1. Nathaniel Bradford of Accomack County, Virginia - Lower ...

noteworthy for the presence of another individual with the same surname as Nathaniel. There is no
evidence of any relation, but the tone of brusque familiarity used by Henry when speaking of Nathaniel
(“give him his ear”) suggests the two may have been more than passing acquaintances.
As for Henry himself, he appears in only one other record in Accomack County. On 18 April 1672 the
Justices received a note from Henry Bradford asserting that he had received 2 hogsheads of tobacco from
John Reyny for the use of Thomas Smith by the appointment of Mr. Browne. 226 Henry Bradford probably
did not live in Accomack County, since he appears on none of the tithable lists and since someone who was
in the business of securing cargo for merchants and transporting servants would have shown up more in
court had he been a resident.
It is worth pointing out that a Henry Bradford appears in the 1625 muster of Virginia, taken just after the
King took over direct rule of the colony. In the muster at James City a Henery Bradford, age 35, is listed as
a servant of Capt. William Pierce. 227 He had been transported in the Abigaile along with fellow servant
Thomas Smith, who was age 17 at the time of the muster. Henery of the muster can not be the same Henry
who sold John Reeves to Nathaniel, since the former Henry passed away in 1628. 228
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Bacon’s Rebellion
On 20 February 1677, Nathaniel Bradford was paid 1500 lbs of tobacco by the Virginia Assembly as a
“public charge,” that is, for services rendered to the government. 229 Though the record doesn’t reveal the
nature of Nathaniel’s service, the timing of the payment makes it all but certain that Nathaniel was being
compensated for services rendered to Governor Berkeley in his war against the rebel Nathaniel Bacon,
which had taken place the previous year. On the same date, and on the same page in the records of the
journals of the Virginia House of Burgesses, numerous other men from the eastern shore were paid for
“public charge.” Many men from the eastern shore assisted the Governor during his stay there in flight
from the rebellion on the western shore and in Berkeley’s later invasion and recapture of Jamestown. In
Accomack court during the year following the rebellion dozens of men came forward to claim a certificate
for tobacco or goods due them for “country’s service.” These individuals had assisted in a variety of ways:
John Charles for grinding corn for wounded soldiers; 230 John Stratton for volunteering his vessels for use
by the invasion force and Captain Nathaniel Walker for commanding Stratton’s vessels; 231 John Sturgis for
46 lbs of butter and 42 lbs of cheese; 232 John Cropper for impressing beef; 233 Thomas Evans for guarding
prisoners; 234 Richard Piwell for “getting and killing meat” for the force assembled by Major West; 235
Christopher Thompson for his own and his horse’s service for 14 days; 236 Thomas Barret for 33 days of
military service in West’s force; 237 William Chace for 30 days of military service in a force assembled by
Southy Whittington. 238 These men all came forward to swear to their service in Accomack Court because
they had yet to receive compensation for their efforts from the Assembly, and these records reveal the
nature of their service. Since Nathaniel Bradford was paid by the assembly without a petition, it’s
impossible to say precisely how he assisted the governor’s cause.
To some extent the rebellion’s beginnings lay in the discontent of many Virginians with the colonial
government, but historians differ over how much weight should be assigned to any single root cause of
discontent. Virginia had fallen on tough times economically, and this had much to do with the grievances of
the colonists. Tobacco, Virginia’s staple crop and the economic lifeblood of the colony, had suffered a loss
in price since 1660 and many blamed it on the monopoly on the American commodities trade granted to
English merchants by the Navigation Act of that year. The convergence of high fees levied on America’s
exported goods with the rising cost of imported goods seemed to put a brake on the colony’s economic
expansion. As if that weren’t bad enough, Indian incursions on the western frontier in 1675 and the
inability of the colonial government to prevent the Dutch from burning Virginia’s tobacco fleet in 1673 lent
another dimension to the anxiety already felt over the colony’s economic insecurity. Add to these
grievances a level of taxation that was seen as both too high and misapplied as well as a resentment that, as
Bacon wrote, “all the power and sway is got into the hands of the rich,” 239 and it may be readily imagined
how by 1675 Virginia was filled with discontent, which in the following year exploded into a full-scale
rebellion against Government authority.
The spark which eventually ignited the Virginians’ smoldering discontent was provided in 1675 when a
group of Doeg Indians conducted a raid on Thomas Mathews’ plantation near the Potomac River. The raid
may not have been a simple matter of plunder, but rather might have been intended as punishment over
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