Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
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egan in April, 1676 as a difference between the elite and<br />
sub-elite planters over 'Indian policy', but which in<br />
September became a civil war against the Anglo-American<br />
ruling class. ... The transcendent importance of this record<br />
is that there, in colonial Virginia, one hundred and twentynine<br />
years before William Lloyd Garrison was born, the<br />
armed working class, black and white, fought side by side<br />
for the abolition of slavery."(2)<br />
Aptheker and Allen, as two brother settler<br />
radicals, clearly agree with each other that Bacon's<br />
Rebellion was an important revolutionary event. But in<br />
Allen's account we suddenly find, without explanation,<br />
that a dispute over "Indian policy" between some planters<br />
transformed itself into an armed struggle by united white<br />
and Afrikan workers to end slavery! That is a hard story to<br />
follow. Particularly since Bacon's Rebellion is a cherished<br />
event in Southern white history, and Bacon himself a<br />
notable figure. There is, in fact, an imposing "Memorial<br />
Tablet" of marble and bronze in the Virginia State<br />
Capital, in the House of Delegates, which singles out<br />
Bacon as "A Great Patriot Leader of the Virginia<br />
People".(3) So even Virginia's segregationist white politicians<br />
agreed with Aptheker and Allen about this<br />
"democratic" rebellion. This truly is a unity we should not<br />
forget.<br />
Behind the rhetoric, the real events of Bacon's<br />
Rebellion have the sordid and shabby character we are so<br />
familiar with in Euro-Amerikan politics. It is, however,<br />
highly instructive for us. The story begins in the summer of<br />
1675. The settlers of Virginia Colony were angry and tense,<br />
for the alarms of "King Philip's Rebellion M -the famed<br />
Indian struggle-had spread South from Massachusetts.<br />
Further, the Colony was in an economic depression due to<br />
both low tobacco prices and a severe drought (which had<br />
cut crop yields down by as much as three-quarters).(4)<br />
One of the leading planters on the Colony's frontier<br />
was Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., the newest member of the<br />
Colony's elite. Bacon had emigrated just the year before,<br />
swiftly purchasing two plantations on the James River. He<br />
and his partner, William Byrd (founder of the infamous<br />
Virginia planter family), had also obtained commissions<br />
from Governor Berkeley to engage in the lucrative Indian<br />
fur trade. All this was not difficult for Bacon, for he came<br />
from a wealthy English family-and was cousin to both<br />
Governor Berkeley's wife and to Nathaniel Bacon, Sr. (a<br />
leading planter who was a member of Virginia's Council of<br />
State).<br />
In the Spring of that year, 1675, Governor<br />
Berkeley honored young Bacon by giving him an appointment<br />
to the Council of State. As events were to prove,<br />
Bacon's elite lifestyle and rapid political rise did but throw<br />
more fuel on the fires of his arrogance and unlimited ambition.<br />
Virginia militia returned in August with reinforcements<br />
from the Maryland militia. This new settler army of 1,100<br />
men surrounded the Susquehannock fort. Five Susquehannock<br />
leaders were lured out under pretense of a parley and<br />
then executed.<br />
Late one night all the besieged Susquehannock-men,<br />
women and children-silently emptied out<br />
their town and slipped away. On their way out they corrected<br />
five settler sentries. From then on the Susquehannock<br />
took to guerrilla warfare, traveling in small bands<br />
and ambushing isolated settlers. Nathaniel Bacon, Jr. was<br />
an avid "hawk", whose lust for persecuting Indians grew<br />
even greater when Indian guerrillas killed one of his slave<br />
overseers. To Bacon that was one injury too many.<br />
At that time the Virginia settlers had become<br />
polarized over "Indian policy", with Bacon leading the<br />
pro-war faction against Governor Berkeley. Established<br />
English policy, which Governor Berkeley followed, called<br />
for temporary alliances with Indian nations and temporary<br />
restraints on settler expansionism. This was not due to any<br />
Royal humanitarianism, but was a recognition of overall<br />
strategic realities by the English rulers. The Indian nations<br />
held, if only for a historical moment, the balance of power<br />
in North America between the rival British, French and<br />
Spanish empires. Too much aggression against Indian territories<br />
by English settlers could drive the Indians into allying<br />
with the French. It is also true that temporary peace<br />
with nearby Indians accomplished three additional ends:<br />
The very profitable fur trade was uninterrupted; Indians<br />
could be played off against each other, with some spying<br />
and fighting for the settlers; Indian pledges could be gotten<br />
to return runaway Afrikan slaves (although few were ever<br />
returned). So under the peace treaty of 1646 (after Indian<br />
defeats in the 1644-46 war), nineteen Indian tribes in<br />
Virginia accepted the authority of the British Crown.<br />
These subject Indians had to abide by settler law, and were<br />
either passive or active allies in settler wars with Indians<br />
further West.<br />
By the time Bacon's overseer was corrected by the<br />
no-longer friendly Susquehannock, the political dispute<br />
between Bacon and Governor Berkeley had boiled over into<br />
the public view. Earlier, Bacon and Byrd had secretly<br />
suggested to Governor Berkeley that they be given a<br />
monopoly on the Indian fur trade.(5) Corrupt as the<br />
planters were, this move was so crudely self-serving that it<br />
was doomed to rejection. Berkeley dismissed their greedy<br />
proposal. Then, Bacon was wiped out of the fur trade<br />
altogether. In March, 1676, the Virginia Assembly, reacting<br />
to rumors that some traders were illegally selling guns<br />
to the Indians, permanently suspended all the existing<br />
traders and authorized commissioning a wholesale replacement<br />
by new traders. Bacon was outraged, his pride and<br />
pocketbook stung, his anger and ambition unleashed.<br />
The dispute between Bacon and Governor<br />
In July of 1675 war broke out between the settlers Berkeley was very clear-cut. Both favored war against the<br />
and the Susquehannock Indians. As usual, the war was formerly-allied Susquehannock. Both favored warring on<br />
started by settler harassment of Indians, climaxing in a any Indians opposing settler domination. But Berkeley<br />
militia raid which mistakenly crossed the border into believed in the usefulness of keeping some Indian sub-<br />
Maryland-and mistakenly attacked the Susquehannock, jects-as he said: "I would have preservd those Indians<br />
who were allied to the settlers. The Susquehannock that I knew were hourely at our mercy to have beene our<br />
resisted, and repelled the Virginians' attack. Angry that spies and intelligence to find out the more bloudy Enthe<br />
Indians had dared to resist their bullying intrusion, the I 3 nimies. " Bacon disagreed, scorning all this as too meek,