date	1676–1677
Location	Jamestown, Colony of Virginia
Goals	Change in Virginia's Native American-Frontier policy
Methods	Demonstrations, vigilantes
Resulted in	Failure of the rebellion; Mass executions of the rebellion's leaders; Berkeley recalled to England;
Parties
Virginia colonists, indentured servants and slaves	Colony of Virginia
Lead figures
	Nathaniel Bacon #; John Ingram William Berkeley #; Herbert Jeffreys; King Charles II
Number
300–500	200
Casualties and losses
Deaths: 25 executed	None
	100–400 Native Americans massacred by rebels

Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion by Virginia settlers that took place from 1676 to 1677. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon against Colonial Governor William Berkeley, after Berkeley refused Bacon's request to drive Native American Indians out of Virginia.^[2] Thousands of Virginians from all classes (including those in indentured servitude) and races rose up in arms against Berkeley, chasing him from Jamestown and ultimately torching the settlement. The rebellion was first suppressed by a few armed merchant ships from London whose captains sided with Berkeley and the loyalists.^[3]

Government forces led by Herbert Jeffreys arrived soon after and spent several years defeating pockets of resistance and reforming the colonial government to be once more under direct Crown control.^[4] While the rebellion did not succeed in the initial goal of driving the Native Americans from Virginia, it did result in Berkeley being recalled to England, where he died shortly thereafter.

Bacon's rebellion was the first rebellion in the North American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part. A somewhat similar uprising in Maryland involving John Coode and Josias Fendall took place in 1689. The alliance between European indentured servants and Africans (a mix of indentured, enslaved, and Free Negroes) disturbed the colonial upper class. They responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races from subsequent united uprisings with the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705.^[5]^[2]^[6]

^ see note on talk page
^ ^a ^b "Bacon's Rebellion". PBS. Africans in America/Part 1. Archived from the original on February 18, 2020. Retrieved January 17, 2023.
^ Webb, Stephen Saunders (1995). 1676: The End of American Independence. Syracuse University Press. pp. 87–93. ISBN 978-0-8156-0361-0.
^ Webb, Stephen Saunders (1995). 1676: The End of American Independence. Syracuse University Press. pp. 10–13. ISBN 978-0-8156-0361-0.
^ Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty!: An American History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), p. 100.
^ "Green Spring Plantation". Historic Jamestowne, National Park Service. Archived from the original on October 15, 2014. Retrieved March 25, 2008.

[1] see note on talk page

[:3-2] "Bacon's Rebellion". PBS. Africans in America/Part 1. Archived from the original on February 18, 2020. Retrieved January 17, 2023.

[Webb1995-3] Webb, Stephen Saunders (1995). 1676: The End of American Independence. Syracuse University Press. pp. 87–93. ISBN 978-0-8156-0361-0.

[4] Webb, Stephen Saunders (1995). 1676: The End of American Independence. Syracuse University Press. pp. 10–13. ISBN 978-0-8156-0361-0.

[Foner-5] Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty!: An American History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), p. 100.

[6] "Green Spring Plantation". Historic Jamestowne, National Park Service. Archived from the original on October 15, 2014. Retrieved March 25, 2008.

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