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BACON'S REBELLION, 1676
By
Thomas J. Wertenbaker
Edwards Professor of American History, Emeritus
Princeton University
Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation
Williamsburg, Virginia
1957
COPYRIGHT©, 1957 BY
VIRGINIA 350TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
CORPORATION, WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Second Printing, 1959
Third Printing, 1964
Jamestown 350th Anniversary
Historical Booklet, Number 8
From Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson, Torchbearer of the Revolution
Map of Virginia at the time of Bacon's Rebellion
BACON'S REBELLION, 1676
The months just preceding the year 1676 were marked in Virginia byominous signs of disaster. A great comet streamed through the sky"like a horsetail," and it was well known that that meant pestilenceor war. Then came tens of thousands of pigeons, stretching across thesky as far as the eye could see. They were followed by vast swarms ofwhat seem to have been cicadas, which rose out of the ground, ate thefresh leaves of the trees, and then disappeared. So those who believedin omens were not surprised when the year was marked by the greatestcatastrophe in the history of the colony.
But to understand what happened it is necessary to go back thirty-fiveyears to the appointment by Charles I of Sir William Berkeley asGovernor of Virginia. No doubt the King considered this an especialact of grace to the colony, for Berkeley was a member of the PrivyChamber, and as such lived in the royal palace. It was this, perhaps,which fired him with an intense loyalty for the House of Stuart whichendured to the day of his death. To dispute the omnipotence of theking was in his eyes the darkest of crimes. A Master of Arts atOxford, a writer of some merit, polished in manner, he seemed out ofplace in the forests of Virginia. Perhaps it was his passion to rulewhich brought him to the colony, perhaps it was cupidity, for heaccumulated there a fortune of considerable size.
He had been in Virginia but a few months when word reached him of theoutbreak of the Civil War in England. He must have been horrified thatanyone should dare to take up arms against the sacred person of theKing, and he sought permission to return to England to defend him. So,in the summer of 1644, when Charles was bearing down