The Story of Bacon's Rebellion Part 1

The Story of Bacon's Rebellion.

by Mary Newton Stanard.

PREFACE.

After the thrilling scenes through which the Colony of Virginia pa.s.sed during its earliest days, the most portentous, the most dramatic, the most picturesque event of its seventeenth century history was the insurrection known as "Bacon's Rebellion." All writers upon the history of Virginia refer to it, and a few have treated it at some length, but it is only in quite late years that facts unearthed in the English public records have enabled students to reach a proper understanding of the causes and the results of this famous uprising, and given them accurate and detailed information concerning it. The subject has long been one of popular interest, in spite of the imperfect knowledge touching it, and it is believed that a clear and simple presentation of the information now available will be welcomed by those whose attention has been attracted to a man of most striking personality and to a stirring period of Colonial history.

During the year 1907 thousands of persons from all parts of the world will visit the scenes of Nathaniel Bacon's brief career, will see--while pa.s.sing on James River--the site of his home at "Curles Neck," will visit Richmond, where "Bacon's Quarter" is still a name, will linger in the historic city of Williamsburg, once the "Middle Plantation," will stand within the ancient tower of the church which the rebels burned at Jamestown, and from, possibly, the very spot where Bacon and Sir William Berkeley had their famous quarrel, will see the foundations of the old State House--but lately excavated--before which the antagonists stood.

While the writer of this monograph has made a careful and thorough study of all records of the period, remaining in England or America, and has earnestly endeavored to give an exact and unbiased account, and while she has made no statement not based upon original sources, her story is addressed especially to the general reader. She has therefore not burdened her pages with references to the authorities she has used, a list of which will be found in the appendix.

THE STORY OF BACON'S REBELLION--VIRGINIA, 1676.

I.

SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY.

The year 1676 dawned upon troublous scenes in Virginia. Being a time when men were wont to see in every unusual manifestation of Nature the warning shadow cast ahead by some coming event, the colonists darkly reminded each other how the year past had been marked by three "Prodigies." The first of these was "a large comet every evening for a week or more, at southwest, thirty-five degrees high, streaming like a horse's tail westwards, until it reached (almost) the horizon, and setting towards the northwest." The second consisted of "flights of pigeons, in breadth nigh a quarter of the mid-hemisphere, and of their length was no visible end, whose weight break down the limbs of large trees whereon they rested at nights, of which the fowlers shot abundance and ate 'em," and the third, of "swarms of flies about an inch long, and big as the top of a man's little finger, rising out of spigot holes in the earth, which ate the new sprouted leaves from the tops of the trees, without other harm, and in a month left us."

Looking backward from the practical point of view of our day, and beholding that memorable year under the cold light of fact, it does not seem that any evil omen should have been needed to make clear that a veritable witch's caldron of dangers was brewing in Colonial Virginia, and that some radical change in the administration of the government alone could have prevented it from reaching boiling point.

Sir William Berkeley had served two long terms as Governor, during which his attractive personality and intellectual gifts had brought him wide popularity, and his home, "Green Spring," some four miles from Jamestown, had become famous for its atmosphere of refinement and good cheer, and as a resort for wandering Cavaliers. He was now--grown old in years and sadly changed in character--serving a third term; reigning, one might almost say. Stern and selfish as he had become, bending his will only to the wishes of the young wife of whom he was childishly fond and who was, by many, blamed for the change in him, he makes an unlovely, but withal a pathetic figure in the history of Virginia.

Every inch a gallant soldier, every inch a gentleman, yet haughty, unsympathetic and unlovable; narrow in mind and in heart; clinging desperately to Old World traditions in a new country eager to form traditions of its own; struggling blindly to train the people under him to a habit of unquestioning obedience and submission to the powers that be, however arbitrary and oppressive those powers might become--a habit which, however deep-rooted it might have been in its native soil, could hardly be expected to bear transplanting to a land so wide and free as America, and so far distant from its parent stem.

To Sir William Berkeley his sovereign was literally "his most sacred Majesty." Whatever that sovereign's human frailties might be, the kingly purple covered them all. His slightest whim was holy; to question his motives or the rightness and wisdom of his commands was little short of blasphemy. Furthermore, as the King's agent and representative in Virginia, Governor Berkeley expected like homage toward himself. In short, he was a bigoted royalist and egotist, believing first in the King and second in himself, or rather, perhaps, first in himself, and then in the King, and the confession of faith which he lived up to with unswerving consistency was the aggrandizement of those already great and the keeping in subjection of those already lowly.

Yet, high-spirited old Cavalier though he was, knowing nothing of personal cowardice nor fearing to match his good sword against any in the land, The People, whom his aristocratic soul despised, inspired him with continual dread.

It most naturally follows that to such a mind the unpardonable sin was rebellion. No matter what the provocation to rebellion might be, the crime of presuming to resist the King's government was one that could not be justified, and the chief policy of Sir William's administration was to keep the people where they were as little as possible likely to commit it. Recognizing that ideas might become dangerous weapons in their possession, he took pains lest they should develop them, and thanked G.o.d that there were no public schools or printing-presses in Virginia. He even discouraged the parsons from preaching for fear that the ma.s.ses might gain too much of the poison of knowledge through sermons. He declared that "learning had brought disobedience into the world," and his every act showed that he was determined to give it no chance to bring disobedience to the English government or to himself into Virginia.

II.

THE PEOPLE'S GRIEVANCES.

Around the Governor had gathered a ring of favorites, called by the people "grandees," who formed an inner circle which grew daily richer and more important as those outside of its magic bounds sunk into greater obscurity and wretchedness. The result was, under an outward show of unity, two distinct parties, deeply antagonistic in feeling, the one made up of the Governor and the Governor's friends--small in numbers but powerful in wealth and influence--and the other of the people, strong only in numbers and in hatred of their oppressors. The one party making merry upon the fat of that goodly land, the other feeding upon the husks and smarting under a scourge each several lash of which was an intolerable "grievance."

It would be impossible to gain a faithful picture of the time without a knowledge of the nature of some of these grievances. Most of them were summed up in the melancholy and inharmonious cry of "hard times," which made itself heard throughout the broad land--a cry which in whatsoever country or time it be raised invariably gives rise to discontent with the existing government, and, in extreme cases, brings with it a readiness on the part of the distressed ones to catch at any measure, try any experiment that seems to hold out promise of relief. One cause of the poverty of the people of Virginia in 1676 was to be found in the low price of tobacco--the sole money product of the colony--through a long series of years. For this and the consequent suffering the government was, of course, not responsible. Indeed, it sought to find a remedy by attempting to bring about, for a time, a general cessation of tobacco culture in the colonies. A scheme to better the condition of the people by introducing diversified industries was also started, and with this end in view tanneries were established in each county, and an effort was made to build new towns in several places, but it soon became plain that they could not be maintained. These unhappy attempts became, by increasing the taxes, merely fresh causes of discontent. Yet, while they were blunders, they were well meant, and in accordance with the spirit of the times.

Giving the government all honor due for taking even these misguided steps in behalf of the people, it must be confessed that there were other troubles greatly to its discredit.

The heaviest of these were the long continued a.s.sembly,--while the people clamored, justly, for a new election,--the oppressive taxes, and the Indian troubles.

As early as 1624 the Virginia a.s.sembly had declared that the Governor (for all he was his Majesty's representative) could not levy taxes against the will of the Burgesses, which, since the Burgesses were supposed to represent the people, was as much as to say against the will of the people. Governor Berkeley's Burgesses, however, did not represent the people. The a.s.sembly chosen in 1862, and composed almost entirely of sympathizers with the Governor, was so much to the old man's mind that, saying that "men were more valuable in any calling, in proportion to their experience," he refused to permit a new election, and the consequence was that in the thirteen years before our story opens, during which this a.s.sembly sat under Sir William's influence, he had brought it up to his hand, as it were, and it had ceased to represent anything but its own and the Governor's interests.

With such a legislature to support him, Sir William could bid defiance to the restrictions upon the Governor's power to lay taxes, and the poor "t.i.thable polls" (all males above sixteen years of age) were called upon to pay the expenses of any measures which were deemed proper in carrying on the government; for the unrighteous taxes were imposed always _per capita_--never upon property, though by act pa.s.sed in 1670 only landholders could vote.

It was by this system of poll-tax that the ample salaries of the Burgesses were paid and also that the sundry perquisites attached to the office of a Burgess were provided--such as the maintenance of a manservant and two horses apiece, and fees for clerks to serve committees, and liquors for the committees to drink their own and each other's good health. Doubtless many stately compliments were exchanged when the Burgesses, in an outburst of generosity, were pleased to present the Governor and others of high degree with "great gifts," but the grace and charm of the act were not perceptible to the eyes of the people who, enjoying neither the gifts nor the applause of presenting them, were taxed to pay the piper.

The "poorer sort" complained that they were "in the hardest condition--who having nothing but their labor to maintain themselves, wives and children, pay as deeply to the public as he that hath 20,000 acres." Their complaints were just, but not likely to find a hearing, for the spirit of the age demanded that, in order that the wealthy might keep up the appearance of wealth and maintain the dignity of their position, those who had no wealth to be retained and no dignity to be maintained must keep the wolf from the door as best they might while the fruits of their daily toil were "engrossed" by their so-called representatives. In the mean time, these representatives, their pockets thus swelled, found public life too comfortable to feel any desire to return to agricultural pursuits, or to be content with the uncertain income afforded by the capricious crop.

But this was not the worst.

While Charles II was yet in exile, some of his courtiers who, for all their boasted sympathy in the sorrows of their "dear sovereign," were not unmindful of their own interests, prayed of his Majesty a grant of the Northern Neck of Virginia, and Charles, forgetful of the loyalty of the little colony beyond the seas which had been faithful to him through all of his troubles, and utterly ignoring the right and t.i.tle of those then in possession of the coveted lands, yielded them their wish. After the Restoration this grant was renewed, and in 1672 his Majesty went further still and was pleased to grant away the whole colony, with very few restrictions, to Lords Arlington and Culpeper. Not only were their Lords.h.i.+ps to be enriched by the royal quit-rents and escheats, and to enjoy the sole right of granting lands, but through the privilege likewise given them of appointment of sheriffs, surveyors, and other officers, the power of executing the laws and collecting the taxes, and of dividing the colony into counties and parishes and setting boundary lines was to be practically in their hands.

Thus upon the fair bosom of Virginia, already torn and fretted by a host of distresses, was it purposed that these two "Lords Proprietors" should be let loose--their greed for gain to be held in check only by the limitations of the colony's resources--through a dreary waste of thirty-one years.

The colonists, foreseeing that all manner of dishonesty and corruption in public affairs would be the certain and swift result of such large powers, cast about for a remedy, and at length determined to send a commission to England to raise a voice against the ruinous grant and to bribe the hawks away from their prey. So far so good; but to meet the expenses of the commission the poll-tax was greatly increased, so that while the landholders were to be relieved by having their rights restored, the "poorer sort" were made poorer than ever by being required to pay sixty pounds of tobacco per head for that relief. This unjust tax was a crowning point to all that the people had suffered, and a suppressed groan, like the threatenings of a distant but surely and steadily approaching storm, arose, not in one settlement, not in one county, but from one end of Virginia to another, even to the remotest borders of the colony.

While this black enough tempest was brewing about the path of the Governor and the "grandees," another and a still darker cloud suddenly arose in an unexpected quarter and burst with frightful fury upon the heads of the unhappy people, the chiefest among whose "grievances" now became their daily and hourly terror of the Indians, made worse by the fact that their Governor was deaf to all their cries for protection.

Indeed, the savages, not the colonists, were the protected ones, for the gain from the Indian beaver and otter fur trade, which the Governor and his friends monopolized, was believed to be a stronger argument with Sir William Berkeley for keeping in league with the red men than the ma.s.sacre of the King's subjects was for making war upon them. The helpless people could only shake their heads despairingly and whisper under their breath, "Bullets cannot pierce beaver skins."

In a "Complaint from Heaven, with a Huy and Crye and a Pet.i.tion out of Virginia and Maryland. To Owr great Gratious Kinge and souveraigne Charles ye ii King of Engel'd etc. with his parliament," it is charged that "Old Governr. Barkly, altered by marrying a young Wyff, from his wonted publicq good, to a covetous Fole-age, relished Indians presents with some that hath a like feelinge, so wel, that many Christians Blood is Pokketed up wth other mischievs, in so mutch that his lady tould, that it would bee the overthrow of ye Country."

The most ghastly accounts of the sly and savage incursions of the Indians, and of the way in which they served their victims, such as flaying them alive, knocking out their teeth with clubs and tearing out their finger-nails and toe-nails, flew from lip to lip. The terror-stricken planters upon the frontiers and more exposed places deserted their homes, left the crops upon which they depended for existence to waste and ruin, and huddled together in the more sheltered places, still not knowing "upon whom the storm would light."

Truly was the colony under the "greatest distractions" it had known since the frightful Indian ma.s.sacre of the year 1622.

In such a state of horror and demoralization, and remembering all that those of earlier times had suffered, no wonder the colonists did not question whether the natives had any rights to be considered, and came to scarcely regard them as human beings, or that the sentiment "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" should have prevailed. Indeed, the one chance for the divine law of the survival of the fittest to be carried out in Virginia seemed to be in the prompt and total extermination of the red race.

III.

THE REIGN OF TERROR.

The beginning of serious war with the Indians happened in this wise. One Sunday morning in the summer of 1675, as some of the settlers of Stafford County took their way peacefully to church, with no thought of immediate danger in their minds, they were greeted, as they pa.s.sed the house of one Robert Hen, a herdsman, by the ghastly spectacle of the bloodstained bodies of Hen himself, and an Indian, lying across Hen's doorstep. Though scarred with the gashes of the deadly tomahawk, life was not quite gone out of the body of the white man, and with his last breath he gasped, "Doegs--Doegs," the name of a most hostile tribe of Indians.

At once the alarm was given and the neighborhood was in an uproar.

Experience had taught the Virginians that such a deed as had been committed was but a beginning of horrors and that there was no telling who the next victim might be. Colonel Giles Brent, commander of the horse, and Colonel George Mason, commander of the foot soldiers of Stafford County,--both of them living about six or eight miles from the scene of the tragedy,--with all speed gathered a force of some thirty men and gave chase to the murderers. They followed them for twenty miles up the Potomac River and then across into Maryland (which colony was then at peace with the Indians), firing upon all the red men they saw without taking time to find out whether or not they were of the offending tribe. In Maryland, Colonels Brent and Mason divided the men under them into two parties and continued their chase, taking different directions. Soon each party came upon, and surrounded, an Indian cabin.

Colonel Brent shot the king of the Doegs who was in the cabin found by him, and took his son, a boy eight years old, prisoner. The Indians fired a few shots from within the cabin and were fired upon by the white men without. Finally the Indians rushed from the doors and fled. The noise of the guns aroused the Indians in the cabin--a short distance away--surrounded by Colonel Mason's men, and they fled with Mason's men following and firing upon them, until one of them turning back rushed up to Mason and shaking him by both hands said, "Susquehannocks--friends!"

and turned and fled. Whereupon Colonel Mason ran among his men, crying out,